At the age of 10, Diane Hendricks decided she wanted to work in the business world. It took her years to achieve that goal, and decades of her career to build a fortune.
This week, Hendrix topped Forbes’ latest list The richest self-made women in America List for the seventh year in a row. Her net worth is estimated at $20.9 billion, most of which comes from her roofing materials company ABC Supply, which she founded with her late husband, Ken Hendricks, in 1982.
Hendricks, 77, and Ken started the company after realizing there were a few one-stop shops for roofing materials made by different manufacturers. Forbes said In 2022. Roofers often buy directly from individual manufacturers, which locks them into the ecosystem and allows manufacturers to raise prices.
Hendricks said they obtained a $900,000 loan from Beloit Savings Bank and pledged everything they had to launch their company and fill this gap.
Within five years, ABC Supply had 50 stores and achieved $1 billion in annual sales for the first time in 1998. According to the company’s website.
Hendricks said that the secret of their success is filling the gap in the market and raising the level of respect and professionalism in contracts.
“We felt like… [roofers] “We were not treated with respect,” Hendricks said. “That was part of our goal…to build a company that would [help] The guy in the pickup truck, service and respect him [everyone]”.
Even before Beloit was founded, the Wisconsin-based company had grown to more than 900 locations, and starting the company was a dream, Hendricks said.
Hendricks said she grew up on a farm in Osseo, Wisconsin, and dreamed of moving to a big city — Minneapolis, specifically — where she could wear blue suits and drive luxury cars.
Then, after getting pregnant at 17, she finished her senior year of high school from home. Instead of going to college, she worked a variety of jobs — even waitressing for Playboy Bunny for a year — while trying to build a career in real estate.
“That’s when I really started looking at a career, a career I’d always dreamed of, which was being in business,” Hendricks said.
Hendricks owns 100% of her company and has been president since 2007, according to ABC Supply’s website. She told Forbes in 2022 that she still enjoys going to work, and plans to pass the company on to her children.
“It’s not a company for sale at all,” Hendricks said.
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