Business: StormTite Company, Inc.
Type of business: Roofing, siding and windows.
Owner: Ed Ladouceur
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Location: Warwick
Employees: 23
Year founded: 1969
Annual sales: WND
Not long after Ed Ladouceur bought StormTite Co. in 1989 and assumed control of the operation, Ladouceur called his new company’s oldest and longest serving employee, Roy Mattatall, into his office and sat him down for a chat.
It was Mattatall’s 65th birthday. He had been proudly stripping clapboard and laying shingles for the Warwick-based home remodeling business for going on a quarter of a century. This was a man who had never given anyone five minutes of headache, just a wonderful guy, Ladouceur recalled recently. But Mattatall was becoming an insurance risk, a danger to himself.
“You know and I know you can’t continue climbing three-story roofs, up and down the ladders, it just doesn’t work, Roy,” Ladouceur recalled telling Mattatall.
Mattatall stared at the new boss a long few seconds before asking, “Are you telling me I have to retire?”
Tough business, this. Ladouceur met Mattatall’s gaze.
“Tell you what, Roy. If you promise not to retire, I promise never to put you on anything higher than a three-step ladder again,” Ladouceur said.
This past October, StormTite celebrated Mattatall’s 75th birthday. Still the oldest and longest serving employee in the company, today Mattatall calls his own shots from the ground as a crew chief for the company.
Of course, what do the customers who go to StormTite for home detailing and siding jobs care about the way Ed Ladouceur treats his employees? What they know is that StormTite provides durable, easy-to-maintain vinyl siding that never looks obviously “vinyl.” The company has twice won the Vinyl Siding Institute’s historical applications award, for its seamless, period-style vinyl remodeling of the Greenville Baptist Church and the Warwick Baptist Church.
But obviously the way Ladouceur treats his employees and his clients is all of a piece – StormTite is a successful company because Ladouceur, a former U.S. Marine, takes a disciplined, hands-on approach to making everyone around him happy.
“When I was 14, my father got me started in the industry working with him, weekends and summers. He was never one to let his boys lie around,” said Ladouceur. “I quit school at 16, no one could teach me anything. (I) went to my Dad and said, ‘I don’t like school.’ Well, by the end of that summer my father had driven me into the ground. I went back and graduated high school, but I still was not college bound. Then I drew number 30 in the nation’s first draft lottery. I joined the Marine Corps, figured, might as well do it all the way. It was the best thing I had ever done, it completely changed my life. I was something of a wild individual, a rabble-rouser. They showed me real quick that I wasn’t the tough guy I thought I was. Taught me discipline, teamwork. I learned to take orders better, learned the chain of command. People still say I’m still a very regimented individual. I think there’s a virtue in that.”
Ladouceur’s regimented, methodical way of caring manifests itself in every thing he does. He served on the Better Business Bureau until being appointed to the state’s Contractor’s Registration Board, which regulates 9,000 contractors in Rhode Island.
He has been a lobbyist since 1996, and played a role in the 1999 legislation requiring companies in Rhode Island to provide workers’ compensation insurance to all employees. Prior to the new law, only companies with three or more employees needed to provide their workers with workers compensation insurance benefits.
Ladouceur’s tenacity was key in getting the legislation passed – a move that not only resulted in securing workers comp benefits for thousands of workers in Rhode Island, but also leveled the playing field for larger contractors faced with competing against small shops.
He’s in line to be the first remodeler president of the Rhode Island Builders Association in 2004, and was recently appointed by Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty to the Small Business Advocacy Council. He is presently the vice president of the Rhode Island Builders Association.
And last May, Remodeling Magazine, the major national journal for that industry,
named StormTite one of its “Top 50” remodeling companies in America in 2002.
StormTite was chosen from a field of more than 860,000 remodelers in the country,
and was the only Rhode Island company chosen and one of five chosen in New England.
