Certified Contractors Network

Danny Argote – Istueta Roofing
Danny has been nominated for several years in a row.  This year he deserves it more than ever.  His energy, tenacity and commitment to our company and our customers have proven to be a powerful force to Istueta Roofing.   He has been both flexible and accommodating while scheduling their jobs and he has made the extra effort to improve the communication between our customers and the production department.

Our customers have, in turn, praised Danny’s hard work once their projects are completed:

“… Danny was responsive to all of our requests, and we were particularly impressed with the cooperation between Danny and our own carpenter. We were very pleased with the results.”- Tom Cunningham-Miami, FL

“Your team was truly excellent: from Sales to installation (Danny) and all the individual employees.”- Marco Ferri-Miami Beach, FL

Danny does a great job of juggling quite a few responsibilities, including working with homeowners at both the production consultations and throughout the projects; writing up change orders, managing the crews efficiently and safely.
He takes his organizational skills and production knowledge to a new height each and every day.  We wish we could clone Danny he is an extremely valuable asset for all who rely on him.  Nominated by Frank Istueta

Raul Diaz – Roofmax
Raul puts in long hard hours. He comes into the shop even before the sun comes up and stays till late in the evening. He is of the philosophy to leave nothing for tomorrow if it can be done today. His extensive knowledge of general construction has allowed Roofmax to provide additional services to our customers. This added benefit has allowed our salesman to close more deals and our additional work orders to increase.  Raul always says “I would rather be lucky than good” Roofmax is just lucky he is so good.  Nominated by Timme Aikele

Ross Fisher – Rain Gutter Specialties
Ross has been nominated for this several years in a row. This year he deserves it more than ever. We are a bit different than most in that we complete 10-20 jobs per day, have 200 jobs on our job board at a time, and then have new construction on top of that. Ross manages all of this on a daily basis. If you think it is hard to do this on only a few jobs at a time try 100 a week. He has to schedule all of the crews as well as help run the office. When we slow down he is responsible for getting more work, working with our contract side of the business.

He also wears another hat as general manager. So he picks up where my Dad and I cannot. He not only manages the crews but also manages the office. He works with Sr. on quality control and makes sure all of the jobs come in under budget.

Bottom line Ross deals and handles more work in a month than most will in a year and for that he deserves this award.  Nominated by Tim Brown
He keeps the guys going.  Nominated by Mike Bardsley & Tim Sessions

Lauren Gindele – Dial One
Lauren moved back into the production manager’s position earlier this year. She immediately made an impact by increasing weekly production numbers by over 20% through effective and efficient utilization of manpower and aggressive scheduling of jobs which resulted in the company catching up to and surpassing its revenue goals and profitability goals. She has continued to exert her influence by improving efficiencies and policies in the company’s paint shop, door shop, warehouse and service department which have resulted in her recent promotion to operations manager.  Nominated by Charlie Gindele

Gary Gustafson – Capizzi Home Improvement
November 2011 marks the tenth year in which Gary has held the position of Production Manager at Capizzi Home Improvement.  To say that the last ten years has been anything less than amazing is an understatement.

I have witnessed Gary evolve from a carpentry project manager into his current role as Production Manager, which he entered in November of 2001.  Not only did Gary take on the responsibility of Production Manager head on, but he immediately engaged himself in becoming a lifelong student of his profession including sales management, and all areas of personal and professional development, resulting in his extreme success rate throughout all of the changing times over the past ten years.

In the past ten years, Gary has been through an enormous amount of training and education with CCN and our own company sponsored programs whereby he not only has grasped it all himself, but can also lead others in areas of personal and professional success.

Gary has got the highest level of results to prove what a person can achieve when they become a professional student and execute what they have learned.  As a Production Manager I believe the following bottom line performance is unparalleled in our industry:

In ten years of service Gary has:
1.    Produced as Production Manager:  Over $24,000,000.
2.    Sold change orders, team effort sales, and individual sales totaling over $6.6 million.

This equals 28% of what he produces, he sold!

This level of pinnacle performance has resulted in Gary winning the highest change order sales contest many years in a row as well as numerous quarterly awards.  Gary is a truly driven individual, always hungry to learn more, raise his own bar, and help others do the same.  He has continued to be a role model in our company as well as in CCN.  Nominated by Thomas Capizzi, Jr.
P.S.  Thanks Gary for “the person you are being!”

Al Salazar, Clark Adams Co.
Al manages the production department with great skill. He handles all scheduling and deals with the cities regarding permit issues. Al’s special talents are the ability to negotiate with a recalcitrant customer that seems bent on keeping 50% of the final payment for a small service item such as a screen. His down to earth style keeps our customers happy and the cash flow coming!  Nominated by Clark Adams

Bob Scribner, G.F. Sprague & Co., Inc.
Bob has done an amazing job in this historic year for our company. Bob has been able to expand his forces and maintain an extremely high volume of work in progress while continuing to provide an exception level of quality and customer service.  Nominated by Jake Sprague

Jennifer Scudder – Scudder Roofing
I am nominating Jennifer Scudder for Production Manager of the year because she honestly embodies exactly what a roofing production manager should be…from exemplary time management skills and extreme dedication to detail to the tireless hours she spends each day from first thing in the morning till sometimes late at night juggling everything and everyone in the company. She is a team player who keeps morale high at all times and she has built long term relationships with many of our customers and makes it easy for them to do business with us.

