Keep Craft Alive Profile: Brent Dudgeon

By CertainTeed.

Three keys to success: Work hard, work smart, and work now.

Name: Brent Dudgeon, President North Central Insulation Inc.

Field: Insulation

How I Got Started:

I started in high school helping my brother with insulation work. It was a part-time job, working on the weekends. I was an average student in high school but I had a good work ethic. After high school, I had the opportunity to work with my brother and we built the business up from there.

Favorite Part of the Job:

What I enjoyed most was meeting the public. I like connecting one-on-one with the consumer. I like knowing that the customer is satisfied.

Advice for Those Entering the Field:

You have to know when to take a job and when to turn one down, too. You learn that the hard way. Some jobs are better off for your competition. If a building isn't designed properly or they cut corners in cost so the building won't perform properly, you will get yourself in trouble. You have to know how to recognize those types of jobs. And that is a process that gets a lot of businesses in trouble.

And it's important to share success. Share with those who dedicate themselves to working with you. I never like to say that somebody works for me. I'm never comfortable with that. I always saw it that they were working with me, not for me. And that's the way I operate my business. You can't run a business and build up a kingdom for yourself while the serfs are out working in the fields. You want to share the success and still reap the rewards.

The College Question:

We have a lot of people from high school that are working for us. And you can earn six-figure salaries without college. Not that college education is bad -- it's required for a lot of jobs. But you can be successful without it.

I feel sorry for some of the kids who go to college. We have several college graduates working in our business and there isn't one of them doing anything related to their college education, the education that they went into debt for. They could have come right out of high school and worked for us and saved $100,000 or $150,000. It's just a lot of psychology degrees out there.

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Editor’s note: This first published on CertainTeed’s website and can be viewed here.