Kalkreuth Roofing - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with David Hessey of Kalkreuth Roofing and Sheet Metal Inc. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Alice Reynolds:
Hello everyone. My name is Alice Reynolds. Back again from Roofer's Coffee Shop here with a roofer of the month interview. Thank you so much for listening. We are so excited to be celebrating our September Roofer of the Month, Kalkreuth Roofing and Sheet Metal Inc. Thank you so much for being here for this interview, David.

David Hessey:
Thank you for having us.

Alice Reynolds:
Yeah. So can you please introduce yourself and tell us about your company?

David Hessey:
Sure, be happy to. My name is David Hessey. As you said, I've been in the roofing industry 30 years and have had the good fortune of spending my entire career with Kalkreuth Roofing. Kalkreuth Roofing has been around for 40 years. Our roofs go back a hundred years as John Kalkreuth is a third generation. His grandfather started in the roofing business in the 1920's and then Jim Hurley and John Kalkreuth started Kalkreuth Roofing about 40 years ago in 1982. And from there we've grown from a single shop in Wheeling, West Virginia to five roofing locations, plus a standalone fabrication division.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. Yeah, it sounds like there's lots of history there.

David Hessey:
Yeah, the history's amazing.

Alice Reynolds:
So what type of services does your company provide and what is the specialty that you kind of focus on?

David Hessey:
Great question. We don't do many simple projects. So I think our specialty would be large multi-scope projects with demanding clients. But as far as services, we've had to adapt to the different markets that we serve. We certainly do all types of commercial and residential roofing. We have a dedicated service team at each of our locations. We also get into wall panels, exterior cladding, kind of a building envelope solutions type contractor for large new construction projects. So a little bit of everything really.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. Yeah. It sounds like it's all kind of tailored to each specific project.

David Hessey:
For sure, yeah. We take each customer and try to figure out what they need and then take care of them the best we can.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. Can you share something special that your company celebrates?

David Hessey:
Sure. I think it's probably a common answer that you get here, but Kalkreuth likes to celebrate our story, which is a good one, and our people. It's really the people that make Kalkreuth a great company, our office and field staff, not just great employees, but great people to work with, great people to be associated with. We, not too long ago, started a more awards program where we are able to celebrate our people that have shown more, have gone above and beyond whether it's leadership or mentorship, determination, teamwork, community involvement. We try to celebrate those folks with a more award at the end of the year.

David Hessey:
And I know something near and dear to your heart. We're really proud of the National Women in Roofing chapter that was started Wheeling. And I think that just a handful of years ago was two people and now it's 20 and they've done an amazing job getting involved with the industry and community, a lot of nonprofit work and raising a lot of money and goods and donations for the different communities we serve in our five locations.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. That's great. I love hearing about that and... Yeah, that's a fun little thing to celebrate, although not very little, everyone in your company and it sounds like a big company.

David Hessey:
We tend to make things complicated and juggle a lot, but we have a lot of fun along the way.

Alice Reynolds:
Awesome. So how do you define superior customer service?

David Hessey:
Tough question. It can mean so many different things, but I think for us superior customer service means meeting the customer where they are and being able to solve their problems. We put customer service in our mission and we believe really strongly in providing the skills and product knowledge and expertise to our people so that they can exceed customer expectations. So I think that's as simple as I can put it defining customer service and what we try to do.

Alice Reynolds:
Leaving each project with a happy customer, happy face.

David Hessey:
That's always the goal. Roofing is never as easy as it sounds and there's a lot of challenges that go with it. No project goes perfectly, but we try to make sure that the customer is satisfied at the end.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. And so why should homeowners and building owners work with Kalkreuth Roofing?

David Hessey:
Well, I think it's a little bit of everything we've covered. We like to believe that we've got people that have the experience and expertise and professionalism to solve any type of roof problem. We've tried to tailor our organization and our divisions to have the needed manpower and needed problem solving skills to whether it's engineering, design, service work, or standard commercial or residential roofing work to be able to tackle any problem that comes along.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. Well, that was a great interview. Thank you so much for joining us for the interview and thanks for being a Roofers Coffee Shop Our Club member, David.

David Hessey:
Alice, it was our pleasure. Thank you for inviting us to have a little bit of an opportunity to talk about Kalkreuth and talk with you. Thank you so much today.

Alice Reynolds:
Thank you. All right. I always...