Jacob Aguirre - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jacob Aguirre from Beldon Roofing. You can read the interview below,  listen to the podcast. 

Megan Ellsworth: Welcome to Stories from The Roof, from rooferscoffeeshop.com, where we tell the stories of roofing professionals from around the globe. Hello, my name is Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com, and I'm so excited because we are back with Stories From The Roof. And today I'm talking with Jacob Aguirre from Beldon Roofing. Hi, Jacob.

Jacob Aguirre: Hi, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: It's so nice to meet you. I'm excited to hear more about your story. So why don't we start out with you just introducing yourself? Name, company, what do you do at Beldon, all that good stuff.

Jacob Aguirre: So again, my name is Jacob Aguirre. I work for Beldon Roofing Company out of San Antonio, Texas. My position with the company is I'm the Director of Operations for the production site, so I oversee all the commercial projects for single fly built up coding to EPDM, any roofing aspect that you see. I started in the field delivering material. So I got into the company by delivering shingles and commercial products, and as I saw more of how the industry worked, I started to learn the roofing processes and work my way through the company, and worked through project management to the senior project management, and a few years ago took the director position.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's really great. So have you have those eight years with Beldon, did you have any prior roofing experience?

Jacob Aguirre: No. So when I was younger, when I got out of school I went into the military, and after the military I kind of looked for my home. So I went to the oilfield and I did some other audit in jobs. And I was somewhat involved in construction and I'd never dealt with the roofing company before. So when I got involved with the roofing company in early 2015, that was my first side of it, and it seemed inevitable that as you got involved with this company, I didn't see myself going in any other direction.

Megan Ellsworth: That's cool. That's really cool. So who would you say has taught you the most about roofing?

Jacob Aguirre: My peers and the project managers that I've worked with, we all self-educate and we take that self-education and we teach each other. So I would say as I learned, and then as well the field employees, the 30 plus years, the 35 plus year employees that I've worked with over the eight years that I've been here, they're the ones who really drilled it down and showed you these are the how-tos. Maybe at that point it wasn't the right way, we redirected and we showed, hey, this is a new way of doing it. So coming to that level of those with those employees that are so long term, and so set in their ways, I mean, we taught each other at that point.

Megan Ellsworth: That's cool. Yeah, I love that, camaraderie. And I feel like that's how I learn best too, is just by peers rather than someone like if a power figure. So it's cool that you mentioned that. What are some of the most valuable lessons you've learned about roofing?

Jacob Aguirre: What I've learned and what I feel sticks out the most, and everyone says do it right the first time, do it right the first time, which I agree, do it right the first time. But in roofing, there's so many steps to where you conceal the first time, you conceal things that aren't seen in the final product. So I think one of our most valuable lessons that everything's discoverable at an essence of everything that you do layer by layer, everything is discoverable in what we do.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so true. I love that. So if you were to go back to the start of the beginning of your career, what would you do differently, if anything?

Jacob Aguirre: So in the beginning of my career, I leaned a lot on people, on learning. As I've moved forward and I've grown a lot I turned to self-educate, and all my leaders in our staff level, they preach self-education. So I think if I would've taken the self-education more in the early onset of my career, I probably would've been a step further too than some of the others.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, cool. Yeah, I feel like that's a good lesson for people that are starting their career now too, is to really just take that initiative. So what's the best thing you've ever done for your career?

Jacob Aguirre: Well, for our business and for my career, I've always had the mindset I never say no. What we bring to the table is everything about us, and when I got involved, they said, "Hey, let's travel. Let's go out of state. Let's go do this job." I was the type of person, and still am, but hey, let's go do it. Just say yes, and no matter what obstacles or logistics of things, we don't ever say no. If you say no, you turn your customer down, you let somebody down. So being in this position, in this project and this company, I don't see an option to say no. Our leaders set the bar very high. And to achieve that, we just have to be positive and we just have to say, "Yes, let's go do it," and we find a way to get it done.

Megan Ellsworth: It says so much that your leadership team offered that as well. They believed in you so much, and I love that you just didn't say no and you weren't afraid to say, "Heck yeah, let's do it."

With the Read-Listen-Watch initiative, Roofers Coffee Shop has made it easier than ever for members of the roofing and construction industries to learn how they want, when they want. Whether you want to read a transcript, listen to a podcast or watch a webinar, the coffee shop has made it possible for you to learn your way. Visit our expansive catalog of content, choose your topic, and dive into whatever format you prefer, reading, listening, or watching. Everything you need to get started is at rooferscoffeeshop.com.

