How did Strawder Family Innovations get its start and where did the idea for your roofing safety device, The RIDGEPRO, come from?
Strawder Family Innovations is a family business consisting of myself, my two brothers and our parents. We’ve been in construction pretty much our whole lives in some way or another. As my father got older and was still working on roofs, he realized his legs and eyes were getting weaker and it was becoming more dangerous. In this industry there are many people who fall off houses and get injured or actually die, so we made it our mission to dramatically reduce those accidents. My brother is a mechanical engineer and I went to business and marketing school, so we as a family put our heads together and came up with this product, The RIDGEPRO. It caught on so quickly and we’ve been in business for about six years now.

How does this product differ from others that came before it?
The idea that you could connect to the peak of a roof before you ever got off a ladder was something that had never really been explored prior to our introduction to the market. We now sell this all-in-one safety device to roofing contractors, insurance adjusters, solar installers and chimney sweeps; basically anyone who gets on the roof for their job. We have a way for them to get off the ladder and return to the ladder in a much safer way than was previously available in the residential roofing industry.

Did you conduct extensive research while developing The RIDGEPRO?
Absolutely. When we decided that we wanted to be an innovations company, we knew there were going to be two parts to the equation. The first was the product, obviously. We did our homework and we have been down the road with the federal government to make sure it is compliant. The second part of the innovation is about changing the ways of working for roofing professionals. We had to make believers out of people who have been doing work the same way for generations. In an industry like that it was a big ambition to not only get into a very established market, but also try to make it accessible to roofers so they would change the way they do things. I think we’ve been successful in doing that.

Is The RIDGEPRO easy to use?
We knew right from the beginning that if we were going to succeed it would have to be portable, it would have to be super easy to set up and use, and it would have to be versatile, because not every roof is the same. For example, it could be a 45-degree roof, it could be a 60-degree roof; all of these roofs have different variations. So we incorporated a way to set the slope of the roof on the device itself on the ground, before you even go up. Then when you push it up to the peak with the extension pole, you get the maximum clamp on the peak of the roof before you even step off the ladder. Those things were very important factors during development.

What kind of feedback are you getting from professionals?
Once they have used it four or five times, their feedback is that they don’t know how they ever worked without it. It makes such a big difference. I get emails and phone calls and I meet people at conferences who tell me how a shingle came out from under them on the roof and they slipped, but The RIDGEPRO saved their life. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

Do you believe more industries can take advantage of The RIDGEPRO?
The idea of The RIDGEPRO should be thought of as a platform. We get calls from random people, like companies that hang Christmas lights. We never thought we would get into the home decorating industry or gutter cleaning or chimney sweeping. The idea that you can be safe from the ladder to the peak of the roof has opened up a lot of creativity and we’re always learning new ways that we can be beneficial. But it’s important to note that this is a tool for professionals. It was never our focus to turn the everyday homeowner into a roofing professional. When it comes to these kinds of heights, there are risks involved and you want to leave it to the professionals.

Strawder Family Innovations
20 Commerce Drive, Suite 135 | Cranford, N.J.
(908) 603-6266
TheRidgePro.com

Published (and copyrighted) in House & Home, Volume 21, Issue 3 (October 2020). 
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