Rich Thompson - Forty Years of Roofing Leadership - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Rich Thompson of ABC Supply.You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. This is Heidi Ellsworth, and I am honored today to be here with Rich Thompson, the director of marketing and national business development at ABC Supply. Good morning, Rich. Welcome to the show.

Rich Thompson:
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Ah, thank you. I have been so excited for this podcast for many reasons. As our listeners will hear, it's really about the topic. We're continuing our conversation about Homes For Our Troops, which we were all just blown away with that discussion a couple weeks ago with our Coffee Conversations. But Rich, I'm really excited just to have you on the show and for you and I to finally have a little one-on-one conversation time. Thank you again for being here. And can you tell us a little bit about yourself and ABC? I know everybody knows ABC, but maybe just a little bit overall of an introduction.

Rich Thompson:
Sure. And thank you for having me on this, is so exciting for me. Long overdue to say the least. But yeah, we are big fans of you guys and your team over there and what you do for the industry. You share a lot of similar passions that we have for associates and for customers and just for the industry in general. So one of the first, thank you guys, you do such a great job of representing the industry in such a great way.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. Thank you Rich. Wow. That's a great way to start the conversation.

Rich Thompson:
Well, I figured a little bit of flattery at the beginning's always the best, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
I like it.

Rich Thompson:
As you said, I'm Rich Thompson, and I'm the director of marketing and national business development for ABC Supply. I've been with ABC for 15 years. In the industry for 22 years now. Geez, time flies.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I know.

Rich Thompson:
So, I worked for a manufacturer before ABC Supply. And originally from the Southeast. And now I'm here in the Midwest working out of our national support center in Boyd, Wisconsin. And if you had told me 22 years ago that I'd be in the roofing industry and living in the Midwest, I would've probably called you crazy, and especially my wife would agree with that as well. But, it's amazing. I do a little bit of everything with ABC Supply, whatever the customers or associates need. So, I run our marketing advertising department and I have our sales development team, as well as our national accounts team working in the field, just trying to support our branches, supporting our customers in any possible way. So, I got the greatest job in the world. I literally wake up every morning, after I hit snooze once or twice and my feet hit the ground, I'm really excited to get to work. I feel it's the best company in the America to work for. It's just so exciting.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love that. And how many times have we heard from so many people in the roofing industry, like, "We never planned on being here, but there's no place better." It's like...

Rich Thompson:
Yeah, for sure.

Heidi Ellsworth:
... lucky.

Rich Thompson:
After I got out of college, I told my dad, I was really excited about this job interview in this industry. And he says, "Shingles, I don't know what, are you talking about the shingles that people get on their body?" And I explain to him, no, it was building products. And so he was very inquisitive and I couldn't be happier. It's the best industry in the world to work for.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Exactly how I feel. I love it. I wouldn't be anywhere else. And a lot of that has to do with, and over your 22 years, like mine, we've seen the respect for roofing grow and we've all been champions of that. But I think the big reason why it grows is because we've really started talking more about giving back. This industry has always given back, this is nothing new. It's just kind of new that people are talking about it and putting it out there.

Rich Thompson:
Without question. I mean, I remember starting as a 22 year old and I started calling on contractors, and I come from a military family and I've met so many contractors that were veterans of all the armed forces and how prideful they were. And it's a very addictive personality when you are around those types of veterans and that are in the industry. And, that's one of the big reasons why ABC Supply, I mean, we're built on a set of core values. We have seven core values that respect, opportunity, work hard, have fun, entrepreneur spirit, family, give back and American pride. And our founders and our owner, Diane Hendricks, has always been about giving back, especially to those that have had the courage to do quite frankly, what a lot of us haven't had the courage to do. So, when we saw this opportunity with Homes For Our Troops, we jumped all over it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I tell you, Homes For Our Troops is such an amazing organization. And before we really kind of dive into that, I know you have your core values, but I also, I see all the time from ABC Supply in the local branches, at the very top with Diane, of really this value of giving back, and the organizations that you support. Just tell us just a little bit more about that and the giveback from all of your locations too. They do it every single day.

