August 29, 2017
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine: Use a Certified Roofing Consultant
... and Making Opportunities Happen
Welcome to my inaugural blog post for Roof-Tek Consulting & Design. In fact, it is my first blog post ever.
My wife is a designer-marketer slash blogger, and she convinced me blogging is an excellent tool for building client relationships. She says there is no better way to promote a “learning space” on business and the roofing industry.
So I decided my first blog will be about my decision in “going for it.”
Sometimes life has a way of blessing you with opportunities, and opening Roof-Tek has been such a blessing. Most of my colleagues do not know that I am an immigrant to Canada arriving just 14 years ago.
In the land of my birth, for many years I owned a fire protection engineering consulting firm. We also had an accompanying store-front that sold fire protection components as well. I am proud to say that this business is still in operation in Brazil, just owned now by another family member.
Like the opportunity I have today to open Roof-Tek, I also engaged the chance to immigrate to Canada. I decided to “go for it” in the early middle age of my life.
I arrived on Canada’s door speaking only Portuguese with just enough money to get me through six months of meagre living in Toronto. As I had a family back in Brazil, I needed to tough it out on the slimmest of budgets.
It was important that I learn English and fast. So what gave me a good stable foundation was to study and work at the same time, forcing me to practice. I took three hours of English as a second language every day and worked in a job cleaning the stairs of the CN Tower at night. I made my future from there. Why? Because when you clean 1,776 steps over 144 flights of stairs every shift, you can do anything.
Within eight months I found work in Ottawa working again in the fire protection field. I was speaking enough English to also continue my education so I could further expand future employment opportunities as well.
That is why “going for it” is my motto.
Almost three years later I was able to transition back into the field of civil engineering at InspectSol doing building condition assessments after I studied several courses at Algonquin College on the building code and project management.
It was in doing this work I was able to meet two great people at Jacques Whitford later purchased by Stantec Consulting. Before I knew it, I had the opportunity to be a team leader, project manager and consultant in building engineering, eventually focusing on roofing.
It was there I was able to grab the opportunity to obtain my RRO – which is the Registered Roofing Observer designation with the Roofing Consultant Institute (RCI). At Stantec, I worked on hundreds of challenging projects with many great clients and colleagues. And last Monday, March 6, after almost eight years of working at Stantec, I found myself with an opportunity to launch this business, so this is it… I am going for it.
Our world is not easy. Making a business successful is challenging. Half the battle is remaining positive while finding solutions to meet the ever-changing goals in our unpredictable world.
I am looking forward to this opportunity. I will get to expand my network as I build company clientele while meeting the challenge of market ups and downs.
It is in this atmosphere when they say in life when one door closes, another door opens; or in the literary world, the end of one chapter begins another. And this is my Roof-Tek chapter.
Acknowledging that I have had many opportunities to meet great people, I have also been fortunate to meet individuals who have become mentors and leaders I respect. Their examples in leadership have had long-term impacts on my outlook in business. Being successful is having an open mind while maintaining ethical and high-quality standards in the delivery of client services.
Life is evolving in which no one predicts their future. However, I see life as situational, and I am responding to it. The fact is that as long as humans are on this planet, they will be occupying buildings and buildings always need functioning roofs and that is why I am “going for it.”
So please join me in this new adventure by also staying tuned. My next blog is going to be about Green Roofing, and I think everyone will find this subject very interesting.
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One thought to “An Eco-Roofing System”
Christian Tessier
April 22, 2017 at 8:42 am
Very nicely put together Edsel! Looking forward to many more interesting articles.