Celebrating Six Decades of Going ‘Above and Beyond’ to Bring Edmontonians Peace of Mind By Mark Kandborg
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f you grew up in Edmonton, chances are good that at least one of the roofs over your head was installed by A. Clark Roofing and Siding LP and it’s likely that was the roof you never gave much thought to, because when the job’s done right, those little shingles quietly and dependably protect you and yours from the worst that an unpredictable environment can bring, day in, day out, year after year. If there’s one thing A. Clark Roofing and Siding LP pride themselves on above all else, it’s always doing the job right. Archie Clark and his brother started A. Clark Roofing (the “A” stands for Archie) in 1953, beginning with “flat” roofing and moving on to shingles in the sixties. A few years later, when the big Alberta oil boom hit, the company was more than up to the challenge.
“Homebuilders started building blocks of houses,” recalls current general manager Robert Dunlop, who had just started with the company right out of high school at the time. “We had 160 installers, shingling houses a block at a time.” However, nothing lasts forever and when the recession arrived, taking the construction industry by surprise, those 160 installers had to be cut back to 20. “We went from very lucrative to struggling for a while there,” Dunlop says. Times were tough for everyone, but due to good management, customer loyalty and a reputation for service that was second to none, A. Clark pulled through and emerged as one of the only roofing companies in the city to survive the downturn. Today, A. Clark Roofing and Siding LP has 25 staff members and 30 crews in the field. The breadth of the field has grown for
A. Clark Roofing & Siding | 60 years