Industrial Roofing and Construction - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Industrial Roofing and Construction's owner, Larry Courson. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay. Hello everyone, my name's Megan Ellsworth, here at rooferscoffeeshop.com. And I'm back again for Roofer of the Month interview, I'm here with Larry Courson. Hi, Larry. How you doing?

Larry Courson: Hi, I'm doing great.

Megan Ellsworth: Glad to have you here. Congrats on being Roofer of the Month, we're super happy to celebrate you.

Larry Courson: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure being here with you today, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. Let's just dive right in and have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company.

Larry Courson: Okay. Well, obviously my name is Larry Courson, I'm the owner of Industrial Roofing and Construction. I've been in the roofing business practically my entire adult life. And in 2008 I changed and left a company that I had been the senior vice president for for a number of years and we opened Industrial Roofing on our own. And here we are, some 15 years later, with a lot of great things that have happened, a lot of great things that we've done, a lot of great things we've enjoyed. And we've just had a tremendous amount of growth, we've been very blessed with the work force that we have. A lot of our guys have been here since the inception and we try to keep people here, we try not to have a lot of turnover, because we believe in our employees. And one of the reasons we're able to do what we do is because of our employees, and we try to make sure that they're very well taken care of.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. That's amazing. So important. What types of services do you provide? What would you say is your specialty?

Larry Courson: Well, obviously we're an industrial roofing company. We do a lot of work in industrial facilities, for example, pulp and paper industry is one of our big customers, the intergy section, the oil and gas section, being in Louisiana. There's some big things that we do. So, we're primarily more an industrial company than we would be commercial, even though we do commercial roofing. But one of the specialties I think that we have that maybe sets us apart a little bit is we do a lot of deck removal, replacement, structural steel repair, remediation, not just a roof deck but the roof steel, and siding, and wall girts, and things of that nature. That's just the whole building envelope, I guess would be the way to say that. And we do quite a bit of that.

And probably the majority of our work is total deck replacement jobs, we do a lot of that. From concrete channels, layouts, to stainless steel decking, to galvanized decking. So, we see a lot more of the construction side than really where we're just a roofer. You do all those [inaudible 00:02:55] the roof on, we like to do it all.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah. You're a full service.

Larry Courson: Full service, yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: One-stop shop.

Larry Courson: Yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: Love it. What is something special that you all celebrate in the company? It could be employees birthdays, it could be a certain holiday. What do y'all celebrate?

Larry Courson: First of all, we just celebrate life and the blessings that we have bestowed upon us. And we spend a great deal of time, one of our women here in the office handles all of our celebrations and she makes a big deal out of all of our employees birthdays, and their families birthdays, and their children's birthdays. And we have get-togethers where we have cookouts and things of that nature, and Christmas parties. She does a fantastic job of celebrating everybody. And we try to celebrate all of our people and their families, we want to know if their children are playing baseball, or football, or soccer, or tennis, we like to send pictures and we like to really encourage that in all of our employees. I think we celebrate everything going on in their lives, I think what we try to celebrate is just life itself.

Megan Ellsworth: Ah, I love that. Because people spend so much of their lives at work.

Larry Courson: That's exactly right.

Megan Ellsworth: And so it's nice to make it a nice place to be and a second family. So, I love that you guys do that.

Larry Courson: Yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great.

Larry Courson: And you're right, you do spend a lot of time at work. A lot of times you spend more time at work than you get to with your family, so we try to tell ourselves that we're just everyone's extended family. And when we hire someone we like to tell them, this is the last job you're ever going to get, you'll stay here till you retire. And that's our mentality, we want people to come and stay.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Larry Courson: Well, thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great. So, how would you define superior customer service?

Larry Courson: Superior customer service to us is being the best we can be to each and every individual client that we have. And we strive to make sure that everywhere we go, if you give us an opportunity to do a roofing job for you, our goal is that you say, "Those are the only guys we need to call anymore, because they've taken care of us, they've come in and did the things that they said." We have several mottos around here, and one of those mottos that we have is to "Say what you mean, mean what you say, then go make it happen."

