Business View Magazine | November 2019

68 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 F ifteen years ago, Norm Dopfer moved from Delta, Ohio to work for a friend as a roofing salesman in Southwest Florida. After a few years’ experience and learning a lot about the industry, he quickly realized most roofing contractors did not have their own licenses and most paid the actual license holder monthly fees. They viewed their employees as expendables. Most of the roofers he worked for dealt with labor brokers who would take a large percentage and give the actual laborers a very small percentage, resulting in poor quality. Another common practice was for owners to bleed the companies dry by paying for their new toys, vacations, and often their bad habits, while consistently not being able to make payroll every other week. Dopfer understood that the bar was set so low that with his Midwest work ethic and his consciousness to want to help others, he knew he would be able to make a positive impact in the industry. “I just couldn’t sit around and watch this happen and work for people like that,” Dopfer says. “So I started my own business.” That was a little over four years ago, when he started his new company and named it after his youngest son, Roman, who will be five years old, next June. “The first year, we did $4 million in sales; year two, $12 million; year AT A GLANCE ROMAN ROOFING WHAT: A roofing contractor WHERE: Cape Coral, Florida WEBSITE: www.romanroofinginc.com ng The fastest growing contractor in Florida three, $18 million; year four, $24 million. Now we are working to make the 5th year even better.” Today, Roman Roofing, located in Cape Coral, Florida, supports over 100 employees and their families. The company has successfully installed and repaired over 6,000 roofs to date. Roman Roofing crews have adorned homes across Southwest Florida with over 14 million square feet of roofing materials, ranging from high-end architectural asphalt shingles, metal varieties, concrete, and clay tile, as well as stone-coated steel. While single-family home owners’ make- up the bread-and-butter of Roman’s clientele, the firm also practices commercial roofing, provides roof inspections, maintenance, and handles roofing repairs. While Dopfer admits that the roofing sector is both competitive and saturated, he believes that Roman Roofing has several distinct advantages. “There are a lot of roofers here,” he states. “Everybody is fighting for territory. One thing that differentiates our company is that we were able put together an all-star team from the beginning; we’ve got a lot of awesome people in-house that have great networks that believe in what we are doing. Another big thing that differentiates us is