Rich Thompson:
Unbelievably. We have over 840 locations throughout the United States, and we do stuff that nobody ever notices and nor do we want them to because it's the right thing to do. American pride's very near and dear to our heart. There's a reason why all of our trucks are red, white and blue. America is just the greatest country to live in and we're blessed to be born here or work here. And so we've always given back to the communities, if it be local charities like food drives or soup kitchens or clothing drives, or anything around the holidays, our branches are always involved. And we looked at it from a corporate perspective of we do so much, but we could do so much more. And quite frankly, Diane Hendricks and Keith Rozolis, our CEO, challenged us to come up with ways that we can be more involved. And that's the genesis of where we're at today. So it's really exciting to be part of a company that firmly believes in giving back. And I just can't say enough. I could talk to you for hours about this.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I know, I

Rich Thompson:
It's near and dear to my heart.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, we see it. We see it on Roofer's Coffee Shop because one of our things that are very, we're very believe in so much is our Caught Doing Good. And so on our Caught Doing Good, ABC Supply, article after article, after article that we find out there from all of the communities that you're in from all the different things where we're just like, "Hey, look, we caught them doing good again. Here's another home roof for a veteran. Here's another food drive." So yeah. And for all of our listeners out there, honestly, just check it out online. You can see just what the branches are doing, every single folks. But, I want to talk to just a little bit too, about your commitment. We're going to come back to Homes For Our Troops, because you really, ABC Supply continues to make a difference with that. But tell us a little bit about the history of it. How did you get involved with Homes For Our Troops, and how has it grown within ABC Supply?

Rich Thompson:
Sure. Like I mentioned earlier, that challenge that came down to us is how do we give back more? How do we be more meaningful? And we're blessed and we're just blessed to work for the greatest company in America to work for. And so the challenge came out, we started talking with different vendor partners, different customers. What's meaningful to you? And we made a decision about two years ago to be meaningful to a couple organizations. And trust me, there's so many wonderful organizations out there that you can get involved with. And it's hard to say no to any of them because they all have such meaningful causes. But two things that we really gravitated towards was one was Make-A-Wish. We are a Wish Champion with Make-A-Wish organization, and we do a lot with them, both from a corporate donation perspective, but as well as in the field, and that's meaningful.

Rich Thompson:
And with both these charities, Homes For Our Troops, which I'll get to in a second, we sort of announced to our associates that we were going to be involved with these two charities in a very meaningful way, from a corporate perspective, but very little would be asked of them. But we thought, and we knew our people are so strong and we've got the best associates in the world. We knew as soon as we made these types of commitments, that they would be stepping up in the field and raising their hands and asking to be involved. So with Make-A-Wish, we do all kinds of things of not only the corporate donation, but we help deliver materials. We help on volunteer days. We help any type of wish granted we possibly can. For kids that have had a rough go of it, for us to be able to help them out any little way, just means the world. Means the world to them. And it's such a small sacrifice in a lot of cases. So, we got really involved with that and we're proud to be a Wish Champion for Make-A-Wish.

Rich Thompson:
The other was Homes For Our Troops, and that actually came to us through one of our supplier partners who had some involvement with them in the past. And they came to us and said, "Hey, you should really look at these guys. And they're very much a fly below the radar type of organization because they don't have a marketing budget and they spend a lot of money that goes towards the construction of these homes. And what they do is they build custom homes for post nine 11 veterans that have been injured in the line of duty, such as amputees, double amputees, burn victims, blinded victims. These veterans have had to make sacrifices that I don't think are fathomable to most of us. For us to be able to make a corporate donation was amazing and to align with them. And then of course our people, again just stood right up. They raised their hands and they said, "What can we do?" So it's been meaningful. And working with Homes For Our Troops has just been just such an amazing experience.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. From that talking to the Brigadier General, Tom, who was on Coffee Conversations, and how many homes they have done for our young men and women who have come back disabled, but what a change, what a difference it makes in their lives. And that blew me away, just by these homes, by the community involvement with the branches and people being involved and welcoming them to the community, it changes their lives and they give back so much to that community and overall. It's amazing.

Rich Thompson:
To hear the stories and it was so moving that we had to be involved. Obviously following that core value of give back, and we've always recruited a lot of military veterans to come work at ABC. I mean, since 2017, we've hired over 1700 veterans that have transitioned from military life to civilian life. And they always are great associates to have. But, when the Homes For Our Troops talks about what these veterans go through that are amputees or burn victims, of serving our country, it's hard not to be involved.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It is. Wow.

