Roof Maxx and Mike Rowe Team Up to Spotlight the Changing Landscape of Roofing
Throughout the day, Rowe explored Roof Maxx's signature product alongside Roof Maxx CEO and co-founder Mike Feazel, taking a close look at how asphalt shingles have changed over time-specifically how today's shingles often lack the durability of those made even a decade ago. Rowe also spoke directly with Roof Maxx dealers and customers, capturing real-world stories that demonstrate how roof rejuvenation is changing the way homeowners and roofing professionals think about maintenance, sustainability, and value.
'It's a great American story-opportunity meets ambition with a little frustration, and suddenly, here you are.' said Mike Rowe after hearing Mike Feazel tell the story about how he co-founded Roof Maxx with his brother after seeing the quality of asphalt shingles rapidly decline after spending decades in the roofing industry.
Mike Rowe is best known as the host of Dirty Jobs and the voice behind Deadliest Catch, but his passion for the skilled trades extends far beyond television. Through his foundation, mikeroweWORKS, Rowe has helped provide millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships to individuals pursuing careers in the trades-encouraging a return to practical, hands-on education and opportunity.
The content captured during this filming day is currently being released in a series of short videos, available at https://roofmaxx.us/mike-rowe and across Roof Maxx's social media platforms. These videos offer a behind-the-scenes look at how roof rejuvenation is reshaping the roofing industry - and why more and more contractors, homeowners, and communities are getting on board.
About Roof Maxx
Roof Maxx is the world's first sustainable roofing solution, offering a revolutionary, plant-based treatment that extends the life of asphalt roofs by 5 years per application - up to 15 years total. With thousands of treatments applied nationwide, Roof Maxx is helping homeowners save money while reducing roofing waste and supporting eco-friendly home maintenance.
Contact InformationKylie Hunt Senior Marketing Manager 614-977-1932
SOURCE: Roof Maxx Technologies, LLC
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Forbes
2 minutes ago
- Forbes
How This Billionaire Family Is Succeeding Despite The Collapse Of The American Shipping Industry
T he tanker American Energy is 900 feet long with a black hull; its bridge reaches the height of a ten-story building. Jutting out of the top deck are the squared-off corners of the ship's enormous liquefied natural gas storage tanks—painted a turquoise that complements the waters of the port of Peñuelas, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. There, in June, the ship—owned by Jacksonville, Florida–based shipping company Crowley Maritime—made its first delivery to the island of 35 million gallons (130,000 cubic meters) of super-chilled (to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit) liquid natural gas (LNG) sourced from American shale frackers. That's enough in one shipment to generate the electricity to power 80,000 homes for a year, says Tom Crowley Jr., the 58-year-old chairman and majority owner of Crowley Maritime. American Energy is a new ship for Crowley, but despite its gleaming appearance, it's far from new. It was built in 1994 and was headed to the scrap heap before Crowley picked it up last year for an estimated $25 million. Why would he invest in this ship, when on any given day a dozen bigger, newer, more efficient tankers are loading up on American LNG to export to the world? Conversely, why can't one of the hundreds of other modern megatankers filling up on LNG in Louisiana or Texas just make a stop in Peñuelas? The answer is the Jones Act. Otherwise known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, it requires vessels transiting from one U.S. port to another be built in the U.S., be crewed by Americans and fly the Stars and Stripes. Or get a waiver. Jamel Toppin for Forbes It turns out a waiver was needed in the case of American Energy, which was built in France. Crowley got the ship approved as a Jones Act vessel only after finding a loophole—a 1996 law that allows ships built abroad before 1996 to be used in Jones Act trade. 'We were concerned we wouldn't find a single one,' he says. This is nonsensical. You shouldn't have to divert an old ship from the junkyard on a technicality so that a U.S. territory can get deliveries of the same product we've been selling to Europe and Asia for years. But it's a prime example of how Crowley has learned to navigate the shallow shoals of regulatory hazards in one of the world's most unforgiving hard-asset businesses. Of the 125 vessels Crowley owns, 112 are Jones Act–compliant, making it, with $3.5 billion in revenue, the biggest in this niche. By sticking to this protected swim lane, Crowley—who along with his immediate family owns some 80% of the company, worth an estimated $1.5 billion—is able to steer clear of shipping whales like Denmark's Maersk ($56 billion revenue) and China's Cosco ($32 billion). 