Being the production manager at Scudder Roofing is not an easy job — especially considering three and a half years ago we added solar into the mix which has required Jen to learn and master an entirely new kind of work while still maintaining the rigorous schedule managing production calls for. During this time she also returned to school to learn to speak Spanish fluently. She has actually taken much of the heavy lifting off me as the owner because I have complete trust in her interaction with our customers and colleagues. Jen has learned to listen to the client and to try and understand before she’s heard. She always has the company’s best interest at heart and is continually looking for new policies as well as processes to improve the employee/employer work relationship and environment.

Jen’s project improvement/change orders are currently over 600k and along with everything else she manages to get done during the day, she also runs the maintenance and service department and has taken that side of the business from 250k to over 400k. In addition to those duties, I can list a hundred more including overseeing our field safety supervisor where she has been a major force at bringing our mod rate under the 100% ratio. Keeping the team safe and returning them home safely to their families every evening is mandatory at our company. Jen also performs all job budgets and job costing as well as payroll in addition to running our monthly TQM meetings where she has entered every job in a Power Point presentation to show the details and before and after photos to the crew. Jen reviews budgets with the entire group and has developed a completely transparent accounting process for the company. She has also created a reward system for the production team including jobs under budget, job improvement work order bonuses, straight A report card bonuses and myriad other project incentives for her crews.

In addition to all of those things she’s lead the way on for us, she has also developed an A team working for Scudder while eliminating the C team who now work for our competitors. She has produced a trackable system for our customers to help them understand the costs involved for time and material repairs and she runs a complex bi-monthly production update meeting that brings the entire sales team together for an open session where discussion covers the gamut from all of the jobs in progress down to the most minute yet important details for each project we are working with. She also performs job evaluations on each project manager at least once a year and has developed and implemented departmental goals that she keeps in her office in clear view of everyone so that the team can stay on track and see the goals daily. Jen also helps to put together our monthly “Raise the Roof” meeting for the entire team where we look at where we stand against the company goals we have set for ourselves. This meeting is also where we recognize a foreman of the month as well as a change order winner of the month, both of whom get to spin our big roofing wheel for a prize.

Jen Scudder is an integral part of our company and she treats everyone she works with as well as every customer she deals with as if they are a good friend that she cares for instead of simply a customer to get finished with. She answers and returns all of her phone calls, she controls our entire inventory, and she orders all materials and also manages a fleet of 35 trucks and equipment. Jen is the definition of a multi-talented, multi-tasker whether she’s ironing out customer issues without blinking an eye, keeping her crews busy and motivated or running one of our meetings. She is a true asset to the Scudder Roofing Company and truly holds us all together. She puts her heart and mind into every part of her work day and doesn’t leave her desk until everything on her tremendous daily to do list is completed and put to bed.

Her dedication to the industry and to our company is an inspiration and this is why I feel that she is deserving of production manager of the year.  Nominated by Pete Scudder

Mike Socci – Rogers Roofing
Mike is one of our “go to guys”. As our first production manager we brought in Mike handles many things. He works closely with our other PM to schedule jobs and crews, does quality control, handles dispute resolutions and most important he closes out every job with the customer and collects the check! He is as loyal and hard working as they get and we are so fortunate to have him as part of our team!

Our production managers are asked to do a lot of different things. Schedule jobs, meet with customers, pick up checks, pull permits etc and Jon Rios does them all with quite confidence. He goes out of his way to help other employees and customers. He will also do whatever it takes to get the job done and satisfy each customer’s needs. He is what Production managers should be!  Nominated by John Rogers

Jack Strumski – Capizzi Home Improvement
Jack has entered his seventh year with our company as Production Manager.  In 2005, his first year in the position, he won the CCN Rookie Production Manager of the Year award due to his immediate hard charging, results driven approach to the job at hand.

Since that first award, Jack hasn’t stopped to look back.  As we all know, the current economic climate has made all of us work harder and for Jack, that has also meant managing many more jobs to keep up the same revenue.

In 6 ½ years Jack has:
1.    Produced $10,014,517.
2.    Sold change orders, team effort sales, and individual sales totaling $3,315,316.

33% of what he produces, he sold!

These are some of the reasons you have seen Jack receive so many CCN Change Order contest awards in the highest sales category.  They are amazing results and very important measurements for a company owner to recognize and appreciate.

He is always willing to help team up with new salesmen to train and help close the sale.  One week, a couple months ago, he and Jake sold 3 out of 4 in a row!

This is not unusual when Jack is involved.  Jack is an intense and driven individual with many goals and the determination to achieve them.  We at Capizzi Home Improvement are extremely lucky to have such a serious mover and shaker to help us navigate through these current times.  Nominated by Thomas Capizzi, Jr.

P.S.  Thank you Jack for all of your many great contributions to our company!

Dan Williams – Fick Bros. Roofing Co.
Dan has everything it takes to be a Production Manager. His roofing and sheet metal knowledge is outstanding. He does an excellent job of planning and organizing each day’s schedule, and incorporating the always changing aspects involved in roofing and remodeling jobs. Dan works great with the crews and the customers alike. He has adapted perfectly into his role as Production Manager at Fick Bros, and has helped make this year a very successful one.  Nominated by Megan Fick

Dan is a good team player and also promotes a good company image. Dan works well with the men and has good superior skill with them. Dan works well as a go between the customs and the foreman.

Dan always promotes a safe work environment at Fick Bros. Dan always tries to keep Fick Bros the best company it can be.  Nominated by Mark Fick