And if we do that to our customers, and honestly customer service today is something that you don't see a lot of, but one of the things we tell all of our people is we are a service contractor, anybody can call anybody. What's going to set us apart for people to call Industrial Roofing is our service has to be better than everybody else's, and again, we say what we mean, mean what we say, and then we go perform it and make it happen. And that's what we look at all the time. It's what we strive to do.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. Well said. That is so true. And what every building owner, home-owner, wants in a company that they're hiring to work on something that's special to them, a building that's special to them, so. Yeah.

Larry Courson: You're exactly right. So, that's the way we try to approach each and every job. When we get through we want you to recommend us to somebody else or we certainly want you calling us for your next job.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. So this next question rolls right into that, why should building owners work with your company?

Larry Courson: That's easy for me, and maybe I'm a little biased, because we're the best there is.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Larry Courson: I think the reason building owners, our customers, should want to work with us is because of our philosophies, because again, like I said, we tell you what we're going to do, then we do those things and we back them up. If, for some reason, there were to be a problem or an issue, all you got to do is pick up the phone and we're going to be there to take care of it, we're going to back up our word, going to back up and stand behind the things that we say. So, I think the reason that they should always call Industrial Roofing is they know, number one, they're going to get a fair price, a competitive fair price, number two, they're going to get a quality job, number three, they're going to have qualified people on the job that's going to be there making sure things are done right.

Like I mentioned, a lot of my supervisors have been working with me for 20 plus years. And, I mean, I got a lot of guys that's got a lot of experience. And we've got a lot of new guys that we've trained to give them this experience. So, I think that's the thing, you're getting a lot of experience, you're getting a quality job, at a great price.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, I have two questions left, and they're a little more fluffy.

Larry Courson: Okay, and what does that mean?

Megan Ellsworth: They're more fun, I guess.

Larry Courson: Okay.

Megan Ellsworth: Why are you an Art Club member? What are some of your favorite things about being in the Art Club?

Larry Courson: Well, I had a supplier tell me about the Art Club, and he said, "Larry, you might want to look into that." So I did, I checked into it. And the things that I've seen about it, and that I like about it, there's a lot of information there, it's very informative. There's a lot of great articles, a lot of other companies put things out there that keeps you growing and helping you to grow in this industry, because obviously as we all know, the roofing industry is changing continually with different products, with different applications, and different things. And you can go on and maybe find some stuff for a particular project that you're looking at that somebody else has already had some issues or some problems with, and some pitfalls maybe to avoid. So, I think that's the big thing that we see about it, is that it's just a great forum for people in the roofing industry to share a lot of information with one another. And that's very helpful.

Megan Ellsworth: So glad to hear that, that's great. We're glad to be of service and provide information and resources to all of you great contractors. So lastly, what would your walk out song be if you were walking out onto a field for a football game, or walking up to receive an award?

Larry Courson: Wow, that's a great question. That's a great question. Because I'm an old guy, I come from the greatest decade of music that you could get, which was the '70s. I grew up on that, so.

Megan Ellsworth: Ah. Preach it.

Larry Courson: Yeah. So, there's so many songs that could come to mind, but if I had to pick one it would have to be Take It to the Limit by The Eagles. You know?

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Larry Courson: I just think that's what it would have to be. And I would just say, that's what it would be.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that.

Larry Courson: Yeah, you know?

Megan Ellsworth: It's a great song.

Larry Courson: But like I said, there's so many great songs that roll through your head when you get that question asked. You say, "Wow. I never had really thought about that."

Megan Ellsworth: Well, now you know what you can tell people if you ever need to play a walk out song.

Larry Courson: Yeah. My wife would probably tell you something different, she would probably say, "Nah, it's Alabama, I'm in a hurry to get things done. Because he's always running, he's never still, he's moving." And she would probably tell you that. But I think it would probably be The Eagles, I'd have to say Take It to the Limit for myself, yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: Love it. Love it. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Larry. We're so happy to give you and Industrial Roofing the Roofer of the Month for July, and I hope to see you at the coffee break.

Larry Courson: Well, I do, and I certainly have enjoyed talking with you. And it's been a pleasure.

Megan Ellsworth: No, absolutely.

Larry Courson: But it's been a pleasure, and we certainly appreciate the recognition of all of this. And we look forward to more great things in the future.