Taking the Long View
Just Leaks Inc. rises above competition with sustainability, service
If you’ve been around the San Francisco Bay Area long enough, you’re probably familiar with the fleet of Ford Falcon Rancheros employed by Just Leaks Inc. As the business grew from a commercial roofing service company to a full-service commercial roofer, the Rancheros were replaced with service vans. But now, as Just Leaks Inc. has grown to be a solar-system installer as well, the Rancheros are coming back in a reimagined form. We’ll get to that part of the story, but first, let’s look at Just Leaks Inc.’s beginnings.
Combining Competencies Creates Niche
Just Leaks Inc. Co-Founder and President Scott Siemer started out as a general contractor building homes in the Santa Cruz area. He even began buying properties, designing and building residences, but the business literally dropped out from under him in the aftermath of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
His stepfather, J. Martin Lasica, saw him struggling and offered to help. J. Martin, as everybody called him, had owned a roofing maintenance company in years past, and although he had sold the business and retired, he was ready to get back to business.
“He didn’t want to be retired,” Scott says, “so we decided to get together and start a new company doing roofing.”
They started Just Leaks Inc. in 1993, focused on commercial roofing maintenance, repairs and alterations, and general waterproofing. The combination of their skills made the company competitive in ways other roofing maintenance companies seemingly couldn’t match.
“My stepfather really understood how to run a service business, and I understood construction.”
Because of Scott’s construction experience, the company didn’t need to call in a general contractor and organize subcontractors as would traditional roofing maintenance companies.
“We could do it all,” Scott said. “As a service company, we had a lot more capacity, so we could do things other companies couldn’t, which gave us an edge.”
By 1995, J. Martin was ready to go back into retirement, so Scott bought him out.
In the following years, Just Leaks continued to concentrate on the commercial building market.
“In Silicon Valley, all these big buildings have flat roofs,” Scott says, “and you may not realize it, but just about every building leaks here every year.” That means steady business for roofing maintenance companies.
Brighter Horizons
Yet, over time, the companies that Just Leaks served began to spend less on building maintenance, so it was time for Scott to expand his company’s offerings.
“We had clients that we had been servicing for years, saying, ‘I need a new roof, can you do it?’ ” Scott recalls. “We’d have to say no…we decided we needed to be able to say yes.”
Just Leaks started installing acrylic “cool” roof systems about 20 years ago. The long-lasting acrylic roof coating is formulated to reflect sunlight instead of absorbing its heat, which saves on cooling costs for the building owner. Since the acrylic coating and reinforcing polyester membrane is overlaid on the existing roof, this avoids the cost, disruption and liability of a roof tear-off.
As it turns out, standing seam metal roof panels provide an ideal surface on which to install solar arrays. The seams between the panels offer a place on which to fasten mounts that connect the solar panel to the roof. While Just Leaks primarily installs solar systems over flat roof areas, sloped metal panel, shingle and tile roofs are all within the scope of their service, Scott says.
This is a growing market in sunny California. After decades where solar wasn’t an option for cost-conscious customers, it’s now having its day in the sun.
“It makes financial sense—really good sense—to do a solar system now,” Scott says, because state and federal rebate programs, coupled with a more competitive solar market, are finally making the systems affordable.
Scott says his customers are finding that the system can often pay for itself in less than four years. He says that some of their clients in the Silicon Valley have eliminated energy bills of up to $8,000 a month.
“For the next few years, the best possible thing you can do is install a new roof and a new solar system at the same time,” Scott says “There’s a really high benefit for the building owner.”
Scott believes that Just Leaks has an industry edge when installing solar panels because they are thinking of the positioning from the viewpoint of the owner.
“We build our systems so our roofs are accessible. They’re built on elevated tables so we can always access, maintain and clean the roof without having to take the system down. Roof leaks due to solar systems are a real problem—our installation system eliminates that problem.”