'Though it doesn't drive the company, Crowley says, 'the Jones Act is something we operate within.' In 1892 Crowley's grandfather, Tom Crowley, then 17, used all his savings (about $80) to buy an 18-foot Whitehall rowboat. When a big ship dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay, he'd row out with supplies. After the great earthquake of 1906, Crowley helped A.P. Giannini's Bank of Italy (which later became Bank of America) protect cash and securities by stuffing them in milk cans anchored on a Crowley boat in the harbor. The founder's son, Thomas Bannon Crowley, took over the company in the 1940s and helmed it through World War II and postwar growth into Alaska and the Caribbean. Their ships carried material to build out Prudhoe Bay and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. After the Exxon Valdez spill in March 1989, Crowley invested $1.5 billion to retrofit its fleet of smaller tankers to add double hulls. When his dad died in 1994, Thomas B. Crowley Jr. was 27, a graduate of the University of Washington with a passion for computers. In the three decades since, he has fought the purported family-business curse (from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations) by standing up to longshoremen's unions, dumping the company's San Francisco Bay ferry business in 1997 and quickly selling off Crowley's South American shipping line after international trade negotiations went sour. And he leveraged his fleet's protected Jones Act status to win contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development managing emergency shipments of disaster aid like Ebola medicine to Liberia and frozen chicken to Cuba. Luck has also played a role. Crowley's last big USAID contract ran out last year, so he wasn't hurt when the Trump administration killed the aid agency and most of its programs. How to Play It Patrick Welsh for Forbes By William Baldwin Ocean shippers have a habit of going bankrupt, a consequence of high debt ratios, inelastic supply and volatile demand. The better way to invest in the movement of heavy goods across the seas is to bet on the future of liquefied gas. (Yes, gas is heavy: A ship typically carries at least 70,000 tons of it.) Cheniere Energy runs LNG export operations. Pembina Pipeline is a diverse fuel hauler with a new liquefied-propane dock in Canada. EQT Corporation is a gas producer interested in sending as much gas as possible abroad. All three are reasonably priced, with enterprise values between 10 and 14 times earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation. William Baldwin is Forbes' Investment Strategies columnist. Even Jones Act supporters like John McCown, who used to operate a container shipping business and is now at the Center for Maritime Strategy, admit it adds 20% to shipping costs, but that 'more than pays for itself in terms of the national security benefits of having a ready merchant fleet.' If the law were repealed, McCown would expect lower-cost global giants to quickly subsume all the routes between Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Alaska and the mainland. 'At the heart of it is that America needs to be able to run ships,' Crowley says. In 2017 he won his biggest contract, with the Department of Defense, to manage the logistics of shipping 300,000 pieces of equipment annually (the contract was renewed in 2024 at $2.3 billion for seven years). After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and its power grid in 2017, Crowley moved 40,000 power poles, 7,000 transformers and 10 million miles of cable to the island. Even in the best of times, Puerto Rico's grid is unreliable, and Crowley began hearing the same message from the pharmaceutical factories and food distributors who wanted to invest in their own gas-powered microgrids to ensure redundant electricity supplies: 'You've got to figure out a way to get American LNG to Puerto Rico.' And why not? 'The U.S. has an infinite supply,' he says. From nothing a decade ago, the U.S. now exports 12 billion cubic feet of gas per day, 9% of domestic production. But none of it was going to Puerto Rico because not a single Jones Act–compliant LNG tanker existed anywhere in the world, at any price. Crowley initially moved smaller amounts of LNG in insulated cargo containers offloaded onto trucks, but this was extremely inefficient. The company contracted with Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Wisconsin to build a 400-foot LNG-carrying barge that it now uses in Savannah, Georgia's harbor as a mobile filling station for ships. But it wasn't big enough to go to San Juan, and the last time an American yard had built a large LNG carrier was 50 years ago. The U.S. used to be a shipbuilding powerhouse. By 1776, timber from eastern American forests outfitted a third of the ships in the British Royal Navy. During World War II the U.S. built more than 5,000 ships. Now that's down to fewer than 10 per year, totaling less than 1% of global oceangoing tonnage. Today, supported by state subsidies, protectionist laws and cheap labor, China is the biggest shipbuilder with a 50% share, followed by South Korea and Japan. Crowley would like to build American, if it makes sense. Two of his ships, the six-year-old El Coquí and Taíno, are hybrids that carry both containers and vehicles between Jacksonville and San Juan, and were built in Pascagoula, Mississippi. El Coquí' s captain, Nick St. Jean, says the LNG-powered propulsion system has been highly reliable and easier to maintain than older diesel-fueled steam engines, and with 40% lower carbon emissions. Crowley competitors Matson Shipping and Pasha Group each recently sent an aging U.S.-built, Jones Act–compliant vessel to Asia to have their old engines replaced with efficient new ones that run on LNG. Matson says the overhaul cost $72 million, which is more than the price of a new Chinese ship. For now, American Energy is still powered by steam turbines. Not all of Crowley's ships meet the requirements of the Jones Act. He chartered his newest four container ships (to run routes from Florida to Central America) from Hyundai's Mipo yard in South Korea. The company also had to acquire non-U.S.-built roll-on/roll-off ships to satisfy the specifications of the Defense Department contract. 