Nate Fouty
Owner of Mickey’s Roofing
Granville, Ohio
I interviewed Nate Fouty on a spring day in May 2009in Granville Ohio. The interview took place in his office which is located on 80 acres of land along side his farm house. He has been working in the roofing business for twelve years and took over the Mickey’s Roofing at the age of 29. He spends his days running the business and comes home at night to a beautiful wife and two children whom he adores. He grew up in a family with very little money but it’s what has made him the person he is today. He chose to take the experiences of his childhood and create a successful future for him and his family. His hard work and determination are some of his greatest attributes and you see them in everything he does. His story is an inspiration because he chose to have a good attitude about not having anything growing up and was determined to work hard and do better for himself. I had the chance to talk to him for just an hour but in that hour I discovered that he has put so much hard work into making a good life for him and his family.
Well, I grew up in the country, didn’t really have a whole lot of anything but we had a house and a good family. It was just typical. Back then you played outside all the time so I would play in the woods. My childhood is something that is hard for me to talk about because I don’t want my parents to feel like I’m betraying them. We may not have had money but we always had each other. They taught me how to never give up, and I saw how they never gave up on one another. Five years ago if you would have asked me what my life was like growing up I would have told you it was terrible. Over the last few years I’ve realized that it was just the opposite, not having anything made me the person that I am today. My childhood is what taught me to be conservative with what I have. We didn’t have money to buy any new clothes and had to wear garage sale clothes all through high school even though I was being made fun of. That is what gave me the backbone to not worry about what people think all the time. For us, yeah we were money poor but there are a lot of kids out there that have made it with only having a mom. Everyone always has it worse but we always had each other. We were always tight knit and did everything together so that system of never giving up on my family I carry over into my life.
I never had dreams of being anything in particular. I was never popular so trying to succeed at things never made much sense to me. My dad always said “I did better than your grandpa now you have to do better than me.” I never really knew what that meant I just knew I had to go to work because that’s what he did. I always thought that girls would only go out with guys who had money so I was determined to make money so that I could get a girlfriend. Of course that turned out to be a waste of time. [ Laughs] It turned out that I liked making my living so I did it for me. The first day I started at Mickey’s Roofing was a changing point for me and for some reason I remember everything from my first day on the job. All my life I was taught to hate authority and that your bosses are mean and nasty and they don’t care about you. I remember the first day of this job just thinking to myself, I think I just broke away from that cycle of hate your boss. I knew at that point that something in my career was going to be different, I didn’t know how and I didn’t know what but I know something was going to be different. I didn’t know Mick my boss but something told me that it was time to break free and do my own thing. My dad taught me how to work hard but he also taught me to hate authority. Mick got a hold of me at the vulnerable age of 18 where you’re either going to make the choice to go the wrong way or the right way. He took where dad was saying do better than I did and actually took me to that point.
Starting out working here was real simple, but then I started realizing that I had leadership potential and Mick started realizing that I had leadership potential. This was the biggest challenge that I had to overcome because one of the guys had been here 13 years and another guy had been here for 6 years. As the old guy started seeing my leadership potential and started moving me in that direction I really butted heads with those guys. Moving into a leadership position at such a young age over guys that had seniority caused real problems. Those guys would fight me all the way because they didn’t want to hear from me what to do. I had to stay independent and do my own thing and that was tough. I was young and I didn’t always know what to tell them or if I was right. The other challenge I faced was taking over the business. All of a sudden you have to tell the guy that taught you how to run a business for 8 years that either he had to go or I was leaving. I knew it was what he wanted to me do because he told me he wanted me to have it but I had to take it from him. It took a lot of time and a lot of courage. There were a lot of scared times when I just didn’t know what was going to happen.
The thing that most excites me about my job is having the pressure all on me, and that it all comes down to me in the end. I like knowing that getting up in the morning there are all these people looking to me to survive. My family expects me to get up and go to work to support them, my employees expect me to have work for them to do so that they can support their families and the customers that we service are all expecting us to do a good job and protect their homes. If I mess up it’s not on anyone else it’s all on me but when things go right it’s also my reward. I get to see a lot of happy faces, and I get to see my family, who is a young family, do a lot of different things. I like giving Gage and Gracie what I didn’t have growing up. My wife Cher didn’t have anything growing up either. For two people who had no one to teach them how make what they want to make or become what they want to become, that was really amazing that we were brought together and pushed in that direction and are doing it.
I can’t tell you my hopes and dreams for the future exactly because it changes all the time. I read a slogan one time that basically said if I could tell you exactly where I want to be in the future then my dreams and my goals aren’t big enough. The only thing I can hope for is that we get to continue the lifestyle we have because we have a lot of fun. I hope the business can support our lifestyle and that it grows. Whatever it grows to in 20 years I’ll be happy as long as it grows. My American dream is to have enough money to do what I want to do and what my family wants to do. I want enough money for the future and I want to keep going with this business. That is my dream and as long as this stuff keeps going then I am living my dream. All the things that I get to see and all the different places I get to go at such a young age that is a dream come true. If this ain’t the dream then I’m a little too selfish, this is as much of dream as it could be. To come from a family with nothing to running a fully functioning small business in America through good times and bad times that’s as good as it comes and that’s the dream!
