What I Learned as a Bakeris Roofing Outsider and Insider, Steve Gee

When I was an outsider looking in at Bakeris Roofing, I saw a very supportive and generous company. I don’t change jobs very often—I spent 18 years at one company and 10 years at another, so I looked at joining Bakeris Roofing as a great opportunity. You could say that it would be my last blast before I retire in 10 to 12 years.

Because I’m Dawn’s spouse, I was able to interact with a lot of the other employees. I got to see everyone whenever Jeff would organize functions like bowling or camping, which allowed us to get to know each other on a personal level. I think it’s very positive how he’s always getting together some kind of event where employees can interact with each other. Seeing how he treats his team—and how everyone responds back to him—made it very evident that this was a good nucleus of people who are driven to excel. I felt that it would be a good fit for me because I was surrounded by such a strong team of players.

When I joined the team, barely a week went by before there was a huge hailstorm about 12 minutes away from the shop. That basically changed the whole spectrum of what I was doing. My job practically turned into a salesperson. When I went out to sell what we had, I didn’t yet have extensive knowledge. However, my salespeople were extremely supportive with helping me learn the product and what was involved in selling it. They brought me up to speed with understanding the entire process, but there were still some things that I wasn’t good at.

For example, I’m not someone who’s going to be climbing up roofs, so I was doing insurance reports. It was challenging because I had never really read an insurance report at that point in time. However, we persevered and worked through it. I admit that it was a challenge, but the best part was when the team stood behind me and helped me get through the last four months of the crazy pace due to the hailstorm. Because none of us had ever dealt with the aftermath of such a storm, we figured out our strategy as we went on. We recognized the areas where we can improve, and we’ll back each other up whenever we face a new challenge.