'We needed them quickly, so we bought foreign,' Crowley says. Listacle All In The Family The Crowleys aren't the only clan breaking the three-generation curse. Here are a handful of big businesses that go way back—and are still run by their founding families. Zildjian (cymbals) • Fifteen generations Zildjian Founded in Constantinople in 1623 by an Armenian alchemist who discovered the perfect alloy for musical cymbals while trying to make gold, the company moved to Massachusetts in 1929. It's now chaired by 14th-gen Craigie Zildjian, who was its first female CEO. Yuengling • Six generations Billionaire Dick Yuengling lords over America's oldest brewery, founded in 1829 by his great-great-grandfather; his four daughters are execs. Smucker's • Five generations Jerome Monroe Smucker started the jelly-and-jam maker as a small Ohio cider mill in 1897. His son and grandson took it public in 1959; now fifth-gen Mark Smucker is CEO of the $8.7 billion (sales) business. Wegmans • Five generations The beloved East Coast grocery chain began with two brothers selling produce from a pushcart in 1916; now fourth-gen CEO Colleen Wegman has expanded it beyond 100 locations. *Based on the latest generation to hold an executive role at the company. Jones Act critics such as Colin Grabow at the Cato Institute argue that if the purpose of the law was to protect and incentivize a strong domestic shipping fleet, it has objectively failed and should be scrapped. He says Crowley's ploy of cleaning up an old French-built tanker and calling it American Energy 'demonstrates the gains that can be realized when Americans are provided even a partial reprieve from the Jones Act.' Crowley did make one recent American-made addition to the fleet: an all-electric tugboat called eWolf, built by Master Boat Builders of Coden, Alabama. The 82-foot tug boasts 70 tons of towing capacity. Now working in San Diego's harbor, it cost about $35 million, double the price of a traditional tugboat. Zero emissions is nice, but the tug has a limited range. Even after getting $13 million in subsidies from the San Diego Air Pollution Control District and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Crowley says he can't justify buying another one. In time, decision making will fall to the fourth Crowley generation, including a daughter who works in insurance in London and son Bannon Crowley, 27, who oversees harbor tugs in Jacksonville. 'I've been a steward of this,' the current Crowley boss says. 'I'm trying to teach them the same kind of stewardship.' More from Forbes Forbes Red States–And AI–Are Big Losers From Trump's Clean Energy Massacre By Christopher Helman Forbes Why Ramaco Says It Can Beat Its Government-Backed Rival For Rare Earth Supremacy By Christopher Helman Forbes Inside Private Equity's $29 Trillion Retirement Savings Grab By Hank Tucker Forbes The Best Brokers For Saving On Capital Gains Taxes By William Baldwin
New York Times
2 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump and the E.U. Have a Blueprint for a Giant Trade Deal. Is it Good for Europe?
President Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, clearly agreed on one thing as they announced the outlines of a trade deal between their two massive economies. It would be huge. Ms. von der Leyen had emphasized the potential scale during negotiations, and she reiterated it after the two sides announced an agreement Sunday, calling it 'the biggest trade deal ever.' Mr. Trump picked up that talking point and ran with it. 'This is the biggest of them all,' he said. For a president who often fixates on superlatives, the new pact offered an attractive talking point. The United States and the 27-nation bloc have the largest economic relationship in the world by many measures, trading nearly $2 trillion in goods and services per year. But while that may have helped Ms. von der Leyen to get an agreement over the finish line — despite Mr. Trump's longstanding skepticism toward Europe — a giant deal is not necessarily a good deal for Europe. Many European companies will be worse off. About 70 percent of European products will now face a 15 percent tariff when they enter the United States, according to senior European Commission officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the package before it is finalized. That would be a major increase in charges. Since consumers often pay for higher tariffs, American shoppers are likely to shoulder at least some of that additional cost. It's also likely that American companies stand to benefit from other parts of the agreement — including the European Union's promise to spend more on U.S. energy products and defense equipment. But much is uncertain, and reactions in Europe were sharply divided. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and some business groups offered statements of cautious support, voicing hope that the agreement would prevent an escalation in pain and uncertainty. Others were more critical. François Bayrou, France's prime minister, said on social media that it was a 'dark day' for Europe. 'My initial assessment: Not satisfactory,' Bernd Lange, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, wrote on social media. 'This is a lopsided deal.' Is a 15 percent tariff a good outcome for the E.U.? American tariffs on European Union goods were previously in the low single-digits on average. And just a few weeks ago, the bloc hoped to negotiate a 10 percent across-the-board rate. Given that, a 15 percent tariff on goods from the European Union marks a notable step up. Still, the rate would be in line with what other American trading partners, including Japan, have agreed. It is also much lower than the 30 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump had threatened to impose on the bloc starting on Aug. 1. 