Turning one fall into lasting success

By Dani Sheehan. 

Known as "The Tool You Wear!"™, Cougar Paws boots have left a lasting mark on the roofing industry. Find out how it all started and what drove the company’s success. 

When Dan Cougar was a senior in high school, he fell two stories off a roof and broke his neck. Feeling lucky to have recovered fully from the fall, he went out in search of a way to improve a contractor’s experience on the roof. In a recent episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Dan to talk about his story and the inception of Cougar Paws. "The Tool You Wear!"™, Cougar Paws boots are used by roofing contractors, estimators, insurance adjusters and other professionals every day and are leaving their mark on the industry. 

Dan has been grateful for and humbled by his experience as a business owner. He shared, “We make the number one roofing boot in the country. It's been truly just the greatest adventure of a lifetime. It's the American dream, you think of something, you go from theory to patent, the patent to production, and then, all of a sudden, you're the number one boot in the country.” 

Having started roofing as early as 12 years old, Dan began running crews at age 16. After his fall from a roof, he wanted to find a way to help roofers feel more secure from those heights. He saw other roofers using old couch cushions or other foam cushions for their tools while they were working and noticed the foam stuck well – tools weren’t falling off the roof. So, Dan said, “I buy a homeowner growl trowel, I cut the bottom of it off, I staple it and glue it to the bottom on my Nike shoes.” He tied off his ladder and went climbing up onto a roof to try it out.  

Cautious because of his previous experience with falling, he was amazed to find how well the bottom of his shoes stuck to the roof. He immediately wanted to share this idea with others. “How can I bring this to market? What is the best way?” he started thinking. “So, I started looking for [the best solution]. I went to every foam manufacturer in the country that made anything close to what I could use, and sponge rubber was the ultimate. It had more coefficient of friction than anything else in the market.” 

Owning a business has not been a complete walk in the park, but after ironing out a few missteps along the way and learning from his experiences, Dan is an innovator in the industry. Roofing professionals buy his boots across the nation, and he’s constantly looking to improve his technology to provide the best solution so roofers can be more efficient on the job. 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about Dan’s journey as an innovator and a business owner and to see why you need your own pair of Cougar Paws boots.