Building Supply Billionaire Kenneth Hendricks, 66

After high school, Kenneth Hendricks was a power company truck driver and spent as much time looking at rooftops as at the road. He stopped at homes with worn shingles and offered to come back on the weekend to repair the roofs. He did spectacular business after hail storms.

By 26, he established a 500-man roofing operation that branched into commercial jobs including Kmart stores and military bases. Meanwhile, he invested heavily in real estate and became known for his involvement in Beloit's economic development.

In 1982, he entered the distribution side of the roofing supply industry with ABC Supply. Within four years, the company had nearly 50 stores, and Inc. named it the fastest-growing business in the Unites States. Later, Mr. Hendricks bought companies that manufactured building products.

In interviews, Mr. Hendricks displayed little interest in accumulating wealth for its own sake and said he wanted to provide chances for his chief customers, building contractors and roofers, to trade in their blue collars for white. He launched an effort to his clientele in direct-marketing and other services to enhance their own businesses.

Roofers, he told Inc. in 1991, "get a bad rap. That wore way down deep in my gut. People would say, 'Oh, you're Joe Hendricks's kid. He's a roofer.' You could tell what they were thinking. My dad made more money than any of them. He just didn't belong to their damn country club. He didn't play golf.

"He carried a lunch pail, and he went to work at 5:30 in the morning and came home at 6:00 at night, and he worked every Saturday. Yet they talked about him as if he were a bum. So that built my character way down inside. It's a big reason why I feel the way I do about my customers."

In addition to Fox, survivors include four children from his first marriage, Kendra Story, Kimberlee Hendricks, Kathleen Murray and Kevin Hendricks, all of Janesville; two children from his second marriage, Kara Stecker of Madison, Wis., and Konya Schuh of Janesville; a stepson, Brent Fox of Janesville; and 14 grandchildren.