Take a look at a building. A house has a roof with angles, or pitch, to keep the rain and snow from sitting on it for very long. A pitched roof uses gravity, along with the materials used to build it, to keep the building safe from the damage that can be done by water getting into it. On a commercial building, or a building that isn’t a house, there are often flat roofs. On a business, a flat roof can give you more room for equipment storage. They are easier to build and are more easily accessible (wouldn’t you rather walk on a flat roof than one with angles?), and they are quicker to install. You can also make them very durable. So how do you keep your flat roof from leaking and causing water damage? That’s where Soprema comes in! They make products to protect a building from water damage. That includes the materials that you see on the roof, the underlayment, or material that is under what you see, they make adhesives that go below ground to waterproof the building, and sealants to seal out the moisture. They can also install what is called a “green roof” which is a roof that has plants growing on it!

In 1908, Charles Geisen founded a company that was designing large terraces, which are flat areas near buildings that people use to sit, eat, and enjoy the outdoors. Water is very damaging to buildings and structures so he was looking for a way to waterproof his structures. One day he dipped some burlap material into hot bitumen, which is a black gooey material produced when plants decompose and is a form of petroleum. The material became strong, lightweight, flexible, and water tight. He thought it looked like mammoth skin and called it Mammouth (which is French for mammoth). He started marketing the material in 1909 and today there are 8 locations in the United States with the US headquarters in Wadsworth, and over 100 locations internationally.

It was from this that Charles chose the mammoth as the logo of the company. It has come to symbolize both that early product that looked like mammoth skin, and also the fact that if you aren’t always evolving and adapting, you will go extinct. 

We need all kinds of people to help us continue to grow. Over the last three years finding people who would come in and start at the entry level positions was the hardest but today, we’re having more difficulties finding people who have skills. We need administrative people who can use Microsoft Word and Excel and understand how to organize things and keep projects on task. We need technical people who have engineering or other degrees. And those are all more difficult to find because the good ones are all working. 

We are an international company serving international clients. We have locations in Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom. 

We have every part of our company looking at our carbon footprint. We all have goals we need to reach when it comes to reusing materials, recycling, and keeping things out of landfills. It is very important to our company that we do everything we can to protect the environment. 

Every year our federal government hosts Roofing Day which brings companies from all over the country in to meet with elected officials and we always participate. It is important they understand what we do and how we do it enough that when laws are proposed around building, they ask us about what the good and bad outcomes could be. Sometimes things sound really good to someone who isn’t in the business, but then in practice, it causes so many problems it doesn’t achieve what anyone thought it would. We also belong to associations that help keep our issues in front of legislators. 

When we have an opening, we post it on our website. But we also post it internally across all our plants. That way if there is an employee working at one plant that would like to move to Wadsworth, they can see the opportunities and apply. We want to keep the people we have in our system as a whole and love to promote from within. 

Why do employees like to work here?

 Our company culture is all about comaraderie. We are a team and we all work together with safety in mind,  integrity, and respect. Recently a person who hadn’t been with the company very long said he joined us because in the interviews we didn’t talk about money or goals, etc. We talked about our culture and how important it is to us that people come in and be a part of our team.