Rich Thompson:
It's just really a cool experience. And I'll tell you stories like individuals that have prosthetics and they're on those prosthetics all day long. I had no idea that most of them, the first thing they want to do when they get home is take the prosthetics off. Because sometimes they can become painful. And so when they build these houses to make them so wheelchair accessible, it changes the lives of those individuals as well as their families. And their families can get back to some level of normalcy after making such an amazing sacrifice.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I was blown away. And the thing is there are so many organizations out there that really need our help and you're doing that. And so maybe share just a few of the other military organizations that you are supporting and involved with.

Rich Thompson:
We're involved with a variety of them from top to bottom. We do military recruiting. We want to help these veterans transition into civilian life. And so we do all kinds of military recruiting just to support those. Being a multimillion dollar multi-year sponsor of Homes For Our Troops has been very meaningful for us. But we work with military.com. We recruit military. Partnership for youth success, we're the thousandth partner in that program, which was a really cool experience to have them come here. And we got to sign the papers with a variety of military dignitaries. And it was quite an honor. And I know this is so near and dear to many of our hearts, but Diane Hendricks, our owner, she screams America. And she really wants us to work with veterans in any possible way that we can.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I love it. I love it. Okay. So speaking of cool things you are doing, you have a very cool partnership with Homes For Our Troops at the Indy 500 this year, right? What's that all about?

Rich Thompson:
Part of the reason I am a true Americana guy. Believe it or not, I'm a huge race fan. I have been involved with racing in my life since I was eight years old, when I went to the Indianapolis 500 for the first time. So working with ABC, getting the opportunity to work on the race team, that we have a good relationship with A. J. Foyt. We sponsored a full sponsor for their car for about 15 years. And so our COO was meeting with some Homes For Our Troops people, and we asked what else we could do to help them out on top of our donation. And their response was really just, "Print more shirts, put it on more trucks. We don't have a marketing budget. Any way you can get the word out about Homes For Our Troops would be great, because we want to really sink as much money into building of the homes and not have administrative expenses. So that'd be great."

Rich Thompson:
And so we were all sitting around the table one day and we started thinking, well, what else could we do? And the light bulb went off in Mike Jost's head. And it was, we have a relationship with A. J. Foyt, and there's nothing more American than the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend. Why won't we just make Homes For Our Troops car? And that one moment of that light bulb going off is the genesis of where we're at today and sponsoring the number 11 car for A. J. Foyt, Homes For Our Troops car with J. R. Hildebrand driving it. And if you haven't seen the car design on. It's the American flag screaming 220 miles per hour down the straight pike.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it.

Rich Thompson:
We're really excited about it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Rich Thompson:
Yeah. So go ahead.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Oh, I was just going to say, that whole thing that you just said of everything. I mean, I remember as a kid reading the books on A. J. Foyt, right? And when you said you were from the Southeast, I'm like, of course you're involved with racing. But then to bring all that back home at the Indy 500 and for Homes For Our Troops, I mean, that is just really, I don't know, kind of gives you a little bit of shivers, it's so cool. So how's it all going to work?

Rich Thompson:
well, actually, it just started with this idea of sponsoring the car, making sure it was Homes For Our Troops. And then as we were sitting there, we decided that, Hey, we can do a lot more. We're a pretty big company and we have a lot of people, and we never ask our people to share or post anything on social media. And we said, well, let's use the power of our people to really support this give back, American pride, core values. And so we decided that, Hey, we can make it additional donations. And we came up with the idea, working with Homes For Our Troops, that from May 21st to May 30th, any donations that Homes For Our Troops gets, we'll match up to a million dollars on top of our standard donation. So-

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Rich Thompson:
Yeah. Money. Unfortunately these charities really need money to make these causes come to life. And this is just one small way. So we're going to go out there and we've put our stake in the ground and said, "Donate money and we'll match." So that's really the start of it to have an American flag car for Homes For Our Troops driving down the Indy 500 speedway, with A. J. Foyt owning the car. There's nothing more that we can do in my mind to honor America and honor our veterans.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Remember.

