Sky-High Standards
Red Dog’s Roofing’s tradition of trust is the company’s best friend
When Red Dog’s Roofing Owner Patrick Cochran started his Fitchburg, Massachusetts, company in 2012, he named the business after his late grandfather, Norman “Red” Cochran, who passed away in 2001 when Patrick was 13.
Red Cochran was a roofer and the epitome of trustworthiness, honesty and hard work, according to Patrick Cochran. He calls his grandfather a man whose word was his promise, who took pride in a job well done and who ensured that every roof was installed with the utmost care because it was the right thing to do for the customer. Patrick remembers his grandfather as generous in sharing his industry knowledge with fellow roofing crew members.
“My grandfather wasn’t big, physically. But to me, he was larger than life,” says Patrick, which is why the company logo for his residential and commercial roofing company is a large, muscular red dog.
His grandfather represented the traits he wants his company to embody in order to enrich the roofing experience for his customers and employees. Those people may never get the opportunity to meet his grandfather, but Patrick is determined that they will certainly benefit from Red Cochran’s legacy of workmanship and customer service.
But his grandfather, says Patrick, would have disliked the attention of having a roofing company and its mission based on him. “He was a very, very private person,” Patrick says. “He was not an attention-seeking person at all”—making “humble” a fitting addition to his paternal grandfather’s list of attributes.
Good things get recognition, though.
Over the years, the company has grown, expanded and implemented a community-service initiative, with the business community taking notice. Last year, Red Dog’s Roofing won a Marketplace Excellence Award for Employee Commitment from the Better Business Bureau of Central New England.
Entrepreneurial Express
Before forming the company, Patrick first set about gaining a broad business education that would benefit him, his employees and clients. He then paced himself and took advantage of opportunities as they developed.
Patrick was a student at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Massachusetts—where he earned an associate’s degree—when he learned of an initiative called the 3+1 program. Through the program’s partnership with Nichols College in Dudley, he was able to transfer his credits and earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management. Students in the program participate in a specially designed third-year curriculum, attending Nichols for the final year of school.
It wasn’t until after graduation that he launched Red Dog’s Roofing—offering just roof repairs and preventative maintenance at first. Simultaneously, he worked on his master’s degree in business administration at Fitchburg State University.
Red Dog’s Roofing’s scope of work broadened in tandem with Patrick’s business education.
He earned his MBA in 2014, expanding the company’s service offerings to include residential and commercial roofing replacements and installations. Though asphalt shingle is the most common residential roofing material used in Massachusetts, due to its affordability and relatively quick installation time, the company also provides steep slope and flat roofing using wood shakes, slate, slate composite and metal, as well as performs chimney repairs and roof snow removal.
Patrick also got involved in industry associations along the way, providing the company with an outlet for networking within the trade.
Southern Presence
In 2017, the company opened its second office, located in Sarasota, Florida, which Patrick explains came together as the result of market connections made at National Roofing Contractors Association events. Brian O’Halloran was named General Manager of the Sarasota office.
“Florida is a unique market, with totally different weather and a different atmosphere,” says Patrick, revealing new opportunities to learn and serve a new customer base. Red Dog’s Roofing team has now become skilled in the use of clay tile roofing material for example, a popular aesthetic which can outlast asphalt shingles, especially in an area more prone to hurricanes, he says.
Between the two offices, Red Dog’s Roofing now has over 30 employees, with Marketing Director Gino Gurley recently moving into the company’s Chief Operations Officer role.
With about 1,000 residential roof replacements completed last year between its two locations, Red Dog’s Roofing has implemented a business structure that creates what Patrick calls a unique customer journey.
Selling and Sales: A Transfer of Beliefs
Customer education is a priority at Red Dog’s Roofing, with property owners not only given information on the signs of a failing roof and potential solutions, but also tips such as preparing pets for what can be scary sounds of roof crews walking around overhead. His goal is to have property owners make informed decisions.
“Selling and sales is just a transfer of beliefs,” Patrick says. “The homeowner is going to go with who they trust the most, who they feel is looking out for them. We want them to make a good decision—even if they go with someone else.”
Insurance, for example, is an area that can be confusing for homeowners and business owners alike, Patrick notes. As an Owens Corning Preferred Contractor, the warranty Red Dog’s Roofing offers includes workmanship and product, further setting it apart from its competition, because, Patrick says, other firms’ warranties may just cover the product. His staff takes time to explain different product and warranty options, making sure the customers understand.
Transparency—in terms of information, quality of work and pricing—is a big part of Red Dog’s Roofing’s mission. Through each phase of work, teams are dedicated to that aspect of the process, Patrick says, ensuring it is a positive experience for the customer. More than a mantra, this attention to the customer is systematic.
“We have it from beginning to end: from the time they call our office, to the time the sales rep goes out, to when production goes out to fulfill our promises, to the end of the job,” he says. “Everything is done in a similar way so that we are sure we make it a consistently good experience for people.”
He notes that the roofing industry is rife with consumer disputes, evident by other roofers’ projects that Red Dog’s Roofing is called out to fix or redo when the original roofing company will not.
“Unfortunately, we see it all the time,” Patrick says, “situations where people went with a less-expensive contractor and had an issue, then that person did not come back and rectify the problem. We try to set the bar as high as we can to ensure the customer knows that if they are hiring a contractor—whether it’s us or someone else—we care.”
No Roof Left Behind
This caring is evident by the company’s No Roof Left Behind activism, part of a nationwide charity effort that Red Dog’s Roofing participated in for two years when it was offered in the area. Cochran learned of the No Roof Left Behind organization—which seeks nominations for those in the community in need of roof replacement—through the National Roofing Contractors Association’s website.
Online nominations for property owners in need are solicited through the No Roof Left Behind portal. Then a team of volunteers chooses four finalists, with a winner announced online. The local winner gets a free roof installation, says Patrick—with free roof repairs for the other nominees; but Red Dog’s Roofing provided another “under the radar” roof one year as well, for the widow of a man who had been in the roofing industry. Coincidentally, the homeowner lived right near the Red Dog’s Roofing office in Fitchburg, Patrick says.
Providing a new roof to a homeowner is rewarding and is the kind of community contribution that makes Patrick proud of his company.
But there is another project Red Dog’s Roofing completed in Leominster, Massachusetts, which really makes him beam with pride. The company replaced all eight roofs on the Town & Country apartment complex buildings over the past five years, four this year—roofs that his grandfather, the original “Red” had installed back in the 1980s. It was a job that made him feel close to his grandfather again.
At the same time that the Town & Country project has taken him back to the past, Patrick is planning for Red Dog’s Roofing’s future. He’d like to do more work with adjusters and insurance claims and grow that segment of the business. He would also like to open another office, one in Colorado where staff has family and building connections.
No matter how many offices or how many employees Red Dog’s Roofing adds, its transparency will remain. “ ‘The buck stops here’–Harry Truman,” Patrick says. “I have that sign on my desk.”