This article reprinted from Western Roofing magazine May/June 2007.

Award Winners

Colorado Roofing Association Honors Its Own

by Deborah Hathorne, executive director, Colorado Roofing Contractors Association

The Colorado Roofing Association applauds Max Roach as the 2006 winner of the Colorado Roofing Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

Integrity, honestly, and trust are characteristics Roach has lived by and been respected for by colleagues and friends. Roach enjoys a quiet retirement now, but for 25 years he spent his days working in the Colorado roofing industry as a sales representative for both Owens Corning and TAMKO Building Products.

Upon his high school graduation, Roach moved from the Oklahoma panhandle town of Guymon to Stillwater to begin his studies at Oklahoma State University. After three years there, he was drafted into the service and spent time in Texas and California. His stint in fatigues did not deter him from completing his college plans, he returned to OSU and graduated in 1958 with a degree in business administration.

Ready to join the working world, Roach made his way to Grants, New Mexico where he worked in the mining industry. Realizing his future was limited in Grants, Roach moved to Albuquerque where he answered an ad placed by Owens Corning for an office manager. Realizing the "office" life was not for him, he made the jump in 1964 to sales and began selling Owens Corning products and as the saying goes, "the rest is history."

After a stint covering Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Texas, Roach made his way to Colorado. A short time after his move to the Centennial State, the two-person office grew to 15 and Roach worked hard to develop lasting relationships with contractors, builders, and architects.

In 1986 Roach left Owens Corning to begin his first retirement. That didn't last long, when a well-timed call from TAMKO Building Products brought him out of retirement. His second stint in the roofing industry lasted ten years. His years with TAMKO saw the same dedication to his customers and the roofing industry.

Since retirement, Roach keeps up with the latest trends in the roofing industry through trade publications and conversations with friends and is looking forward to traveling once again to his favorite destinations of Greece and Bermuda.

Several Colorado companies collected Job of the Year awards for outstanding work performed during 2006. D&D Roofing took first place in Division I with their fine work on the historic reroofing of the 430 Years Church of God in Christ in Denver, Colorado. Boulder Roofing received second place in Division I for its work on a custom single-family residence at 875 Circle Drive in Boulder, Colorado.

First place in Division II was earned by B&M Roofing of Colorado for their custom metal roof on a private residence in Boulder, Colorado. The second place winner in Division II went to Front Range Roofing Systems for the repairs on the Western Sugar plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado. The repairs were a result of an explosion at the plant in November 2004.

First place in Division III this year resulted in a tie. Black Roofing won for their job on the Atlas Building at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The project consisted of four totally different roof applications. Sharing first place in Division III is Arapahoe Roofing and Sheet Metal for its work on the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. They completed a seamless makeover to the underlayment system, all while managing to reinstall each piece of the original Ludowici tile roof to the exact same location as before. Second place in Division III goes to D&D Roofing for their eight-month job on the reroof of a downtown high-rise, The Executive Tower in Denver.

Black Roofing took first place in Division IV for the massive steep and flat slope roofing system on St. Andrews Village Project at Heather Gardens in Boulder. Arapahoe Roofing and Sheet Metal received second place in Division IV for their work on Concourse B at Denver International Airport. They managed to complete this extremely challenging project while complying with the many security restrictions the job entailed. •••