Sunik Roofing - Celebrates 35 Years

SUNIK ROOFING

CELEBRATES 35 YEARS

Nick Sims thought he was done with roofing. He had a job in a plant lined up when he left Texas for Canada in 1986, but when that fell through, he returned to his strengths. He quickly established himself as a talented, ambitious tradesman and that ambition led him to seek out opportunities for growth and ultimately independence in the industry.

Wrtitten by Rennay Craats | Published by Melissa Mitchell

Photos by Riverwood Photography

Nicholas Sims, Megan Perez, Susan Sims, Nick Sims, Lowell McNichol, Tina Clark, Marcus van Regen, including Digger and Luna (dogs).

This amazing, supportive team has helped the company flourish over the decades as its executive team continues to strengthen the industry as a whole.

A massive hailstorm in Red Deer in the late-1980s presented that opportunity and, with Calgary being slow at the time, Sims balanced his job at AK Contracting with putting together his own crew to take on some of the surplus hail jobs.

“Most companies in those days had three guys on a roof with hammers and nails and it would take two or three days to do a roof. I wanted to do three in a day. I had learned how to do production in Texas but it wasn’t here yet. I had years of experience on power tools and I learned how to put roofs down really fast,” says Nick Sims, president of Sunik Roofing.

He finetuned his methods, taught his crew to use these tools and left 100 quality roofs in his wake before returning to Calgary. In 1990, the city experienced a hailstorm of its own and Sims set up Sunik Roofing to tackle the workload. He agreed to do AK Contracting’s sloped roofs under their banner, putting to work his existing team while managing seven of AK’s crews. As demand increased, he brought on and trained several more tradesmen, and by 1992, Sims had come out from under the AK umbrella to operate on his own.

He and Lowell McNichol, a particularly skilled tradesman on his crew with a head for business, circulated flyers and delivered quick quality results for clients across the city. Word got around, and the business grew. In 1994, McNichol bought into the company to become Sims’ partner and together they have built a company with a strong reputation and decades’ worth of repeat sloped-roof clients. They have also amassed a fantastic team that has grown from Nick and wife Sue in the early days to include their sons Nicholas and Nathan, a dedicated partner in McNichol and a team of journeymen roofers and office staff that keep the operation running smoothly.

“I’m so thankful to have had Sue by my side and that we could do this together. And to have Lowell. He’s a very smart guy with strong ethics who always does the right thing. That’s what you want in a partner,” he says. “I feel fortunate to have good people around me.”

This amazing, supportive team has helped the company flourish over the decades as its executive team continues to strengthen the industry as a whole. Sims spent 20 years as a director, executive committee member and finally chairman of the local Better Business Bureau chapter and served as

Susan Sims, Nick Sims and Lowell McNichol

Lowell McNichol and Nick Sims

Lowell McNichol, Nicholas Sims, Nick Sims and Marcus van Regen.