Giving Back with Larson Home Services

Andrew talks about the Bob Militello Giveback Project, which rewards a deserving homeowner with a new roof in honor of one of Larson Home Services' first employees. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
A A thirteen ten WI B Aand ask the experts. Joined this morning
by our good friend Andrew Larson.Andrew comes to us from Larsen Home Services.
The website Larsenhomeservices dot com. That'sLarson L A R. S O
N Home Services dot com. Checkout the website their telephone number. Write
this down, type it into yourphone, or simply call now six oh

(00:21):
eight five three five forty three fortythree. That's five three five four three
four three. Andrew Spring is here. Life is good and things are just
humming along, aren't they. Goodto talk to you, by the way,
Yeah, things are. Things arereally picking up around here. So
it's really nice to see. Thegrass is green, plants are starting to

(00:43):
sprout. We're getting some nice rain, and now it's beautiful and sunny,
and we're busy, and you know, I was thinking about, you know,
contrary to most people's beliefs that listento this radio show, we don't
like get together and like plan thisthing out. I mean, no,
no, magic just comes together onthe spur of a moment. Yes,

(01:03):
right, yes, yeah, SoI was thinking this morning, you know,
what to talk about, and youknow we always talking about gutters and
houses and roofing and how we canyou know, help fix your home.
I mean that that's you know,that's what we do. And something we
had a staff meeting about yesterday waswas a Bob Miltello give back. And

(01:26):
I've talked about I believe Bob's donethe show before. Sure, he sure
did. Yeah, he was fans. We loved having Bob in. Yeah
when he came by him, Yeah, so so Bob. For people that
are new or listening to this,But Bob was like one of my first
employees. So back in the daytwo thousand and nine, we had three

(01:49):
employees and Bob was one of them. And he was one of my first
sales reps and became one of mybest friends and moved into the sales manager
and led a team through really caring. He just he truly cared about our
guys. He cared about everybody inthe company, He cared about our customers.

(02:14):
He was just one of the mostcaring, nicest people. And to
be honest with you, at firstwhen he when he when he came to
me and said that he wanted tobe sales manager, I was like,
Ah, I don't know, Ithink you're too nice, Bob, you
know, and not that it's notthat a manager can't be nice, but
like you know, you gotta bea little starts work. Yeah exactly,
yeah, you know so. Butanyway, Bob became a sales manager and

(02:36):
like the staple of the company,someone that for oh boy, the better
part of twelve years I talked toevery day only honestly, almost seven days
a week talked Abob. But twentytwenty one we lost Bob complications from cancer.
I think there was complications from COVID, COVID whatever, doesn't matter,

(02:58):
but Bob passed away and really havethe big kind of hole in our company.
I mean, we still have abig portrait of him hanging in our
conference room. But so we we. Anyway, a couple of years ago,
we decided to do something cool anddo the Bob Miltel Will give Back
project, because that's what he wouldhave wanted to do. I cannot tell
you, Sean, how many timesthis man came to me and said,

(03:21):
I was at this homeowner's home.They need our gutters so bad, but
they can't afford it. Is thereany way I can take forgo my commission
and you can take the payments forit out of my paycheck. I'm like,
man, Bob, like, wecan't really do that, Like I

(03:42):
can't, but we can work somethingout. And because of him, like
we did give some people some freegutters and work it out. But he
was willing to pay for it himself. So this is the type of person
he was. So we started theBob Milttel Will give Back Project and in
twenty twenty two we did our actuallytwenty twenty three, right at the end
of the year, we did ourfirst. We did our first roof for

(04:03):
a wonderful lady and Lodi, whohad a really old house needed some repairs,
but the biggest problem was her roof. And you know her she was.
She was nominated by her sister.Her sister let us know that she
was just one of the nicest people, and she had had some issues with

(04:29):
her her kids. One of herson had had a traumatic brain injury from
an accident. And she's you know, she basically in her eighties and taking
care of her her grown children anddoing the best she can. And I
remember the first time I went inher house and it broke my heart.
She literally had a dozen or morebuckets and cans at different places in her
house because her roof was leaking thatbad and she could not afford to fix

(04:50):
her roof and winter was coming,and it's all she thought about. And
we took that stress off of hershoulders when we went to her house and
said, look, we're going tofix your roof, tearing everything off,
starting from scratch, brand new.You're never gonna have to worry about this
again. And I've never seen suchrelief come from somebody, because at the

(05:13):
end of the day, this roofwas going to cause her to lose her
house. It was going to wreckher house. I mean, look,
growing up people, I don't thinkanybody really goes, hey, I think
I want to be a roofer.It's just not something you think about.
But if you do think about it, you step back and you think,

(05:33):
but what, There's not a lotwhen it comes to building that's more important.
No matter a house, an apartment, a condo, a business,
pullshit, whatever it may be,a barn, it has to have a
good roof on it. And ifit doesn't have a good roof on it,
it will rot from the inside out. And that's what was happening to

(05:54):
this lady's house. Was it wasstarting to wreck everything, and it would
have her home would have been condemned. But we came in and we fixed
our roof, and I may havereally really had a full heart that day.
I even threw in gutter shutter andI mean, yeah, I mean
at the end of the day,it was probably about a forty thousand dollars

(06:16):
project because it needed redecking, everythingwas rotten. It was just it was
it was a lot. But atthe end of the day, we were
able to help this lady stay inher home instead of getting condemned and her
having to move out, and itwas just it's one of the best feelings.

