When I started Leaders Roofing in 1996, I had a truck, a license, and a phone number. The phone number is still the same. The truck has been replaced more times than I can count. The license number — Illinois Roofing Unlimited License #104.010248 — is the same one we were issued thirty years ago. Same number, same family, same Mount Prospect address.
Thirty years ago I didn't expect to spend three decades on Chicagoland roofs. I expected to do good work, treat customers the way I'd want to be treated, and see what happened. What happened is that the people I worked for in 1996 referred me to their neighbors, and their neighbors referred me to their neighbors, and that compounding of trust over thirty years has been the entire foundation of this business.
The roofs have changed. We don't install three-tab shingles anymore. We don't put down hot-mopped built-up roofing the way we did in the early years. We install cedar shake, natural slate, synthetic slate, copper flashing, designer architectural shingles, modified bitumen, TPO, and EPDM. We work with Historic Preservation Commissions and architectural review committees. We do multi-year capital plans for property managers with twenty buildings. The work has gotten more specialized.
What hasn't changed is the standard. Every roof gets the ventilation calculation. Every flashing detail gets the right metal — copper where copper belongs, never aluminum substituted to save money. Every estimate is written so the homeowner can see exactly what's in scope before any work begins. Every Polish-speaking customer who calls gets a Polish-speaking estimator, because Mówimy po polsku has been part of how we do business since 1996.
To the customers who trusted us in 1996 — and to the ones who trusted us last week — thank you. To the property managers who've worked with us across multiple buildings for ten and fifteen and twenty years — thank you. To the Polish families who came to us because we spoke their language and stayed with us because we did the work right — thank you. Three decades is a long time in any business. In a roofing business in northern Illinois, where every winter tries to disprove your warranty work, it's a particularly long time.
We're not going anywhere. The truck is still parked at the same Mount Prospect address. The phone still rings to the same number. The next thirty years start the same way the first thirty did — by answering the phone, walking the roof, and writing the proposal honestly.
— Jan Koszyk
Founder, Leaders Roofing Corp · 1996