From two employees to 75, Scudder Roofing has grown – and evolved to add a solar division.

Pete Scudder was 25 years old in 1982 when he and his wife, Karen, bought their first house in Prunedale. They had just had their first daughter, and were expecting another. It seemed like a terrible idea to take a risk and start their own business. They did it anyway.

“In our front yard, we had a tar kettle and everything,” Scudder says. “The neighbors weren’t too crazy about it, but it was Prunedale and you can get away with a little bit more out there.”

He remembers roofers arriving to work on loud motorcycles, leaving the appearance of a biker convention in the front yard. Karen ran sales from the home phone while nursing the two babies. They got a Monterey P.O. box in an effort to capture Monterey Peninsula business.

Now, 36 years later, the company is based in Marina and Karen is secretary/treasurer; the eldest daughter, Jennifer, is chief operating officer; the middle daughter, Kelly, is head estimator for commercial projects; and Pete is president of Scudder Roofing and another newer company, Scudder Solar Energy Systems. There are 75 employees, about 60 of them roofers.

Those employees are the heart of the business, Scudder says, and safety is paramount. But it’s not big falls from roofs that he most worries about. It’s repetitive use injuries to elbows and backs and knees – stuff that happens to a workforce that stays for a long time. The average employee retention is 14-15 years, compared to the industry average of two to three.

Roofing itself hasn’t changed much since Scudder started at 18, after dropping out of school at Monterey Peninsula College to do an apprenticeship program instead – “I liked working outside, and got tired of school,” he says.

When photovoltaics came along, Scudder Roofing would get calls to patch problems the solar installers had created, like drilling holes through the roof. “We were seeing solar companies that didn’t have roofing experience. I said, ‘You know what, there’s an opportunity here – we should be doing this ourselves,’” Scudder says.

The other evolution is expanding from residential to commercial projects, which now account for about 60 percent of revenue.

Mostly, Scudder says, he’s just happy to have a family business: “I’m just proud my family wants to stay in the business.”

Jennifer, the COO, echoes that: “Roofing wasn’t in my plans,” she says. “I’m running the business now with my dad, and I feel like we’re a team, side-by-side.”