Jessy Halls has been a roofer in the Niagara region since 2008 but last September he decided to venture out on his own with The Pink Hard Hat Co. Halls started the Thorold-based roofing company in an effort to create healthier work conditions for himself and others.
“I’ve been doing it for so long,” says Halls. “I noticed these little things but it’s never been my company so I could never change them. I don’t want to put down other companies because some are really good but roofing is kind of a stereotype pretty much everywhere. They’re loud and obnoxious and it’s just not a good working environment.”
Halls also points to the substance abuse issues he witnessed at previous job sites that pushed him to start his own venture, noting, “There’s a lot of people that have drug and alcohol issues in roofing. And if you’re the foremen of somebody and they have an accident you could be liable. It’s just really hard to deal with that, I don’t know if you know of the fentanyl epidemic but I know two or three roofers like that. Some of the people I worked with I felt so bad for but I just got tired of it. I didn’t want to get to know someone that might die.“
Even though starting his own company was a no-brainer, Halls says it’s been a steep learning curve. “I am good at doing work but I am not good at trying to sell myself. It’s getting good now, I’m getting used to talking to people, opposed to just doing the work, but if I ever get the opportunity I would just hire a sales person and let them do all that.”
Luckily, Halls was known as the ‘pink hard hat guy’ long before he started his own company. “My helmet got crushed one day so I went to the Work Authority in St. Catharines and they had white and they had pink. I saw the pink one and just thought, ‘I’ll get this’. It stands out. I’ll have contractors I have never talked to before but they will be like, ‘Oh, that’s the guy with the pink hard hat.’“
Even though his business is only one year old Halls says he already has created his own little family at The Pink Hard Hat Co. “Everyone I hire is brand new, has never roofed before and I just train them from start to finish. I tell my workers, ‘Sometimes we see each other more than we see our own families,’ so I try to make it as easy as possible for everyone and there’s no yelling and screaming on the job site and everyone gets along.”
