Behind the Catch-All

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how two friends put their heads together to revolutionize how roofing job sites run. 

The Catch-All might have seemed like an overnight success when it won the 2019 "Most Innovative Product in Roofing" at Win the Storm Conference just a year after it was publicly released, but it took time, energy and dedication to get there. Before awards and five-star reviews, the Catch-All was just an idea that two best friends were working on in their free time.  

Heath Hicks has been a part of the roofing industry for over 12 years and worked his way up from project manager to owner of AVCO Roofing in Tyler, Texas. One thing he noticed over his time in the industry was the importance of leaving a clean job site behind. Eric Macintosh, who moved from California to work with Heath at AVCO as a salesperson, explained the reasoning, saying, “For us, pushing the envelope of customer experience really came down to solving the problem of leaving behind trash, and especially nails. What we realized was: If we don't want to leave nails then we have to prevent them from ever hitting the ground in the first place. So, we started looking for things to buy that would keep us from dropping nails and nothing existed.” 

Instead of getting deterred by the lack of products and options available, the duo put their heads together and tried to figure out how to fix the problem themselves. Heath explained, “We kept brainstorming and talking and thinking and experimenting with stuff and then in one of those conversations that's where the poles came up. What if we hung nets from poles, making a modular system that could really lean against any wall, no matter what? That was the big moment where we were like, ‘Yeah, we can do this now.’”  

From there, they got 3D printers and started prototyping, having their crews take out versions of their invention with them on jobs. Over and over again. It was a long process, but a rewarding one that both Heath and Eric look back on fondly. Eric shared a bit about how they work together, saying, “Heath has always been kind of a visionary, I've been more of an implementer/integrator type. So, when we came together, he's thinking big picture, I'm thinking details, and we have a lot of chemistry working together.” And so, they developed the Catch-All, which has now helped contractors across the industry better serve homeowners.  

Hear Heath and Eric share more about the process of creating the Catch-All on their YouTube channel!