FRSA – 100 Years Strong Lisa Pate, FRSA Executive Director This year marks FRSA’s 100th Anniversary as a leader for the roofing and sheet metal industries. As we celebrate this milestone, we will also celebrate the many leaders who seized the opportunity to create an organization that would champion for their interest and for the betterment of the industry. Each month, Florida Roofing will share some of our rich history with pictures, articles and snapshots from various committee minutes. We will also share these on social media, in Roof Flash and on our website, www.floridaroof.com, so be sure to engage with us through these platforms. Over the years I’ve heard so many wonderful stories that members have shared with me, including some too colorful for print. I’ve always said this industry was made up of genuine people who care about their trade, are willing to mentor, share their knowledge and who enjoy the camaraderie of other professionals.
The Early Years
It was 1922, just before the first Florida land boom. Sunbeams glinted greenly off Ludowici Spanish tiles as a half-dozen workmen scrambled over the new roof of the Clearwater Presbyterian Church. Charlie Johnson had come all the way from Jacksonville to install this roof. On the ground, he chatted in a shady spot with Frank Tack, subcontractor for the sheet metal work. Tack was a member of the church. He and Nelson Cheney were partners in Clearwater Sheet Metal Works. Fifty years later, when he was 81, Tack recalled that first conversation beside the Church. “We were bosses,” Tack said, “and we didn’t have much to do. So, we started talking about forming a state trade association.” Several goals emerged: this trade association would help solve industry problems, provide leadership in the field and stress occupational pride. After the church was finished, Tack and Johnson met at Johnson’s Jacksonville shop. A dozen shop
Tampa Sheet Metal Company workers, 1922 12
FLORIDA ROOFING | January 2022
Tampa Sheet Metal Company, 1923
owners from www.floridaroof.com around the state were invited. If /flroof memories serve correctly, seven /company/flroof attended. No records have survived. Among the seven were Tack, Johnson, Elmer Blank of Daytona Beach and Charlie Stephens, Sr. of Jacksonville. The group recruited salesmen from the wholesale houses to spread the word about an organizational meeting to be held at the oceanfront Clarendon Hotel in Daytona Beach. At that meeting, a spark was ignited and a small trade association was born which would survive The Depression and a World War. By the late 1960s, it would be known as the most forwardlooking, ambitious professional association in the state of Florida. Tack, in later years, borrowed a quotation to sum up the association’s youth. He said, “History is made by men and recorded by their accomplishments.” This is a record of those men and women and the accomplishments of the Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Contractors Association (FRSA). At the Clarendon Hotel in Daytona Beach, a group of 30 shop owners decided the association would be called the Sheet Metal Contractors Association of Florida. Elmer Blank, B & F Supply, Daytona Beach, chaired the first meeting. Charlie Stephens, Sr. agreed to serve as the Secretary-Treasurer. Dues were set at $5 a year – in a day when sheet metal workers were making a shade over 60 cents an hour and fringe benefits didn’t exist. Charlie Johnson served as the first President. FRM