Rich Thompson:
It's a slice of Americana. I mean, I always remember as a kid on Memorial Day, Sunday, you watch the race. And I mean, you might not watch it all, but you'd always watch some of it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It was always on.

Rich Thompson:
Always on.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Rich Thompson:
It's the greatest spectacle in racing honoring America. It fits right in line with ABC, A. J. Foyt, and Homes For Our Troops.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. And you know what I love too about it Rich, I love kind of seeing you all sit around there, it's out of the box and it's different. And I think it will really capture the heart of the roofing industry overall.

Rich Thompson:
We really hope so. And, in what we're doing, it's for the right reasons, right? We want to set these veterans up for long term success, not short term, but long term. And for the sacrifices that they made, this is such a small little drop in the bucket. So we're really excited about it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. So let's just, and I always have to kind of dive in a little bit to the tactical because I think it's important for everybody out there, all of our listeners to be able to know how can they donate. Where do they go and how do they donate?

Rich Thompson:
Really easy? It's H-F-O-T-U-S-A.org. You can go to that page donate. You can go to the abcsupply.com page. We'll have a link to it. There's a lot of different ways you can donate. Go to our webpage, go to our social media on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram. You'll find out more details. And we really hope that people get there and take a look at this organization because there's a lot that you can do. And money is great, and it's very important, but the volunteer days, or just ribbon cutting ceremonies, it's such a special experience when you've been to one and to see the veterans pull up and see their new home. And welcome them home at cutting the ribbon and having the kids run around. It's such a moving experience and it really drives individuals to be more involved. So go to H-F-O-T-U-S-A.org, and make a donation. We're going to match it up to a million bucks, and watch our car hopefully do really well on Sunday, Memorial Day weekend.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We're going to be watching for car number 11.

Rich Thompson:
Number 11, J. R. Hildebrand, great driver. This guy had some of the worst luck ever as a rookie. He was leading the Indianapolis 500 and wrecked in the last turn and lost the race. Still finished second. He's always done well there, and he's such a good American, such a great guy. And, such a good ambassador for Homes For Our Troops, for ABC, for A. J. Foyt.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We'll be watching, I have to tell you. I also want to let everyone know too, you got the site to go to donate, you can find it through ABC Supply. You can also find it on Roofers Coffee Shop. So on the ABC directory, you can find the links on there. We're going to have it, all of our site, social media. We're going to be pushing this just as hard, so there's a lot of ways to give back.

Rich Thompson:
Absolutely. And it becomes so addictive. You get involved. If it's not this cause, please everybody out there, get involved with a cause. It's just so meaningful. It's so rewarding. But most importantly, it's so impactful to the lives that you're affecting. So, go to H-F-O-T-U-S-A.org, abcsupply.com, rooferscoffeeshop.com. Share the links, get it out there. We're really relying upon our associates and our customers to really share this and get it out there to others. So they can hopefully experience the same thing and the joy that we have in helping.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I'm doing it. I love it. You have some other big things coming up this year, too Rich. So I don't want to totally miss out on that. You're celebrating 40 years. That's a big deal.

Rich Thompson:
It's unbelievable. Ken and Diane had a dream in 1982, to start a national roofing distributor. And, if you think back to 1982, it's very similar to starting a company right now, inflation was high. There was a lot of challenges out there. And Diane said, and she said a line one time that this was a company built on a dream. And it truly was. And we live that dream every day as associates. So to be here 40 years with a passion, from starting with a dream and a passion to help contractors achieve their dreams, I'm very humbled to be a part of such an amazing organization. And so 40 years is a big deal.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. It is a big deal. We are celebrating our 20th this year. And so I'm like, we're half your age. But, I also think about when I started in the roofing industry, that was almost 30 years ago, and I just think ABC Supply. It's always been there. It's just been such a integral part of the roofing industry. But, you look at 40 years and you just say, and the growth, the tremendous growth that you have had across the country has just been amazing.

