30 Years of Leaders Roofing: A Letter from Jan Koszyk
Same truck. Same license. Same phone. Same Mount Prospect address. Three decades of Chicagoland roofs — and what 30 years of standing still in one place actually taught us.
Day one in 1996
I had a truck, an Illinois Roofing Unlimited License (#104.010248), and a phone number. (847) 312-2727. Thirty years later, the phone number is the same. The license is the same. The Mount Prospect address is the same. The customer who hired us in 1998 can dial the same digits today and reach the same family business.
What's changed
The roofs themselves. We don't install three-tab asphalt anymore — architectural shingles displaced them around 2005. We don't hot-mop built-up roofing the way we did in the early years — TPO replaced BUR on commercial. We do more cedar shake, slate, and copper flashing than we did in our first decade because the North Shore rediscovered premium materials. The work has gotten more specialized.
What hasn't
The standard. Every roof gets the ventilation calculation. Every flashing detail gets the right metal — copper where copper belongs, never aluminum substituted to save a few dollars on an estate roof. Every estimate is written so the homeowner can see exactly what's in scope before work begins. The license number. The phone number. The Mount Prospect address. The family ownership. The standards have not moved.
Why the license number is the most important number on the contract
Storm-chaser contractors come and go. After every major hail event, fly-by-night operations open temporary offices, take deposits, do quick work, and disappear before warranty issues surface. The Illinois Roofing Unlimited License is one of the few clean filters available to verify a contractor's actual tenure. #104.010248 has been issued to Leaders Roofing continuously since 1996. You can verify it with the IL Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The contractor who's been on the license for three decades will still be there if your roof has a problem in 2031.
Same family, next 30 years
Same Mount Prospect address. Same license number. Same standard on every roof. The trade evolves — new materials, new systems, new code requirements — and we'll keep adapting. But the underlying commitment is the one I started with in 1996: do the roofs the way they're supposed to be done, treat customers the way I'd want to be treated, and answer the phone when it rings.
Thank you, Chicagoland
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 fifteen and twenty years — thank you. To everyone who referred a neighbor — thank you. Three decades didn't happen because we wanted them to. They happened because Chicagoland kept calling, and we kept showing up. Read the full anniversary story at our 30 years page. — Jan Koszyk, Founder, Leaders Roofing Corp · Founded 1996 · IL #104.010248. Call (847) 312-2727.