Roger Magalhaes Goes from Truck Driver to Industry Leader

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Roger Magalhaes, immigrant from Brazil and founder of the firms Shades in Place window treatment installation and Trading Up Consulting, in Franklin, Massachusetts. They discuss how Roger built his successful business from the ground up, took advantage of every opportunity here in the U.S. to advance, and became one of the most influential leaders in his field. He's even now training his competitors. Roger is also the 2022 Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Awardee for Business Growth, an annual honor bestowed by The Immigrant Learning Center, co-producer of this podcast. Now an American citizen, Roger shares his belief that immigrants must “Americanize” in order to fulfil their potential and have the biggest impact, a debatable view but one rooted in his own experience and success, as you’ll hear more about in this week’s JobMakers.

Guest:

Roger Magalhaes was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he studied robotics in tech school and was a maintenance supervisor at a small manufacturing facility before coming to America in 2000. Here, he worked at a car wash and drove trucks before opening Shades In Place Inc. in 2006, a home-based window treatment installation company. He holds several certifications for various leading product lines such as Hunter Douglas, Somfy, Norman Shutters, Lutron and proprietary installation techniques, and attended the Custom Home Furnishing Academy. He has been a member of the Window Coverings Association of America since 2006, and is a Director-at-Large. In 2020, he was named one of seven Top Window Fashion Influencers by Window Fashion Vision magazine, and is a regular columnist, as well as a presenter at the International Window Coverings Expo, and the installation instructor for the Window Fashion Certified Professional FastTRACK program.