You Can’t Have Integrity Without Grit

By Dani Sheehan. 

Celebrating roofing contractors, we sit down with Laurie Moore from Kreiling Roofing to hear what she values in this industry.  

The roofing industry is a closeknit community and people are always willing to teach and support others getting started. In a recent podcast episode, Heidi J. Ellsworth sits down with Laurie Moore, president and CEO of Kreiling Roofing Company, to talk about her experience with roofing and the valuable lessons she’s learned along the way.  

Having been around the industry since she was a child watching her dad run the company, Laurie says that the best thing she ever did for her career was stepping onto a roof. She explains, “I think working on the roof was more important than I ever thought it was. My whole reason for doing that was so that I could understand. I didn’t really expect it to have any value, other than the work I did on the roof... But I never realized that that would be something that people would respect.” By working both on the roof and in the office, she was able to better understand how each part of the business fit together, which helped her lead improvements and processes over the years. 

When it comes to success in the business, she says she learned a lot from her dad’s character. The word integrity stands out to her because he truly cares about others. But she also noticed that the word integrity “has the letters G-R-I-T in the middle of it. And I’m like, ‘Oh, gritty. Yeah, there’s a little bit of grit there.’ And so, although you truly care about others and how they feel, sometimes you have to have a little bit of grit to be the protector of the group as a whole.” 

She sees this throughout the industry with both customers and employees. “As professionals, we work to protect our customers from unpleasant experiences by providing exceptional customer service and we protect our employees by ensuring they succeed in their roles.” Laurie continues, “Integrity means a lot of things. It also means knowing yourself, knowing who you are, recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing who you are as a company, and standing by those things.”  

Kreiling Roofing Company is a one-hundred-year-old union company with 125 outstanding employees, and they continue to build a lasting reputation in the industry.  

Listen to the full episode or read the transcript to learn more about Laurie’s roofing journey and how she lives out her definition of integrity as a business owner.