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Marble – When it comes to being careful on a job site, Juan Aguilar realizes how important it is to be aware. Often wisdom is gained over time and as a result of prior mistakes.
Aguilar is an employee of RRG Roofing & Gutters in Murphy. He enjoys his job, especially the customers he helps from day to day.
Born in 2001 in South Carolina, he grew up in Andrews but lives in Marble today. As a younger man, he worked at the Andrews Twin Cinema as well as helping his father with remodeling jobs.
Aguilar does estimates on roofs and gutters as well as doing roof patches. “I enjoy getting to know the customers,” he said.
He has had several accidents with different jobs but now feels a bit wiser these days. Aguilar once took a 60-inch riding mower down a bank, slamming into a tree and hitting a vehicle. The mishap had him suffering with whiplash for a few days. Another incident involved a walk-behind bush hog he put into a barbed-wire fence.
After a tornado hit Peachtree recently, he climbed on a ladder to do some repair work. The ladder sat atop a wet porch and ended up slipping. Aguilar injured a knee in that fall, which cost him a week of work.
“Now I know not to put a ladder on a wooden deck or even dry unless I can brace it,” he said.
March is National Ladder Safety month. According to safetypartnersinc.com, every year there are more than 300 fatalities due to ladder-related accidents and thousands of debilitating injuries. On average, 500,000 people are treated for ladder-related injuries each year.
Aguilar enjoys his employment so much that he sees himself doing the same thing in the next 10 years. The only thing he doesn’t care for about the job is its random hours, but he understands that folks have different hours than he does.
He has no desire to advance in position with the company, as Aguilar is content right where he is. That’s despite once seeing a tree across a roof once that almost cut the house in half.
His advice to younger folks looking at his career is, “We were always told that you need a college degree to get by in life. What I’ve realized is that a college degree gets you far, but it’s the knowledge you gain that helps you accomplish your goals,” he said.
Aguilar was married in 2023 at age 22 and said he is a happy man. He hopes to have a couple of kids in the future. He’s a big University of Georgia fan, who enjoys his two dogs and a cat.