Covington Roofing celebrates 85 years

Covington Roofing recently celebrated 85 years in business. The Conway business has been run all its years by four generations of the same family.

George E. Covington Sr., chairman of the board, said his grandfather, George A. Covington, started the business in 1923 as a sheet metal and roofing business. Covington's father, George W. Covington, was a chemist at the Pine Bluff arsenal at the time. In 1936, George A. Covington secured a contract to roof the state Capitol and convinced his son to come help. George A. Covington became a partner in the business in 1946 and bought the business in 1954.

As for George E. Covington Sr., he said, "I grew up in the roofing business. I never knew anything but the roofing business. So, in 1970, I went into the roofing business.

"About the time I got into the roofing business, we hired five or six employees that were with me for anywhere from 25 to 30 years. They were a big key to our business. They were very good at what they did. They could take people who were not and train them."

Covington said he branched out into pouring concrete roof decks in the 1970s.

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"That's when we really started branching out, in the 70s," he said.

From 1923 to the 1970s, the number of employees had always been in the 10 to 20 range, but in the 1970s it went up to the 70 employee range, he said.

"We're the oldest continuing roofing company in the state," he said, stressing the word "continuing." He noted, "We have an argument with one of our competitors. Another started in 1903, but they went bankrupt twice."

He said the company does not do residential roofing but strictly industrial and commercial.

"We've learned when a client, if it's a national company, when they call, we go. We go wherever the companies tell us they want us to be."

He said of Covington Roofing, "We specialize in stuff that you've got to have more craft to do. We've done most of the tile roofs at UCA and Hendrix. There's not a lot of people who do tile roofs. We've actually been doing tile roofs since the company started."

The company has also done the copper roofs at Hendrix College, he said.

Covington's two sons, George E. Covington Jr. and Jason Covington, and his daughter, Stephanie, are all in the family business. George E. Covington Jr. is president of the company, and Jason Covington runs the construction business.

"It makes you feel good," Covington said of having his children in the business. You look around Conway and see companies that were around in my dad's era, and they didn't have kids that were interested. It's nice to have someone you can turn it over to."

He said an important part of the company's success is good relationships with employees.

An employee who retired a few years ago, who was with the company 30 years, told him, "'Boss, you're the first employer I had that I could go and talk to,'" he said.

"Most of our employees, we work with them on a daily basis. They come to this downtown office and get instructions. George Jr. knows every employee he's got. If they have a problem, he knows it, and they're going to get it worked out. I think that's the difference between retaining people for 30 years and getting them to stay a couple years."

He said it is not unusual to have several employees from the same family.

"You get one family member, then you get the brother and the uncle" he said.

The business is also known for its remodeling projects, including, but not limited to, the Old Gin, Centennial Bank (formerly First State Bank) Toad Suck Station, a former boat factory that has been transformed into a strip mall, located on Garland Street and the former United Motor building, which is now a strip center at Deer and Chestnut Streets.

Covington said he began buying and remodeling real estate in 1986. It is his "hobby," he said.

"When I buy something, it will usually be something I want to redo. If someone's redone it and it's nice looking, that doesn't interest me. People think when you do a project like that you make a killing off it. When you do an old building in a city off Conway, it's a break-even thing. We just consider that it's all a part of what we're doing to make Conway better."

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)