Charles Antis was just a few years into his roofing business and still at that stage where, while the dollars were coming in, the money from each job had an outsized impact on the business’ future. So when he got a call from a desperate woman who needed her leaking roof fixed right away, he took the job.
Driving to her home, he realized the neighborhoods were transitioning from middle-class to housing stock of less-than-stellar shape. When he arrived at the dilapidated home, one glance with his experienced eye told him it was more than a simple fix.
Nevertheless, he approached the door. “I’ve always been one to keep my commitment,” says Antis, founder and chief executive of Irvine-based Antis Roofing & Waterproofing.
An exhausted-looking woman opened the door, and the odor of mold wafted over him.
“There was this moment, where I thought, ‘I have to get out of here. I need to feed my family,” he recalls.
As he stood in the doorway, debating what to do next—surely, this job was beyond what he’d planned for—a little girl of about 5 peered at him from around her mother’s legs. “Would you like to see my room?” she asked shyly.
Antis found himself being led by the hand into the little girl’s room, where the mold odor permeated, though the girl seemed oblivious to it. She proudly showed him her cherished unicorn poster, even as he took in the sight of several mattresses on the floor covered in moldy bedding.
“At that moment, it hit me, ‘I have to take care of this roof,’” he says. “Even though we were a young company, I felt in my heart it should be people before profit.”
Antis went up on the roof to see how bad it was—and yes, it was as bad as he’d feared, maybe even worse. He mustered up seven friends from his church, and the following Saturday, they went up there and installed a rough but dry roof. They all volunteered their time, and Antis paid for the materials.
“Whenever we saw each other after that, we had this great bond because we’d done something good,” he recalls. “That was my first experience with how a relationship with the community can drive culture.”
Though Antis didn’t realize it at the time, a seed was planted that would eventually grow into a tree of giving that would ultimately affect nonprofits throughout Orange County, but one in particular—Habitat for Humanity.
For those efforts, the company is the winner of the Orange County Business Journal’s first annual Civic 50 award in the Emerging Companies category.
On the House
Twenty years later, in 2009, giving a new roof to those in need officially become an integral part of Antis Roofing’s community outreach program. That was the year Sharon Ellis, president and chief executive of Habitat for Humanity of Orange County asked Antis if his company would be willing to donate a roof.
Antis’ response was yes—after all, he’d already been donating roofs all those years, some 1,000 in all, just not in a systemized way.
He explains, “Every few months, somebody would call and have a leak or need something, and they didn’t have the money to do it. We were in the same dilemma, but over the years, looking back, we never let someone have a leaky roof just because they didn’t have the money to pay.”
After installing that first Habitat, the Antis team was officially recognized for its efforts. It was a great feeling, Antis says. Ellis reached out to him again, “And we’ve donated every roof since,” he says, meaning roofing every Habitat home built in the county.
Making it Work
The Antis team has a straightforward philosophy. “We don’t measure impact on how it reflects back on us,” the CEO says. “We measure impact for impact sake.”
President and Chief Executive Officer Susan Inman echoes his sentiments. “We will always err on the side of generosity with our stakeholders, our employees, our clients and our vendors. People can rally behind that because they know that they will be taken care of.”
That attitude didn’t develop overnight but was born of a period when the company and the entire industry struggled to stay profitable in midst of the worst recorded drought in California history on top of the worst recession in seven decades.
“And here we are,” Antis says with a laugh, “giving away roofs.”
The value of the annual donations was about $60,000; the company was losing money. “I thought, how do we pay for this?” he says.
Antis tried bringing in other roofing companies to help defray the costs, but none followed through. Still, the company continued donating, even in 2015, its most challenging year. But decisions had to be made.
Proof of Identity
Antis and Inman realized that if it really was a people-first, community-oriented company, it needed to prove it—not just to community stakeholders but to employees and even themselves. So when competitors were eyeing employees as potential liabilities rather than assets, the two decided to celebrate them.
Antis borrowed money to give the employees a party—the biggest, most exciting party the company had ever seen. It all came together after the party.
“An inside-out thing happened,” he says. “Our philanthropy became even more important. We were treating everyone the way they should be treated, starting with our employees.”
“Now I can’t talk about our community involvement without talking about our employees,” Antis says. “It has to be our giving, our vision, a model of how we feel we can make the community better.”
“Plus, our team members make the connection that they have made the world a better place just by being here at Antis,” Inman says. “They know they’re making a difference.”
That shared vision resulted in a dramatic drop in employee turnover, Antis said, and a year-over-year retention rate that’s now 90%. He said happy employees translated to improved work quality and customer service, leading to more jobs. And the company’s increased philanthropy brought it a higher profile in the community. It didn’t hurt when the economy started to turn around and the drought ended.
More Giving, Growing
Antis Roofing continued to donate to Habitat for Humanity—Inman estimates it’s given nearly $700,000 in roofs since 2009—but the company hasn’t stopped there.
It’s also donated the materials, labor or both to American Family Housing, which provides emergency and long-term housing for the homeless. The company has worked with several nonprofit groups to provide materials and labor for new roofs or roof maintenance.
Plus, under its leadership role in the National Roofing Contractors Association, Antis is committed to providing roofs to Ronald McDonald House in Orange County—and its counterparts in the NRCA have committed to doing the same in their communities across the U.S. Susan DeGrassi, Antis Roofing’s chair of cause, is chairperson of the NRCA national committee that organizes the Ronald McDonald House program.
“Years ago, consultants told us we couldn’t do this, that it wasn’t sustainable,” Antis says. “But we still had the courage to push through to where we are now. We’ve had record years—2016 was our best year ever,” when it donated 140 roofs to various nonprofits or to customers in need.
“For us, it’s never been about profit,” Inman says. “It’s about impact. And most of all, it’s about people.”
