Actions Over Slogans: How Dale Speckman Lets Faith Do the Talking at Roof Scientists

Dale Speckman has seen the business cards. The ones with Bible verses printed across the bottom, the email signatures with scripture references, the companies that market themselves loudly as Christian-owned. He considered going that route himself.

He decided against it.

"I've run across several of those people that don't really live what their business card is telling you," says Speckman, co-owner of Roof Scientists, a full-service residential and commercial roofing company he built alongside his son Luke. "I think it's more important to let your actions do the talking."

That conviction — quiet, consistent, uncompromising — is the throughline of everything Dale Speckman does in business and in life.

A Family Business Built on Distinct Roles

Roof Scientists isn't just a father-son operation in name. It's a genuinely divided enterprise where both partners stay in their lane — though Speckman admits it took some humbling to get there. Luke handles the field operations, climbing roofs and managing the construction side. Dale works from his home office, building relationships, finding opportunities, and managing the finances.

"He quickly told me I didn't know what I was doing on the construction side," Dale laughs. "He's the expert there. I had to get out of his lane."

Beyond the traditional roofing services, Roof Scientists offers something genuinely unique: a nano ceramic coating that can be applied directly to asphalt shingle roofs, extending their life by more than 20 years and backed by a 20-year warranty. It's a product that's been on the market for over a decade, originating in Oregon, but Speckman says no one else in the market offers a warranty quite like theirs.

The business is young and still finding its footing. But the values underneath it have been forged over decades of entrepreneurship.

Planting Seeds, Not Staging Performances

When asked how he lives out his faith day to day, Speckman doesn't reach for the obvious answers. He doesn't talk about opening team meetings with prayer or hanging scripture in the office. He talks about doing what you say you're going to do. About owning your mistakes. About being honest when a job is outside your ability.

"If you treat people kindly and you're fair and you do what you say you're going to do, and when you make a mistake, you own it and do your very best to make it better — people just look at you and know you're different. To me, that's planting a seed."

And it works. Speckman says he's had customers stop mid-conversation and ask him directly: "Are you a Christian?" Not because of anything he said, but because of how he made them feel. "They're like, just the way you treat me," he recalls. "And I think that's more powerful than jumping up on a soapbox."

That doesn't mean he dismisses other approaches. He's quick to acknowledge that God calls people differently — some loudly, some quietly. His call just happens to be the latter. "I think it's important that we keep our ears and eyes open to hear what he's saying to us," he says. "In this world, it's very easy to get distracted and not hear what he's showing us to do."

The Gym, the Firing, and the Full Circle

Before Roof Scientists, Speckman owned a sport performance business where he trained young athletes. One of his earliest students was a quiet, timid 12-year-old — not particularly fast, not particularly built, but eager. Speckman poured into him: proper lifting technique, speed work, the fundamentals of movement. He coached him in baseball. He watched him transform.

Years later, that young man — now a bodybuilder with more muscle than Speckman says he's ever seen up close — came back to work for him. And then Dale fired him. Harshly. The young man had been inattentive with clients Dale had trusted him to oversee, and Speckman didn't handle the departure with the grace it deserved.

"I basically just kicked him out and we were done," he admits. "And I always had this thing in me where I harbored this ill feeling — which is not very Christian, but we're human. That's why Jesus came here."

For nearly a decade, they didn't speak. Then, just recently, Speckman walked into a gym and came face to face with the man for the first time in eight or nine years. He didn't let the moment pass.

"I told him there was a better way for me to handle that situation, and I apologized. I was the leader and I did not provide a good example." The young man apologized in return, owning his own immaturity. And then he said something that stopped Speckman cold: "Coach, I just want to give you props — if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today. You gave me the right foundation."

"It was like God just put it all full circle and put me in my place — like, why did I harbor all that for so long? That was so stupid of me and I know better."

He pauses. "But again, we're human. And that's why Jesus had to come to this earth for us."

Praying Over Square Footage

Growing pains are real at Roof Scientists right now. The trucks they built didn't fit in the garage doors of the rental property. The equipment is scattered. Commercial space in the area has skyrocketed — from $11 a square foot to nearly $19 depending on where you look. Speckman had identified a modest 1,460-square-foot space and was quietly praying about whether to pull the trigger.

"Lord, I think I'm gonna go grab this spot. If there's something better out there, please show it to me."

He called his commercial real estate contact to move forward. The man's response stopped him: "Dale, I'm glad you called. I've got something better." A former tenant had outgrown their space, built their own building, and was stuck in a two-year lease they needed someone to cover — 2,400 square feet, month-to-month, no first and last month's rent, no property taxes. Essentially two thousand dollars for the whole arrangement.

Nearly twice the space. A fraction of the expected cost. Speckman laughs telling it: "I'd been praying on that for two or three weeks. Boy, He knocked loud on that one and I heard Him."

The Real Enemy of Good Business

Ask Dale Speckman what goes wrong in business — in politics, in relationships, in the world — and he'll give you a one-word answer: greed.

"When I see businesses go awry, it's usually greed. They started out great and then they get so money-hungry that the client becomes less important, because that almighty dollar becomes so important it becomes a God to most people. I've never allowed that to happen in my life and I never will."

He's installing new plants in a customer's yard this week — personally — after his subcontractors accidentally damaged them. In 95-degree heat. Because his crew caused the problem, and Speckman believes that means he owns the solution.

"She's gonna be like, wow, the owner came out and dug up my garden in this heat," he says. "That brings me joy. That's what we're responsible for."

"Stay true to your heart and not your dollar. Because at the end of the day, money doesn't make anybody happy. In fact, I think it probably starts more trouble than the joy it brings."

For leaders early in their journey of integrating faith and work, Speckman's advice is less a strategy and more a posture: be honest, be consistent, do what you said you would do, and fix it when you don't. Let people wonder what makes you different. And when they ask — be ready with an answer.

The seeds you plant today have a way of coming back around. Sometimes in a gym, eight years later. Sometimes in a phone call that doubles your square footage for half the price. Either way, the harvest is rarely what you expected — and almost always better.