Several years ago, Zachary and Karen Wallick were traveling in Mexico. Riding scooters around Tulum, they passed a shop called Zac BE Kairos. Zack’s name, and the word “Kairos”? He took it as a sign. Not long before, he’d been talking to a friend about the time of life transition he felt he was in.
“It sounds like you’re at a Kairos point in your life,” the friend told him, explaining that “kairos” is a Greek word meaning a time when conditions are right for decisive action and change. Zack decided that this was it. He quit his job and began setting up his own business.
Several years later, Kairos Roofing is a popular and growing business specializing in residential roofs in east Fort Lauderdale. The company’s hot-pink vehicles and uniform shirts are hard to miss in Fort Lauderdale.
For Wallick, roofing is in the blood. He’s a third-generation roofing professional who previously worked for his father Gregg Wallick’s business, Best Roofing. In 2018, a trade magazine named Zack national roofing contractor of the year. Turns out, it was indeed a Kairos moment.
Now he feels that Best and Kairos complement each other. Best largely focuses on multifamily and commercial buildings, while the Wallicks keep Kairos focused on eastside single-family residential.
Karen had also worked for Greg at Best Roofing; Zack credits Greg with preparing both he and Karen for their journey as business owners.
“Under his mentorship we learned roofing and how to be professional about it,” he says.
But after time in the family business, it began to feel like he was starting to hit a ceiling in professional growth. He needed more, as did Karen. They started Kairos in August of 2019, “really with no plan and no money,” Zach says.
Not much more than three years later, all that looks quite different. Zack puts it down to a few basic principles. Simply put, they execute projects to a high level while delivering high customer service. They do excellent work on the roof, but they also communicate with the customer throughout the process.
“Customers don’t remember how good you did on the roof, they remember how you made them feel,” Zack says. He and his team treat customers like family and leave their projects and their property in a better condition than when they arrived. “In order to build that relationship, we’re focused on the relationship instead of the transaction. Every phase of the project, you’re going to have somebody assigned to you. You’re not just a number.
“Since we’ve started, we truthfully haven’t looked back,” he says. “I’d say one of the most rewarding portions of this journey has been building a team and creating success stories within a team.”
Roofing is vitally important in Florida because of issues such as hurricanes and the state’s increasingly perilous homeowners’ insurance situation. Kairos offers sloped roofing, flat roofing, waterproofing and several Florida-specific things.
“One of the things we offer to every home is to bunker down the structure by offering hurricane strapping,” Zack says.
“We’ve really tried to professionalize the roofing industry,” he says. “We run it like a business; not ‘roofers,’ we’re in the roofing business. We overly communicate; we’re huge on quality control. We’re big on documenting with pictures. We have a small business mentality, but we have large business resources.
“As the owner, I’m very hands on. I’m not managing from afar.”
