August 2014 as published in Construction News

In 1986, in the depths of a recession, Gary Cram started out on top – of roofs, of course. If not for taking the risk, Cram Roofing wouldn’t have nearly three decades of history and growth under its tool belt.

“Our focus is mainly commercial, governmental,” says Mark Eichelbaum, vice president and COO. “We do a lot of federal government work, state, city, county – different government agencies. And we do a lot of re-roofing for property managers, the health industry, warehouses.”

Cram’s federal work takes its construction teams all over the country. They’ve been as far northwest as Oregon, as far west as Arizona, as far northeast as New York, and as far east as Florida, and pretty much everywhere in between. Eichelbaum emphasizes that on these federal jobs, Cram travels with a crew that is entirely its own rather than sending a supervisory team to hire laborers locally.

The company has around 85 employees, which fluctuates depending on how busy they are. Summer is historically a busy time of year as school work kicks into high gear. Also, capital improvement projects are picking up significantly, adding re-roofing projects to Cram’s busy workload.

Though Eichelbaum has always been interested in construction, he says that when it comes to fixing roofs, he leaves it to the professionals that work for the company. His background in accounting landed him the position of controller at Cram Roofing in 2002. When he was in transition to vice president and COO, he spent about six weeks in the field and three weeks in estimating. Now, he runs the day-to day operations of the various departments.

Outside of work, he likes to play golf and loves the Spurs. Also, he and his wife have two daughters. –mh