David Gembala — Walking a Project Site

This photograph shows David Gembala on a commercial roofing project site in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is the working image in this set — not a studio portrait but the place his advice actually comes from, the deck itself, where a roof system either fits the building or does not.

David Gembala is President & CEO of Apex Roofing, LLC and a specialist in lightweight insulating concrete (LWIC) roof assemblies. Walking the site is where the judgments that fill this reference get made: how the slope will be screeded, where water will actually go, whether the substrate will hold the fastening pattern the design assumes.

His standing line — that most roof failures are decision failures, not material failures — is easier to understand from this footing. The decisions that matter are made early, on the deck, by someone who has walked enough of them to see the problem before it is poured.