Rich Thompson:
Yeah. I mean, we're over 17,000 associates at this point, and I know Diane, our leadership, Keith and Mike, are just so incredibly humbled to know that we're an American company with employing 17,000 people. And it's so humbling to think about what we've been able to do to help. And be quite honest, obviously our associates are the glue. They're the ones that are dealing with the customers every day. And we have the best, and we work in the best industry and we have such a strong passion for it. It's just exciting. Like I said, I wake up every morning, my feet can't wait to hit the ground.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. Well, I was just in Denver visiting our daughter and two beautiful ABC Supply trucks go right by all red, white, and blue. They were beautiful. And I was just like, "There we are." And they were heading off to a job. They were fully packed. You can't help but stop and just watch because I'm always excited. There's our roofing industry. But, one of our last things I want to just touch on is, to be around for 40 years means you have to constantly be staying up with the times, helping contractors improve their business and take it to the next step. And wow, have we seen that in the last couple years with My ABC Supply.

Rich Thompson:
It's been such an amazing platform for our customers. It's really created an environment where they can live and to make their lives easier. We always joke that we've always had eCommerce to some degree, because we would take a fax, an email, a text, the smoke signal of an order and we'll make sure we get it to the job site right on time. But just creating this technology and our customers are demanding it, and we want to make sure that we have a platform that works for them. So we built this thing from the ground up in house, and constantly making improvements on it. And the response to it's been amazing. It is another humbling thing. You work on something for so long, and a lot of times you work on it and nobody ever sees what you're doing. And then when you get it out there in the marketplace, it's like a child, and you're hoping it's successful and whatever that decides to do. And it has. It's been huge. My ABC Supply has been a really great addition for our customers and for our associates.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I tell you, you have an amazing team. I actually met with them a number of years ago when EagleView first came on, talking about and watching what you all were doing. And so congratulations. It's highly successful. We hear great things coming from contractors all the time about the technologies that you're bringing them, bringing them to that next step. Pretty amazing.

Rich Thompson:
Yeah. We're excited. And it's got a long runway. This is going to continue to grow. We're going to bolt on additional services and features to this application. And like I said, it's more of an environment than it is an application. It's an environment where our customers... Now, if our customers still want to call and give us an order, we'll take it, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Rich Thompson:
We want to make it easy for them, not for us. We want to absorb work, not assign work. But, this is one of those applications that our customers love using, so we're going to continue to grow it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We all live off our phones. It just how it is. So, okay. Well Rich, this has been so amazing. Honestly, I have to tell you, I am so excited for Memorial Day, for the obvious reasons of family, but also now we're going to be watching car number 11 and we're going to be watching all those donations come through for just such an amazing organization, Homes For Our Troops. So thank you for all you do. And thank you to Diane and Keith and everybody at ABC for just giving back so much to the industry and to our nation, our country.

Rich Thompson:
It's the least that we can do. We live in the greatest country and I work for the greatest company. So it's amazing. We're excited about it. One shameless last plug, H-F-O-T-U-S-A.org, go check it out. Matching donations up to a million dollars from May 21st to May 30th. So, take a look at it in pull a quarter or dollar out if you can. That'll be great.

Heidi Ellsworth:
If everyone does a little bit, it turns into huge amounts. So...

Rich Thompson:
Definitely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
... thank you. I'll be on there and I'll be watching too. So Rich, we'll be back. I can't wait to have you come back to the show again. This is not the last time. I'm just saying. Maybe the first but not the last.

Rich Thompson:
I totally agree with you. It's been way too long and I look forward to the future, Heidi. And again, thank you to you and your team for everything you guys do for our industry. It's really such a special pleasure to be on here with you and just to see all the good work that you guys do as well. So thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. And thank you very much because we all love roofing. We love this industry. And like you said, we all get up every morning ready to go because it's such a great place to work. And Roofer's Coffee Shop is so happy to bring this to everybody, to be able to share it, to make it all happen. So Rich, thank you. And thank you to all of you today who are listening. Thank you for being a part of the Roofing Road Trips and Roofers Coffee Shop overall. Please go find Homes For Our Troops at H-F-O-T-U-S-A.org, or on ABC Supply. You can find it, be a part of everything that's going on. And be sure to not miss a single Roofing Road Trip. You know where you can find them, under the RLW navigation on Roofers Coffee Shop or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and get notifications so you don't miss a single trip. We'll see you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been roofing road trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.