No debt, no shortcuts: How a veteran-owned roofing company is doing business with purpose

Lots of roofing companies talk about growth. Fewer talk about restraint. 

Wes McClure, a veteran and owner of Georgia-based Bravo Roofing, is building his business around both, while anchoring it on a set of rules he won’t bend. 

What’s happening: McClure entered the roofing industry after leaving the military and stepping away from his studies in engineering. 

• Today, his company runs several jobs a day across two locations in Georgia, both of which are roughly 30 minutes outside of Atlanta, with ambitions to expand into neighboring states in the Southeast. 
• But growth, he says, only works if the foundation holds. 

Zoom in: That foundation begins with cash flow: McClure won’t start a job until a homeowner’s out-of-pocket costs and initial insurance payment are in hand. 

• “I’m a zero-debt company. I don’t owe money to anybody,” McClure told Homepros in an interview. 
• It’s a deliberate departure from a common industry model, where contractors stack jobs and wait on payments — often putting pressure on cash flow when receivables stretch too far, he said. 

Between the lines: He’s just as direct about ethics. “You get so many companies out there that will pay insurance deductibles for homeowners, which is illegal,” McClure said, describing a practice he believes undercuts pricing and weakens the industry.

• “We’re all getting materials from the same places, and also, our margins are all the same. So they have to make up the money somewhere, and it’s just a bad look,” he added.
• “If everybody got on board and agreed not to do it, it would just make the market overall a lot stronger.”

Zoom out: Even with strong earning potential, hiring remains one of the biggest challenges McClure is experiencing in the Southeast — and not just for laborers. 

• “The hardest thing is to find salespeople,” he said. “You can go into this industry right now and make a very high six-figure income your first year, but people like the idea of titles.”
• “Nobody wants to work. Everybody wants instant gratification,” he added. “Nobody wants to put in a 40-hour work week. They want to do the bare minimum.”  
• McClure says he loves hiring veterans, former police officers, and firefighters. 
• “They have a good work ethic. They have thick skins. They know how to deal with customers. So any opportunity I get to hire a veteran, I am all for it.”

The big picture: McClure’s approach extends beyond operations: He’s also made it a point to give back to his community by providing free roofs to veterans in need.

• He’s currently accepting applications for his second giveaway, a decision shaped by his own deployment to Afghanistan, when a landscaping company maintained his home at no cost for over two years. 
• “They didn’t charge me for landscaping for eighteen months for the entire deployment, and another nine months when I got home. They took care of everything,” McClure said, adding, “I wanted to do something in return like somebody had done for me when I needed help.”