Jerry S. Stock recognized as one of 30 top area entrepreneurs

U.S. Water­proof­ing & Con­struc­tion Company’s Pres­i­dent Jer­ry S. Stock has been named to the Chica­go-area UIC Entre­pre­neur­ship Hall of Fame which rec­og­nizes inno­va­tors and lead­ers in the region. Each year, dis­tin­guished entre­pre­neurs who have demon­strat­ed entre­pre­neur­ial tal­ent by found­ing and/​or grow­ing a busi­ness in the Chica­go area are induct­ed, and few­er than 30 indi­vid­u­als are select­ed for this hon­or on an annu­al basis.

Con­sid­er­a­tion for this hon­or is giv­en to those indi­vid­u­als who have found­ed a busi­ness, coped with past and/​or present growth in sales, gen­er­at­ed employ­ment, inspired inno­va­tion, enhanced prof­itabil­i­ty, and con­tributed to an indus­try, the com­mu­ni­ty and society.

“By high­light­ing out­stand­ing entre­pre­neurs, we rec­og­nize excel­lence and encour­age busi­ness lead­ers, stu­dents and gov­ern­ment offi­cials to hon­or the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it,” said Ger­ry Hills, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Chica­go Insti­tute for Entre­pre­neur­ial Stud­ies. ​“Jer­ry Stock exem­pli­fies this spir­it and leads his com­pa­ny, a base­ment water­proofer, with this mind­set to con­tin­ue to grow and innovate.”

Estab­lished in 1957, U.S. Water­proof­ing remains fam­i­ly owned and to-date has assist­ed more than 200,000 cus­tomers to ensure their base­ments are dry and free of seep­age. U.S. Water­proof­ing serves res­i­den­tial and busi­ness own­ers in North­ern Illi­nois, North­west Indi­ana and South­ern Wisconsin.

The company’s Com­mer­cial Divi­sion has devel­oped inno­v­a­tive tech­niques for prob­lem solv­ing and has worked close­ly with man­u­fac­tur­ers to pro­vide spe­cial­ized mate­ri­als. This divi­sion has applied cre­ative solu­tions to vaults, ele­va­tor pits, park­ing garages, water treat­ment plants, swim­ming pools, com­mer­cial and retail facil­i­ties, banks, schools, church­es, gov­ern­ment build­ings and hospitals.

Stock joined the com­pa­ny after grad­u­at­ing from col­lege and assumed his father’s own­er­ship share when he retired in 1980. He became pres­i­dent in 1991. The com­pa­ny has served more than 200,000 cus­tomers since its incep­tion and has grown each year since then. Today, more than 80 peo­ple are employed by U.S. Waterproofing.

“I am sin­cere­ly hon­ored and delight­ed to receive this award,” said Stock. ​“While I real­ize that the award is designed for an indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neur, the com­pa­ny is a third-gen­er­a­tion fam­i­ly busi­ness and I must give cred­it to our man­age­ment team, which acts as a whole in set­ting pol­i­cy and direc­tion as we achieve our com­pa­ny goals. A team effort is tru­ly nec­es­sary to be suc­cess­ful in today’s com­pet­i­tive environment.”

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