S1:E10 Peter Harding – How to Fail Fast

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Heartfelt and humorous stories from a roofing professional who worked his way to the top.  

On this installment of Stories From the Roof, RoofersCoffeeShop® partner Heidi J. Ellsworth and Peter “Pete” Harding, founder of GoGreen Roofing out of California, discussed his introduction to roofing and the lessons he’s learned over many years in the trade. 

“Well, my name is Pete Harding. I protect billions of dollars of industry while doing the fourth most dangerous job in United States. Boom,” explained Pete. “I'm a roofer and GoGreen is the roofing company that everybody said would never happen. Here we are just loving life, loving creating and loving meeting you on LinkedIn and talking to you now.” 

Pete was taught how to roof from Jim Hiel, who started his own company, Hiel Brand Roofing out of the little town of Corralitos, California. Located between Santa Cruz and Monterey, the company was Pete’s introduction to shingles and sidewall, which Pete learned how to do from Jim personally. 

“He taught me how to do ocean waves, diamond, stagger butt, miters and that's all I ever wanted to do was just cedar shingle. That's it. And that started in 1983. Of course, he started me tearing off first for five bucks an hour and all the beer I could drink,” said Pete. 

Pete later went on to work for Jim Eastman, who Pete considers to be the best boss he’s ever had. One of Jim’s policies was that his employees would not work side jobs while working for him. Pete grew up watching the people around him work side jobs and didn’t think it would be a big deal to work a side job while working for Jim. Afterwards, he was pulled into Jim’s office and offered his last check.  

“That was the first time I’d ever been fired,” said Pete, “it showed me that I just wasn't as honest or the person I thought I was. And that moment, my whole life changed. It shifted everything about me, about how I looked at things and how I treated people...It was the greatest thing to ever happen to me.” 

After that transformational experience, Pete began to build different attitudes towards life and work. He approaches every job with patience, empathy and efficiency and these qualities have led him to be the founder of his own business. After starting GoGreen Roofing, he’s learned to fail fast and not to micromanage his employees.  

“I can do all the jobs. Can I do them well? No. No way. Not as good as my production manager can, not as good as the foreman can out there, not as good as the superintendents can. I can do them, but not as well as they do because that's what they do. I get out of their way and let them do what they do.” 

Listen to Pete’s full story on RoofersCoffeeShop and hear more honest and insightful advice from a tried and true roofing professional.