What is the most important trait in an employee or a coworker?

Jacob Aguirre: So one of the most important traits that I see, and when I look for, when we're looking to hire, or we're looking for that next person on our management team, it's trust. We deal with a lot of, "Hey, I need to trust that you're overseeing or you're doing things the right way." Like I said, it's discoverable. So if you can't trust the person that's working for you, or you're working alongside, or even a customer to contractor, there has to be that trust level. I mean, taking that every day and the people that you work with, trust is just really digs deep.

Megan Ellsworth: Especially when you're on the roof working in maybe precarious positions, or dangerous environments. So that's so true.

Jacob Aguirre: And we feel it a lot from our field employees that they got to trust each other. At the end of the day, I mean, there's other people watching each other's backs and getting the stuff done, and bringing us the information we need, so we have to trust them.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, well said. So who's the best boss you've ever had, and what did they teach you?

Jacob Aguirre: So the best boss that I've ever had is Danny Mendez. He's the president for Beldon Roofing. When I started, he was overseeing production, as doing what I'm doing now. He taught me that there's always a way. We're giving these tasks, we're giving these unbelievable projects that the logistics of it is just out of the ordinary, and we have to go up on this roof to get to this roof, to the sense it comes overwhelming. And to look at a project and just know that there is a way to do this but we all need to take a step back, evaluate it together, and figure out the way, in the right way, in the profitable way, because if we're not profitable into the project, what was the reason behind it.

Megan Ellsworth: Cool. I think that's my favorite question out of all of them, because I think the impact that a boss can have is so huge, and I love almost every time, your face lit up a little bit when the question was asked and you had to think about like, "Oh, who is it?" And everyone's face is always light up when they think about that person that's really impacted them. What makes you smile most when you think about your job?

Jacob Aguirre: Our end product. So it takes so much to get to that end product, and I've been involved in the commercial and the residential side. Two totally different customers, in two totally different reactions. Our commercial customers, they don't typically want to go up there and say, "Hey, and look at the roof, and oh my gosh, it's great." What we do, a lot of times, even though we can glorify it with drone images and all these photos and reports, we love to look at what we do. Our commercial customers love their tenants, or their employees, they don't have to deal with the leaks. Our residential customers, they love to look at their new roof that matches up to their house and, "Hey, we built our home on this." It's a next step of completing their home to get it to the final look that they wanted.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Jacob Aguirre: It's what we provide.

Megan Ellsworth: Do you have any tips for new people starting out in roofing?

Jacob Aguirre: Definitely patience. Sitting back and taking the time to look at the overall. Not to rush into things, not to dive in and overlook the small issues. Because the small details, the small manufacturer items, or what can delay a project, or what can cause something to not be executed as timely as we'd like. So just taking the time and being patient and learning. I mean, we learn every day. I learn every single day. We all make mistakes and we learn from our mistakes. At the company we have a meeting, company-wide meeting between our sales and our production team, and we talk about each and every project every week, and we bring up every single issue. So we learn from somebody else's mistake on that one project that may lead on to another project so we don't make the same mistakes. So I think taking the time and the patience and going through those small items day by day or week by week, definitely, definitely would be the tip that I could give.

Megan Ellsworth: So last question. How long have you been following Roofer's Coffee Shop, and what is your favorite thing about RCS?

Jacob Aguirre: So I'm fairly new to Roofer's Coffee Shop, but I do like that they're an informative site for the industry. Everything from employment, to talking to people like me, and talking to people that have been on the roof years and years their entire life, that wasn't what I went through, but it's great to hear those stories. I mean, just opening up the avenue again, what we do a lot of times is unseen. It's just, "Hey, we're happy that the roof is done," but having these types of sites definitely opens the horizon for the industry.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay, I'm so glad. Yes. Well, we are really excited about sharing stories like yours, so that people can feel like they can share their story as well. Thank you so much, Jacob, for chatting with me today.

Jacob Aguirre: Great.

Megan Ellsworth: And thank you to Beldon. You guys are doing great things, and I hope that you change lives with roofs today.

Jacob Aguirre: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome. This has been Stories from the Roof, and we will catch you next time.

Thanks for listening to Stories from The Roof, from rooferscoffeeshop.com. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review.