Robert Whitman Sr.

1943 - 2022

By Vincent Lucarelli
Blade Staff Writer

Robert Whitman, Sr., an entrepreneur who overcame a hardscrabble childhood to make his name as an innovator in the local roofing industry, died Jan. 7 at ProMedica Hickman Hospital in Adrian. He was 78.

He had coronavirus, his daughter Rhonda said.

Mr. Whitman cofounded B & J Roofing in 1967, before starting Toledo-based International EPDM Rubber Roofing Systems in 1983. His nearly 50-year career in the roofing business saw him flex business and creative acumen in filing 17 patents for adhesive roofing processes, corrosion prevention products, auger screws, and other inventions dating back to 1976 that made International a multi-million dollar operation at its height.

Robert Whitman, Jr., Mr. Whitman's son, began working with his father at age 10 and stayed a close ally in business until International Roofing closed in 2017. The younger Whitman characterizes his father as a forward-thinker who was ahead of his time on many of the product and process ideas he developed over the years.

"Working with my dad was interesting because he had an unorthodox way of achieving his goals," the younger Mr. Whitman said Sunday. "Almost every time he was very successful when he would run into an issue, especially in roofing. The way his brain worked he could visualize what the solution was, and then would explain what we needed to do."

Born April 16, 1943 to James and Martha Whitman in Henderson, a rural town in west Tennessee, the elder Whitman was the youngest of 10 children, growing up in poverty where he was obliged to leave school in the fifth grade to pick cotton to support his family. Later, he would move north to Toledo at 16 to join his brothers that were already living in the area.

Mr. Whitman described how his father's lack of formal education colored the way he did business and necessitated a team of close collaborators to bring make ideas into reality.

"He could read things at a basic level but he had trouble writing, and that was the biggest problem because we had to draw his thoughts from his mind and make sense of them," Mr. Whitman said. "Being that he was very Southern, he never lost any of that way of talking like an educated man, but if he went to an engineering firm, it didn't come across too well. They had trouble really understanding his meaning of how stuff works and how his brain worked."

The younger Mr. Whitman said it was often his own responsibility to work with his father to clarify his ideas and bring them to fruition, but his dad always knew what needed to be done and nothing was ever done for him.

Rhonda Hall, Mr. Whitman's daughter, feels that the innate creativity and drive that came made her father a successful businessman came from knowledge gleaned at various odd jobs he held throughout his youth including turns as an orderly at the old William Roche Memorial Hospital in Toledo and as a cook at a White Hut restaurant. Indeed, Mrs. Hall thought that roofing was something that just came up in her father's life at the right time.

"He was doing some landscaping with another friend and decided roofing was his next move," Mrs. Hall said.

Still, no matter how busy he was in his business life, Mrs. Hall described her father as someone that was always there to lend support.

"He always encouraged us," Mrs. Hall said.

His relative lack of formal education caused him to place a premium on education for his two children, who both recounted how a desire to make his children's lives better than his own, was something that motivated their father.

"He wanted us to have an education," Mrs. Hall said, "and I can't ever tell you a time that we needed or wanted for anything, he was a wonderful provider. Family was huge to him as was his grandkids and his great-grandkids and kids, he would just light up when they were around."

In his spare time, Mr. Whitman, who resided in Blissfield, Mich., but was fond of traveling and road trips, owned multiple tracts of property near Lake Diane in southwestern Hillsdale County, Michigan. Mrs. Hall said the lake property was her father's pride and joy, mentioning how camping trips in her youth piqued her father's interest enough to buy a house nearby that he built onto over the years before the family sold the property in 2019.

"He loved to be on the lake. He didn't even have to be doing anything, he would just prefer to sit on the porch and watch," Mrs. Hall said, emphasizing how any time someone came up to the lake to visit, her father would show them all around his property on the John Deere Gator utility vehicles he had.

Later, next to the 13 acres on the lake, Mr. Whitman would buy 20 additional acres in adjacent property, which his family would come to call, "the farm." Here, Mr. Whitman would keep cows and cut hay and would eventually reside full-time during his last days.

"Just being with him and enjoying that time with him, it's going to be really hard now that he's gone," Mrs. Hall said. "He was kind of like my rock so when I needed somebody to bend their ear, he was always there for me."

Mr. Whitman is survived by his wife Sandy, whom he married in May, 1967; his daughter, Rhonda Hall; and son, Robert Whitman, Jr. ; his brothers James and Buford Whitman; seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Visitation is scheduled from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. Monday at Reeb Funeral Home in Sylvania.

A Master Mason since 1979, a Masonic service will be held for Mr. Whitman at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at Reeb with burial at Resurrection Cemetery in Toledo to follow.

The family suggests tributes to Shriners Hospitals for Children of which Mr. Whitman was a longtime supporter.