Stories from the Roof Podcast with Lefty Holencik - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

RoofersCoffeeShop® presents, Stories from the Roof, a podcast that is dedicated to celebrating the roofing industry and the great people that work in it.

Editor's note: Following is the transcipt of the Stories From The Roof podcast featuring RCS Influencer Lefty Holencik. You can listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Vickie Sharples:  Welcome to the latest edition of the Roofers Coffee Shop Podcast. I'm Vickie Sharples, founder of the Roofers Coffee Shop, and today we hear from Mark Holencik known to everyone is Lefty, the owner of Holencik Exteriors in Coplay, Pennsylvania. We interviewed Lefty at the International Roofing Expo in New Orleans, so don't mind the background noise. So who taught you to roof?

Mark Holencik: I was working for a siding company and they ran out of work and they started to do some roofs and I learned the basics on that. I got laid off from that job and I decided not to work for anybody else. And so I just started my own company and I started doing a lot of roofs. So I learned the basics of roofing by reading the wrappers and by watching how I tore the roofs off. The other thing that was very helpful is the people I hired were experienced roofers and I watched what they did and I picked up little things they did and that's basically how I learned how to roof.

Vickie Sharples: Can you learn by tearing off a roof?

Mark Holencik:  What doesn't work. You find out the way things are flashed, that doesn't work, that takes water in, and the way it's nailed. When you go off and there are shingles missing and just see how it's nailed. Flashing's the main thing.

Vickie Sharples:  What is the best thing you ever did for your business?

Mark Holencik:  The best thing I ever did for my business was I hired my two sons. And that's always a question, was it the worst or best thing I did? Working with family's tough. I led a real crazy life until I was 35 and neither of my sons wanted to be near me. And so when I was 42, my youngest son graduated high school and I knew he wouldn't come to work for me just because I was his dad. So I gave him an outrageous amount of money that was more than any of his friends were making. So he came to work for me for the money. But that's what I needed, I wanted him to work for me and I could teach them a trade. Then my oldest son, he was in college trying to get an education so he could get a job away from me. And when he was ready to graduate, I went to college and recruited him just like any other company would recruit them.

And I laid out what I wanted, expected, from him and what I was going to give him. And the next four weeks in my life were the scariest because he says, "I've got to think about it." And about four weeks later, he called me and he says, "Yeah, I'll come to work with you and Adam." And that's almost 20 years ago. So we've developed quite a company with the three of them.

Vickie Sharples:  Sounds like you rekindled your family.

Mark Holencik: Yes.

Vickie Sharples:  How has working with your family benefited your company and your life?

Mark Holencik:  Shit, we're all together. We're all together, and my youngest son was dyslexic, so it was hard for him to learn and school didn't teach him anything that was going to give them a skill. And I knew because of the dyslexia and the hard time in school that, if he worked for me, I could give him a trade. And that was something, I said to him, "You learned a trade and if you don't want to work for me after that you can move anywhere in the country and you'll be able to walk into any roofing company and you'll have a job."

Vickie Sharples:  Do you belong to any associations related to roofing?

Mark Holencik:  Member of the National Roofing Contractors Association, member of LeTip, and also a mentoring organization for roofers, Roofers Success International.

Vickie Sharples:  Why do you belong to those? What do they do for you?

Mark Holencik:  Most of it is like minded people. It's so important to be associated with like minded people who are looking to improve. Not people who are just looking as money.

Vickie Sharples:  In one word, describe the most important thing in an employee.

Mark Holencik: Conscientious.

Vickie Sharples: Why is that important?

Mark Holencik: Because if you have no respect for what you do, you're definitely not going to respect the company or any kind of values that can get you along in life.

Vickie Sharples:  The best boss you've ever had, tell me about him.

Mark Holencik:  That was my dad. I worked for him probably from when I was 10 till 19. And one thing he always said was, "Never get a job for the money. Get a job for what you like. The money will follow." And that has definitely proved true in the roofing industry because I love roofing and I never really made anything other than a paycheck for the first 35 years I had a roofing company. And it's only in the past couple of years where I started to make more money that there has been any excess money.

Vickie Sharples:  What happened in those years that made things turn around for you?

Mark Holencik:  Well, the process started with hiring my sons. And another key thing that happened was my sister lost her job from downsizing and she didn't want to go back into the business world, into the corporate world. And she looked at my business, and she needed a roof on her house, and her husband is a perfectionist times 100. And we put their roof on and he said to Ruth, "I can't find anything wrong with that roof." And it was at that point that my sister made the decision where she was going to work and she came to work for me.

Vickie Sharples:  What makes you smile when you think about your job?

Mark Holencik:  The biggest thing is my kids are working with me. And the other thing is my employees smile. None of them, when they get back to the shop, do they just grab their shit and run home they linger around the shop a little bit, and that means they like their job.

Vickie Sharples:  What do you like about the RoofersCoffeeShop?

Mark Holencik:  Well, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the RoofersCoffeeShop. I've made a lot of friends, a lot of friends, and I've learned a lot on the RoofersCoffeeShop. I believe mentorship in any situation is good. And in the roofing industry, in your local community, to find another roofing contractor that's going to get you to the next level is kind of hard. A lot of them are small and they just want to have a job until they retire it and move on. Going into RoofersCoffeeShop on the forum, we put so many things out there, installation techniques, business techniques, and just learning from that. So get involved with the RoofersCoffeeShop. It'll change your life.

Vickie Sharples:  Thank you so much, Lefty.

Tune in next time for another edition of Stories From The Roof Podcast.

Listen to the podcast.