S1:E10 – Sherri Miles-Foley Shares What She’s Learned After Years of Leadership in the Roofing Industry

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Listen to this insightful podcast and learn about what it takes to have a successful roofing company - on the roof and in the office.  

In this episode of Stories From The Roof, RoofersCoffeeShop® partner, Heidi J. Ellsworth sits down with Sherri L. Miles-Foley of JD Miles and Sons Roofing. The two discuss the lessons Sherri’s learned from her years as a leader in the industry.  

Sherri represents the fourth generation of Miles leadership and currently serves as president of Miles Roofing, Inc. and vice president of J.D. Miles & Sons, Inc. She started her roofing career in the office, however, feels thankful to the roofing foremen who first brought her under their wings and taught her some valuable lessons about roofing. 

“A couple of the foremen that we had put me on their crew and treated me just like anybody else that was learning,” said Sherri. “On the third day working on a really hard, hot, modified bitumen we put down, I was praying for rain. It was so hard. And I had such a different respect for the guys that do this every single day.” 

These experiences helped Sherri understand what a contractor's work looks like on a daily basis as well as their process behind selling their services. Sherri realized why a contractor is looking to get paid a premium dollar for the kind of work they’re putting in everyday and the high-quality attentiveness required for every job.  

“A roof is the first point of protection,” she said. “It's not something that you see every day, but it's something that will protect your family. And one little slip up, one mistake, one little void can cause huge problems, so the devil is in the details. Guys like to talk about football as a game of inches. Well, roofing is a game of inches. Even if you have hundreds of squares of roofing, it only takes one little mistake, one little place and you could be flooded. So it really is a game of precision,” said Sherri. 

In addition to understanding the level of precision roofing contractors and foremen must have on the roof, Sherri also realized success in the office comes down to a similar attitude of attentiveness. To have a successful roofing business, you must know, respect and listen to people.  

“It's about people. It's always about people. My guys, a lot of them come from Mexico and they have perhaps an eighth-grade education but are smarter than me in ways that I can’t express. They are really good at seeing things and solving problems, they're amazing critical thinkers, they know how to handle both a business owner and the laborers that come underneath them. And so my appreciation is being able to treat people with high respect is the name of the game in business. And certainly, in roofing,” said Sheri. 

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about Sherri’s journey within the roofing industry.