Scott says that installing the solar panels on a “table” elevated off the surface of the roof outperforms panels mounted directly to the roof. By using bifacial panels, which collect solar rays on both top and bottom of the panel, they collect up to 30% more solar energy than a single-surface panel.
“We can get a huge amount of energy out of every single bit of the roof,” Scott says.
Focus on the Long Term
Scott emphasizes that none of this work would be possible without the excellent team members who work beside him.
Those in the construction industry can relate to the challenge of finding and retaining quality employees, and Just Leaks is committed to getting the right fit for employees from the outset and then growing their talents and interests.
“We try to focus on finding the highest good for each person coming in,” Scott says. “What does the technician gravitate toward? Where does he see himself in the long term?”
Understanding his needs might mean he is groomed to be the best roof tech in the crew, or move into solar, sales or project management. “The more capabilities they have, the better for us,” Scott says, “and the better we can compensate them.”
One program that’s proven highly successful for Just Leaks is the company lunchroom. Each morning, after discussing the day’s jobs at a team meeting, the technicians head to the lunchroom to make their lunch and maybe grab a bite to eat for breakfast. (On Fridays, a food truck comes to supply the whole team with breakfast.) The company provides high-quality ingredients for making sandwiches, plus snacks like fruit and nuts, all free to the employees.
Along with being an excellent benefit to employees, the lunch program serves an important purpose for the business as well. On a typical construction job, workers run to the closest fast-food joint to get something to eat. Not only does this mean they’re eating less-healthy options, but they are also rushing around during their lunch and not taking a real break.
And going out to lunch requires shutting down the job site. “It really slows down the production,” Scott says. For that reason, Just Leaks employees are required to stay on-site during lunch.
“When they’re on-site they stop, relax, have their full lunchtime,” Scott says.
Along with providing meals, Just Leaks also provides work trucks, tools, uniforms and health insurance.
Coming Full Circle
Now, back to the story of the Rancheros.
The fleet of Rancheros was a nod to J. Martin’s original roofing maintenance business, Burmco, which used old 1940s and ’50s pickups.
Scott liked the look of the Rancheros and found they were abundant and relatively inexpensive. After putting some money into them to make sure they were roadworthy, the Just Leaks fleet was ready to roll.
“We built up a fleet of those Rancheros as our company trademark,” Scott recalls.
As the business grew, the Rancheros didn’t have the capacity to hold the added equipment and materials needed for full roofing jobs, so the company transitioned to roomier and more reliable Ford service vans.
But the fleet transitioned again. “When we started doing the solar, I found a company in Kentucky called Zenith Motors that was making a Dodge service van called a ProMaster. They were getting it from Dodge without the drivetrain, and they were putting in an electric drivetrain.”
The one-ton vans have a 90-mile range, which is perfect for their jobs around the Valley. Plus, an incentive program for electric fleets in California offered a 60% rebate on their purchase. The electric vehicles are another way for the company to showcase its sustainability as well as promote its solar division.
“To tie the whole thing back to the Rancheros…we started to try to do an electric one,” Scott says.
In fact, this summer the first electric Ranchero will hit the roads as an inspection vehicle for Just Leaks’ solar projects. Once the first car is completed, Scott says they will begin working on a second.
Investing in electric vehicles is just another way the company looks to set itself apart from the competition, he says.
“One thing, for us as a company, that’s different from others is that we always take the long view on everything. In taking that view, that’s a big part of why we embraced electrification; going to renewables, going to electric transportation, going to high-efficiency roofing—we embrace long term.”
Success and sustainability are both long games. Scott says it’s about being cost-effective and maintaining a roof when possible instead of pushing customers to install a new system.
“We don’t want [our] short-term gain to get in the way of their long-term benefit. As a service company, we’re there with them every year,” Scott says. Eventually, that will likely mean a new roof, but the service and maintenance of the existing structure comes first.
“We’ll always be, primarily, a service company.”