(06:36):
So I wanted to talk about iton here because in the next couple
of weeks we're going to be puttingsome stuff out through social media, and
we're not just we're not just goingto isolate it to the Madison area,
because as people know, we've reallyexpanded and we've got an office in Milwaukee.
Now, we're in Rochester, Minnesota. Now we're in the Green Bay

(06:58):
Appleton area, and we're going tokind of expanded almost to the whole state.
And you know, unfortunately we canreally only do one roof, but
we want to make sure that wepick the most deserving person because listen,
everybody wants to buy a home.It's our biggest asset, it's our safe
space, it's what we need tosurvive. But if you need a new
roof, that is a very expensiveproject that a lot of people can't afford.

(07:24):
So if we can help at leastone deserving person a year, do
it in Bob's name, that's whatwe're going to do, and we're going
to continue to do it. SoI just want people to watch for the
next couple of weeks. You're goingto start seeing some stuff come out.
And if you know deserving people,you know, veterans, it doesn't matter,

(07:44):
single home owners with kids, Idon't care whoever. They are great
people, deserving people that need alittle help. That's who we want to
find and that's who we want tohelp. Sean, you mentioned the Facebook
and social media. Of course,Larsen Home Services you can find them there
Larsen Home Services l A R sO N Home Services dot com. And
it was interesting as you were talkingabout Bob, I went back on your

(08:05):
Facebook page to look through some ofthe photos, and I know you've got
a few of Bob up there,and there is one that you posted quite
a few years ago, and I'mguessing this picture was taken quite a few
years before this. It's you andBob and you look like look like you
might be twenty So talk about howlong? No? I mean, yeah,

(08:26):
you know, like I did.Look. You know what's funny is
I was talking about this at homethe other day and I found a picture
of me and Bob. Yeah,and I showed it to my newly turned
fourteen year old daughter. And thatpicture that I showed her was probably taken
when she was she was a baby. Yeah, and I was a lot

(08:48):
heavier. I looked really really young. And she goes, you know,
Dad, you look a lot nicerthan you do now. And I go,
what is that supposed to me?She's like, well, you're just
not always that nice like I amnice. I just have to I just
have to, you know, laydown the law sometimes because you don't listen.
I said that nice looking young guywould have made you listen to It's

(09:13):
a lot nicer. But I wasyoung. I was probably twenty eight,
you know something like that in there. Twenty seven. So yeah, it
brings back good memories we miss Bob. I hope Bob is listening to this.
I know he was around that daythat we did that roof and Lodi
and you know his we let hiswife know, we showed her the video.

(09:37):
It's just a really awesome way tokind of keep his legacy going because
he was really special here and Iknow people that I mean, he was
on hospice Sean and I went tohis house for I was at his house
for a whole day hanging out withhim while he's on hospice. And he
had two customers from Madison come tohis house. I mean he lived on

(10:01):
by Lake Geneva. It was anhour away, but he had customers that
he had sold gutters and or roofsto come to his house to see him
while he was on hospice. Like, man, if that could if we
could only all be that good.I mean, he sold these people probably,
but he kept in such good touchwith these people. They became friends.

(10:22):
They came to see him while hewas dying, like I can't even
imagine. So that's just the typeof person he was. So this is
this is a little thing that wecan do. And you know, like
I said before, when when talkingabout doing a roof. The relief that
was on that lady's face, I'lljust never forget it. She was so
relieved, because when you're talking abouta roof, I mean, depending on

(10:46):
the size of the home, you'retalking ten, twenty, thirty, forty
fifty, So I mean, boy, we've done hundred thousand dollars roofs.
It's not chump change. It's notan easy fix. You know, other
real important stuff in your homes andair conditioning, you know, sometimes you
can you can limp that stuff along, you can get fixes, but a
roof is tough. It's tough tolimp a roof along. You can sometimes

(11:09):
we can restore, sometimes we cando little fixes, but at the end
of the day, with the roofis bad, it's bad, and it's
thousands of dollars. So it's anyway. I just want people to think about
it and think about people they knowthat might need might need some help.
It's a great way to remember Bob. And of course we mentioned Facebook and
social media. Follow along. Makesure you like, like, and follow

(11:31):
Larsen Home Services on Facebook, thewebsite Larsenhomeservices dot com. That's l A
R. S O N. HomeServices dot com. Another really cool thing
too, about about the Facebook pagefor larsenom Services. You get to know
the team and you start to realizereal quick as Andrew was talking about Bob
and and and their time working togetherat Larstome Services and how long Bob was

(11:54):
there, and I start to realizethere's a lot of folks at Larstome Services
that have been there a very verylong time and we talk about we talk
about things like roofs, gutters,those type of things. You want people
that are that are very well trainedand know they're appreciated, that spend a
lot of time and they're happy wherethey are. And that's the great thing
about Larsen Home Services. Know thatwhen you're getting that new roof, put
on getting those new gutters, doctorenergy saver, having the efficiency, the

(12:16):
people that you're working with, whenthey're smiling, it's genuine. They are
happy because they love what they're doing. It's amazing stuff. Again. Learn
more online Larsenhomeservices dot com, Facebookand social media. Larsen Home Services.
The telephone number six so eight fivethree five forty three forty three. That's
five three five four three four threeAndrew, it's always great chatting with you,
my friend, you enjoyed this mostbeautiful of days. All right,

(12:39):
talk to you next week. Kevinham Ham's Arbacare comes your way next right
here on thirteen ten Wiba