As roofing origin stories go, they don’t get more grassroots than Stan Robinson’s.

He got his start in 1979 working for his best friend’s dad, who ran a roofing distribution warehouse, and tackled both inside and outside sales. Not quite a fit for the family-run operation, he left and, at age 19, decided to work for a few of the roofing contractors he sold materials to and realized his value on the rooftop, despite no experience as an installer.

“The only advantage I had was learning the manufacturer specifications (while on the distribution side),” he said. “Selling roofing was a little bit easier on the learning curve … when you know what the requirements were.”

The first roof he completed belonged to his parents’ next-door neighbor, and he worked his mother’s bridge club for leads in between framing houses for a local general contractor. At the time, he and friend Brian Jarvis were making money as partners and were eager to learn. They ultimately felt they could make an impact on their own and established Pacific West Construction in 1980.

Without any formal business training or roofing mentorship, they forged their path to success, but it wasn’t overnight. Mistakes were made — and corrected — but Robinson said he stayed true to the mindset that helped him sell roofs in the first place: knowing the systems’ manufacturing specs. It’s become a standard operating procedure at Pacific West.

“Our goal was to always do it according to manufacturer specs and to hang the manufacturer with the problems, and not the installer,” Robinson explained. “That’s how we’ve run it for 45 years.”

We could be a $30-$40 million company, we just chose not to be. It’s just not and wasn’t part of what we’re trying to accomplish. I don’t need to be an exterior company. I don’t need to gobble up the whole country and eat, you know?

Taking Root

With Jarvis managing the sales team and quality control, Robinson focused on operations, and the company grew every year. The first true milestone he remembers was being able to hire full-time employees around the five-year mark.

“We bought our first dump truck in 1986 and eventually a building in 1990,” he recalled. “Computers, pagers, then cell phones and wow! We were off to the races. We had several small milestones along the road helping us to grow.”

Adding people to share the workload allowed both Jarvis and Robinson to home in on sales, and specialties soon developed.

The Pacific Northwest is notorious for its rain and beauty, which are unmistakably intertwined. Hubbard, which became Pacific West’s headquarters in 2020, sits in a large valley between the Oregon Coast Range mountains and the vast Cascades that extend to Northern California. Mold is a common result in the attics of homes stretching along the way, including metropolitan Portland.

“We get a lot of mold in the attics when they’re not properly vented, so we’ve mastered it,” Robinson said. “Everybody in our company understands ventilation and the importance of it.”

Robinson has shared that key part of his company’s success with others in the marketplace and beyond. Among them is Paul Scelsi, marketing communications manager at AirVent Inc., and leader of its Attic Ventilation: Ask the Expert seminars.

“One of the reasons the seminars I host are well received by the roofing industry is because they are packed with ‘from-the-field’ knowledge,” said Scelsi. “Stan has been a go-to resource for balanced attic ventilation know-how I have learned from since very early in my career and still to this day.”

In the interest of sharing that knowledge with others, Scelsi has featured Robinson and Pacific West on the “Airing it out with AirVent” podcast that he hosts.

“One of the quick math tips to help someone calculate how many attic vents are needed for any size attic is from Stan. I share it across North America,” he said.

Becoming masters at mitigating mold propelled their business and reputation to new heights, and the company didn’t stop there. The region’s specific weather challenges also made it a strong candidate for alternative roofing systems. Robinson began scouting, and the company expanded into commercial work, adding metal and, recently, single-ply PVC.

No Mentor, No Problem

Pacific West is organized into separate divisions: residential reroof, single-ply and roof maintenance. Maintenance and single-ply often pair up on tear-offs and install projects.

A robust safety training program is in place, as well as a safety committee that meets monthly with a representative from the State Accident Insurance Fund Corporation, a nonprofit, state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance company in Oregon. After a bad year of multiple accidents a few years ago, Robinson said the company’s MOD rate is consistently dropping and is now an example of what a successful rebound looks like.

Robinson is now also the outward face of the company, managing client meetings and community outreach. That includes regular participation in local chamber of commerce meetings and community events. On a typical day, he could be at a chamber breakfast, and then on his way to an appointment atop a water treatment facility plant for an inspection — dodging two wild bucks running up the gravel road along the way.

Looking back on a four-decade career, Robinson said he feels fortunate to be where he is as an entrepreneur who endured through the school of hard knocks. It shows in a carefully crafted mission statement:

We show up in integrity every day. We give people the bold truth about what to expect and what they need. We envision a world where faith in a contractor is restored and true relationships begin.

“We literally went and did the best we could at running a roofing business. And it was all about treating people fairly and doing the right thing when it’s time to step up and own it,” he said.

Though largely self-taught, Robinson had some integral support along the way from other roofers he met through the Oregon Roofing Contractors Association and Western States Roofing Contractors Association. He’s winding down his current stint as ORCA president over the summer, and later this month, he’ll be sworn in as WSRCA president after 11 years serving on the executive board.

“My goal is to help the industry, not just me and my company. I want to help the industry get educated and understand what they have out there that they’re missing,” Robinson said.

Another goal is adding membership and shepherding the continued growth of Western Roofing Expo, starting with the 51st annual event Sept. 28-Oct. 1 at the Paris Las Vegas.

He said he’ll broaden his outreach beyond current WSRCA members to the roofing manufacturers, distributors and consultant community. He’s starting an “each one reach one” campaign, urging each person affiliated with the organization to deliver one new membership lead to send a powerful message.

“It’s getting smaller contractors to understand what Western States can deliver. They have no idea of that value, and I think we can get that message out there further than our association members with help from our suppliers,” Robinson added.

The payback would be significant for roofers looking to stay in the business for the long term, or just long enough to grab a bite from the private equity cash flowing through the roofing industry. Though there’s been a lot of interest, Robinson said he has little patience for the buzz surrounding mergers and acquisitions in roofing.

He has a separate email folder for all the inquiries in recent years, and though he is contemplating a legacy, Robinson said he’s happy — and proud — of where his one-time startup has ended up.

“We could be a $30-$40 million company, we just chose not to be. It’s just not and wasn’t part of what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “I don’t need to be an exterior company. I don’t need to gobble up the whole country and eat, you know?”