The power of standing out

By Emma Peterson. 

How Dave Harrison went from starting his first business at age 10 to helping others build theirs.  

Today, Dave Harrison is known as the managing director of Dave Harrison Consulting, a member of the Board of Directors for National Roofing Partners and the creator of industry leading programs like GAF Master Elite, Master Select, CARE and Wealth Builder. But before all this, he was a ten-year-old with a toy business. To learn about his journey, Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Dave for an episode of Roofing Road Trips®.  

Looking back at his childhood, Dave noted that he had some struggles. He shared, “I'm dyslexic. I flunked out of three high schools. The principal tells my parents, it's a waste of money sending me to community college. So I thought I wasn't that smart.” But what that principal didn’t recognize was that Dave was smart in a different way and building something bigger than test grades – business instincts. Dave shared:  

“Starting at age 10, I was building businesses... The first one was selling educational toys that were normally only sold to school systems. I had five friends and we’d all run around during Christmas and Hanukkah, going up to houses and selling these  toys that you could usually only get in schools. Next was a custom tie-dye business and then at 16 I started doing shipping for a company on weekends because their workers didn’t have those hours. After that it was a needlecraft business. Why? I saw that all needlecraft was sold in needlecraft stores and it wasn’t widely available. So I came up with a line of college seals and sold them in college bookstores.”  

Fast-forward and those business instincts were getting Dave work all over the place. He explained, “I helped PineSol switch from glass to plastic. At Johnson and Johnson we innovated a new reach toothbrush, the Colgate Tartar Control toothpaste and flavored floss.” The throughline of all the work Dave did for these companies? Differentiation. Just like he realized that school-exclusive toys, unique shipping hours and accessible needlecraft were unique ways to make his childhood endeavors work, he helped these major companies find unique ways to make their business thrive.  

It was this track record that drew the attention of Sam Heyman, the then chairman of GAF. Dave explained:  

“I was a whistleblower at a Fortune 200 company. One of the board members told Sam Heyman about me. Sam Heyman called me up and said, ‘I heard about you. I checked you out. You know, you're going to have trouble getting a job because people don't hire whistleblowers. And I got a company that's six months from chapter seven. Come work with us.’”  

And so Dave joined the GAF, not knowing that he was also going to a find a home in the roofing industry.  

At GAF, he realized there was a big way they could differentiate themselves — creating a system of value. He explained, “Across all my business endeavors, I learned one thing, people are motivated by avoiding making a mistake. When you buy a product individually, you're making decisions on every single product. When you sell a system, it's more trusted.” So, Dave began building a system at GAF, one that was designed to help contractors gain experience, generate leads at a lower cost and differentiate themselves by educating their customers.  

The result? GAF is now one of the biggest names in the roofing industry and Dave has cemented his legacy as a roofing industry leader.  

Want to hear Dave’s expert insights on differentiating yourself and building business success? Listen to the whole podcast or attend his class in-person at the 2026 International Roofing Expo!