'When you prepare for a hurricane, somehow the storm feels like a relief. That is how the deal currently feels,' said Carsten Brzeski, the global head of macroeconomics for ING Research. Mr. Brzeski added that the outlined agreement could be seen as 'damage control.' One sector that will welcome the deal is the car industry. The 15 percent rate is higher than the 2.5 percent that was in place before 2025. But it would significantly lower the tariff that European carmakers, including Volkswagen and BMW, have faced since Mr. Trump imposed a 25 percent levy on foreign-made cars and car parts in April. European companies, which sent vehicles worth 38.5 billion euros ($45 billion) to the United States last year, have been suffering from the uncertainty caused by Mr. Trump's tariffs and threats. The impact on the E.U.'s top export is less certain. Pharmaceuticals are the European Union's most important export to the United States, and it remains unclear how tariffs will apply to them. The United States is still working on an investigation into the pharmaceutical industry globally that could result in higher tariffs on medicine. The senior European Commission officials on Monday suggested that their understanding is that pharmaceutical products will be set at zero for the time being, and will not be subjected to tariffs higher than 15 percent once the investigation concludes. Ms. von der Leyen had established that as a hard line. But that is a political agreement, not yet a legally binding one, the officials acknowledged. Ms. von der Leyen herself said Sunday that 'how to deal with pharmaceuticals in general, globally, that's on a different sheet of paper.' Many details are not finalized, and exceptions will be key. Ms. von der Leyen said a range of products would not face tariffs on either side of the Atlantic. The list included airplanes, some generic drugs, some agricultural products, and critical raw minerals. On some other farm goods, Europe is expected to expand how much can be imported from the United States without facing tariffs. But the senior European Commission officials on Monday said that a list of specific products — which is expected to include items like lobsters, frozen seafood and pet food — will be published only when a paper outline of the framework agreement is released. That is still in the works and could come in the coming days. And additional European exports could still face lower tariff rates. Ms. von der Leyen said that it had not yet been decided whether wine and spirits would be exempt, for instance. Ms. von der Leyen also indicated that negotiations were ongoing when it comes to steel and aluminum products, which Mr. Trump said would remain subject to a 50 percent tariff rate. Steel and aluminum products are expected to fall under a new quota system, the European Commission officials said. The system would set lower tariffs on metal products sent to the United States up to the current volume of annual exports. Only steel and aluminum in excess of those historical amounts would face higher tariff rates. But the details are not yet finalized. How quickly those negotiations will occur — and how extensive exemptions will be — remains to be seen. How big are the E.U.'s purchase plans? Mr. Trump also talked up the investments in the United States that E.U. officials had promised as part of the deal. The bloc has agreed to buy $750 billion worth of American energy, he said. Mr. Trump added that its 27 member states will also invest $600 billion more in the United States. Those are big headline numbers, even if they will be spread out over time. Ms. von der Leyen said that the energy purchases will occur over three years. In other words, $250 billion would be spent for each remaining year of Mr. Trump's presidential term. That would amount to a substantial chunk of Europe's energy spending. For context, the European Union imported 375.9 billion euros ($442 billion) worth of liquefied natural gas, petroleum, and natural gas products in 2024. The new commitment would also include nuclear-related investments, which are not included in that figure. But when it comes to both energy purchases and the broader investment pledges, spending would come from European member states. Such purchases are typically not something that the European Union as a bloc has power over. Given that, it is not clear how binding those pledges would be — or even how they would be tracked. With so many uncertainties, business groups were hesitant to give the package an immediate endorsement. 'We still need to examine the details and hope that a solution is soon found for important sectors that appear to be excluded from the deal,' Fredrik Persson, president of BusinessEurope, a lobby group that represents European companies, said in a statement.
Wall Street Journal
2 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Companies Welcome EU-U.S. Trade Deal as Least-Bad Outcome
BRUSSELS—Business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic breathed a sigh of relief that the U.S. and European Union had averted a bruising trade war with their agreement on tariffs and investment. Now attention is shifting to assessing the deal's winners and losers. President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who leads the EU's executive body, announced the preliminary deal on Sunday that puts baseline tariffs at 15% for most European goods. In parallel, the EU said European companies would buy $750 billion of American energy products over three years and invest an additional $600 billion in the U.S.
