Contractors induct Costelloe into Hall of Fame

Co-founder and CEO of Life­time Roof­ing, Deb­o­rah Costel­loe, was in­duct­ed in­to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion’s Hall of Fame-2025 at its meet­ing on No­vem­ber 15 at the Radis­son Ho­tel.

Costel­loe re­ceived the recog­ni­tion af­ter more than four decades of lead­er­ship, in­no­va­tion, and ser­vice to the na­tion­al con­struc­tion sec­tor.

Now in its 57th year, the TTCA Hall of Fame ho­n­ours in­di­vid­u­als whose work has sig­nif­i­cant­ly shaped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s built en­vi­ron­ment, the body said in a news re­lease.

It said Costel­loe was recog­nised as the first woman in­ductee, a dis­tinc­tion that re­flects not on­ly her pro­fes­sion­al ac­com­plish­ments but al­so her 40-year com­mit­ment to gen­der equal­i­ty and the ad­vance­ment of women in con­struc­tion, where she has cham­pi­oned in­clu­sive hir­ing, men­tor­ship, and skills de­vel­op­ment across the in­dus­try.

Since co-found­ing Life­time Roof­ing with her hus­band Robert Costel­loe in 1983, Deb­o­rah Costel­loe has guid­ed the com­pa­ny’s growth in­to T&T’s lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er and spe­cial­ist con­trac­tor in met­al roof­ing sys­tems.

Un­der her lead­er­ship, Life­time Roof­ing in­tro­duced trans­for­ma­tive tech­nolo­gies—in­clud­ing the na­tion’s first portable on-site roll-form­ing sys­tem—and es­tab­lished qual­i­ty and safe­ty bench­marks wide­ly adopt­ed across the in­dus­try.

Costel­loe’s work has sup­port­ed ma­jor na­tion­al projects, in­clud­ing the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, The Red House, Movi­eTowne, Carib Brew­ery, UWI Debe, The Tow­ers, and sev­er­al key com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ments.

She has al­so cham­pi­oned strong gov­er­nance prac­tices and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives that up­lift con­trac­tors and skilled work­ers na­tion­wide.

Her ac­com­plish­ments have earned mul­ti­ple awards through­out her ca­reer, in­clud­ing:

• ↓Most In­no­v­a­tive So­lu­tion (1990)

• ↓Best Res­i­den­tial Roof­ing Project – USA (1998)

• ↓Con­trac­tor of the Year (2013 & 2023)

• ↓Man­u­fac­tur­er of the Year (2015)

• ↓NR­CA In­dus­try Vet­er­an Ho­n­ouree

Costel­loe al­so served for 15 years on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, con­tribut­ing to ad­vance­ments in stan­dards, con­trac­tor de­vel­op­ment, and sec­tor-wide gov­er­nance.

Rec­og­niz­ing a gap in the mar­ket, Deb­o­rah fo­cussed on in­te­grat­ing ma­te­ri­als that bal­anced dura­bil­i­ty, en­vi­ron­men­tal re­silience, aes­thet­ics, and com­mer­cial prac­ti­cal­i­ty. She pos­sessed a unique abil­i­ty to bridge the worlds of man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­struc­tion, and in 1995, be­came CEO of Life­time Roof­ing, lead­ing the com­pa­ny to new heights.

Her guid­ing prin­ci­ple has al­ways been root­ed in sim­plic­i­ty — the metaphor of the three-legged stool, rep­re­sent­ing Good Ma­te­r­i­al, Ex­cel­lent Crafts­man­ship, and Strong Man­age­ment — the un­shak­able foun­da­tion of any great build­ing.

Un­der Deb­o­rah’s lead­er­ship, Life­time Roof­ing has com­plet­ed over 22,000 projects, ex­ceed­ing $1 bil­lion in sus­tain­able roof­ing works. She in­tro­duced the na­tion’s first portable on-site roof­ing roll-form­ing equip­ment, en­abling con­trac­tors to pro­duce full-length pan­els di­rect­ly on site.