Owner of Mickey’s Roofing
Granville, Ohio
I interviewed Nate Fouty on a spring day in May 2009in Granville Ohio. The interview took place in his office which is located on 80 acres of land along side his farm house. He has been working in the roofing business for twelve years and took over the Mickey’s Roofing at the age of 29. He spends his days running the business and comes home at night to a beautiful wife and two children whom he adores. He grew up in a family with very little money but it’s what has made him the person he is today. He chose to take the experiences of his childhood and create a successful future for him and his family. His hard work and determination are some of his greatest attributes and you see them in everything he does. His story is an inspiration because he chose to have a good attitude about not having anything growing up and was determined to work hard and do better for himself. I had the chance to talk to him for just an hour but in that hour I discovered that he has put so much hard work into making a good life for him and his family.
Well, I grew up in the country, didn’t really have a whole lot of anything but we had a house and a good family. It was just typical. Back then you played outside all the time so I would play in the woods. My childhood is something that is hard for me to talk about because I don’t want my parents to feel like I’m betraying them. We may not have had money but we always had each other. They taught me how to never give up, and I saw how they never gave up on one another. Five years ago if you would have asked me what my life was like growing up I would have told you it was terrible. Over the last few years I’ve realized that it was just the opposite, not having anything made me the person that I am today. My childhood is what taught me to be conservative with what I have. We didn’t have money to buy any new clothes and had to wear garage sale clothes all through high school even though I was being made fun of. That is what gave me the backbone to not worry about what people think all the time. For us, yeah we were money poor but there are a lot of kids out there that have made it with only having a mom. Everyone always has it worse but we always had each other. We were always tight knit and did everything together so that system of never giving up on my family I carry over into my life.
I never had dreams of being anything in particular. I was never popular so trying to succeed at things never made much sense to me. My dad always said “I did better than your grandpa now you have to do better than me.” I never really knew what that meant I just knew I had to go to work because that’s what he did. I always thought that girls would only go out with guys who had money so I was determined to make money so that I could get a girlfriend. Of course that turned out to be a waste of time. [ Laughs] It turned out that I liked making my living so I did it for me. The first day I started at Mickey’s Roofing was a changing point for me and for some reason I remember everything from my first day on the job. All my life I was taught to hate authority and that your bosses are mean and nasty and they don’t care about you. I remember the first day of this job just thinking to myself, I think I just broke away from that cycle of hate your boss. I knew at that point that something in my career was going to be different, I didn’t know how and I didn’t know what but I know something was going to be different. I didn’t know Mick my boss but something told me that it was time to break free and do my own thing. My dad taught me how to work hard but he also taught me to hate authority. Mick got a hold of me at the vulnerable age of 18 where you’re either going to make the choice to go the wrong way or the right way. He took where dad was saying do better than I did and actually took me to that point.
Starting out working here was real simple, but then I started realizing that I had leadership potential and Mick started realizing that I had leadership potential. This was the biggest challenge that I had to overcome because one of the guys had been here 13 years and another guy had been here for 6 years. As the old guy started seeing my leadership potential and started moving me in that direction I really butted heads with those guys. Moving into a leadership position at such a young age over guys that had seniority caused real problems. Those guys would fight me all the way because they didn’t want to hear from me what to do. I had to stay independent and do my own thing and that was tough. I was young and I didn’t always know what to tell them or if I was right. The other challenge I faced was taking over the business. All of a sudden you have to tell the guy that taught you how to run a business for 8 years that either he had to go or I was leaving. I knew it was what he wanted to me do because he told me he wanted me to have it but I had to take it from him. It took a lot of time and a lot of courage. There were a lot of scared times when I just didn’t know what was going to happen.
The thing that most excites me about my job is having the pressure all on me, and that it all comes down to me in the end. I like knowing that getting up in the morning there are all these people looking to me to survive. My family expects me to get up and go to work to support them, my employees expect me to have work for them to do so that they can support their families and the customers that we service are all expecting us to do a good job and protect their homes. If I mess up it’s not on anyone else it’s all on me but when things go right it’s also my reward. I get to see a lot of happy faces, and I get to see my family, who is a young family, do a lot of different things. I like giving Gage and Gracie what I didn’t have growing up. My wife Cher didn’t have anything growing up either. For two people who had no one to teach them how make what they want to make or become what they want to become, that was really amazing that we were brought together and pushed in that direction and are doing it.
I can’t tell you my hopes and dreams for the future exactly because it changes all the time. I read a slogan one time that basically said if I could tell you exactly where I want to be in the future then my dreams and my goals aren’t big enough. The only thing I can hope for is that we get to continue the lifestyle we have because we have a lot of fun. I hope the business can support our lifestyle and that it grows. Whatever it grows to in 20 years I’ll be happy as long as it grows. My American dream is to have enough money to do what I want to do and what my family wants to do. I want enough money for the future and I want to keep going with this business. That is my dream and as long as this stuff keeps going then I am living my dream. All the things that I get to see and all the different places I get to go at such a young age that is a dream come true. If this ain’t the dream then I’m a little too selfish, this is as much of dream as it could be. To come from a family with nothing to running a fully functioning small business in America through good times and bad times that’s as good as it comes and that’s the dream!
Nice Essay!
ReplyDeleteCaitlin this essay is just full of amazingness! But of corse I would never expect nething less from u ;) tehehe
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