raising the roof - asheville citizen times
DESCRIPTION
Article by Dale Neal, Asheville Citizen Times, about North American Roofing and their celebrating 20 years at the headquarters in Asheville, NC. 2014 Hermes Award Winner, jamesgang creative communication, in the category of media response.TRANSCRIPT
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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2013
ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES CITIZEN-TIMES.com Ideas Editor Katie Wadington, 232-5829 or [email protected]
Thoughts? Musings? IDEAS?Share with us at
CITIZEN-TIMES.com/Facebook.
ASHEVILLEA roof is probably the last thing anyonethinks about until its too late or leaking.
Brian Verbles family-ownedbusiness has raised roofs nation-wide for Home Depots, Walmartstores, schools and other commer-cial properties, raising plenty ofprofits year after year. Head-quartered in Asheville since 1973,North American Roofing, hasquietly become the nations third-largest commercial roofer.
When Verble took over as CEOin 2007, he saw that doing busi-ness as usual wasnt going to workin the long run.
First, he saw that going afterlow bids on new constructionwasnt all that profitable. Youcan get your fill of low-bid, low-margin jobs and you can gobroke.
Verble switched the focus torepair or replacing existing roofs amove that proved prescientwhen the Great Recession rolled around and new construc-tion came to standstill.
The company also needed to change the way it did busi-ness. Our biggest challenge was getting everybody on the
North American Roofing executives, from left, Tim Sparrow, Kelly Wade and Brian Verble, walk across the roof of one of the Ridgefield Center buildings that their companyinstalled. The firm installs roofing on large commercial buildings. BILL SANDERS/[email protected]
Employee-owned North AmericanRoofing grows by changing cultureBy Dale [email protected]
LOCAL ROOFSNorth American Roofingnot only handles nationalcustomers such as HomeDepot and Wal-Mart, buthas expanded into localmarkets. Here are a fewrecent projects: Eastern Band of Chero-kee Indian Justice Center,Cherokee HomTex Inc., Sylva Sierra Nevada, MillsRiverWalmart, Franklin Asheville School SkinnerLibraryMontreat College
RAISINGTHE
ROOFSee ROOFING, Page E5
N ora Daniel loves Ashe-ville partly for the thingsshe cant necessarilypinpoint.
The charming whimsy, theunder the surface cultural
elements that are so key to thiscitys legend.
Based on what things lookon the surface, you can jump toconclusions and often, you canbe wrong, she said.
I love that about Asheville;it keeps surprising over andover again.
Her appreciation of thiscommunitys off-the-map at-tractionmakes her project
with her accomplished cartog-rapher husband, Bruce,marked with a bit of fun irony.
On Oct. 18, the Daniels de-buted the Best Local Map, abeautiful, slickmap highlight-ing everything from breweriesto museums; mountain peaksto pharmacies.
Themap, which is availableat some stores around townand online, also comes with
charitable dimension: Theproduct benefits MANNAFoodBank. (The suggestedretail price is $2.99.)
The couple started workingon the Best Local Map in thespring, and its the duos firstprofessional creative project.(Theyvemade videos forfriends as Christmas presents.)
CarolMotsinger
COLUMNIST
IMAGINATION ATWORK
Map highlights our small business, creative flair
SeeMAP, Page E5
New Best Local Mapsales also benefitMANNA FoodBank
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