Roofers and Home Improvement Can Sustain Economy

Roofing season begins

Update II: In this week’s address, President Obama said seven years after the real estate bubble burst, our housing market is healing. 

Update: Local home builders say they are looking for workers

As politicians do their thing, early-in-the-season Wisconsin roofers and contractors are out doing their thing, as spring showers permit.

A recovering housing market and a recovering economy result in many homeowners making improvements to their current housing by replacing or repairing their homes' roofs.

A higher incidence of intense storm events, as our country is experiencing as the climate changes, amplifies this dynamic.

Talk to any large insurance executive, and they'll tell you a series of hail storms can inflict some serious damage to Americans' homes.

But damage and economic instability result in economic activity in other realms such as the roofing industry.

A positive aspect of the economic malaise is small to medium-sized roofers—often self-made men and women—still believe very long hours and extremely hard work generate the fulfillment of the American Dream.

One such self-made man is Derek Myhand, owner of a roofing business in Monticello, Wisconsin.

Myhand can be found this mid-May in Fitchburg, Baraboo, and anywhere in Wisconsin where homeowners want work on their homes -- including roofs, home siding, gutters, almost anything.

Working first light until dawn, Myhand was asked this week how he manages to haul around 80-pound squares of shingles, roof a house, and pay exacting attention to detail.

"It's what I do," said Myhand. "I was raised on a farm; been in the business since I was a kid. It's early for roofing, but that why I get the work."

Residents and joggers in the Jamestown neighborhood of Fitchburg watching Myhand do a three-day job on a roof this week never saw him eat, or take a break and several neighbors talking have collectively named him, "the Terminator" after watching him strip a roof last Monday.

Citizens are convinced this guy is human; and if anyone wants to talk to him for business (recommended highly), Myhand can be reached at (608) 214-5802 or ultimateexteriorsllc@gmail.com.