Deborah Mazol and Duane Musser - Bringing roofing issues to light for roofing day 2024 - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Deborah Mazol and Duane Musser from NRCA. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Megan Ellsworth: Hello, everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com, and we are back for a roofing road trip. And I have scooted over to Washington DC, the capitol to chat with NRCA professionals, Deb and Duane. Hello, how are you?

Deborah Mazol: Good morning.

Duane Musser: Good morning. How are you doing? Good

Megan Ellsworth: Good morning. Glad to be chatting with you all and excited to be talking about Roofing Day 2024. It's coming up in what, two months now? Crazy.

Deborah Mazol: Three months.

Megan Ellsworth: Three months.

Deborah Mazol: [Inaudible 00:00:49] I count there, my math. Yeah. Don't-

Megan Ellsworth: Coming up soon. Let's just dive right in and have Deb introduce yourself and then Duane introduce yourself.

Deborah Mazol: Thanks, Megan. Deb Mazol with NRCA's DC office. I'm the director of Federal Affairs here and one of my main goals is to grow Roofing Day year after year and build on those relationships that our members make to make sure that the policy and laws put forward are beneficial and definitely not harmful to the industry as a whole.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Yeah. Duane, how about you? Let's hear about you.

Duane Musser: Sure. Duane Musser. I'm NRCA's Vice President of Government Relations. I've been with NRCA about 16 years now back in the Washington DC office. Basically just working on all of the issues, the government policy issues that are important to our members and the broader roofing industry. And Roofing Day is our biggest advocacy event of the year, so we're real excited about the new year and that coming up right along the horizon.

Megan Ellsworth: Fabulous. Well, I am so excited to have you both on the podcast today. And let's kind of start out with you just telling us the history of Roofing Day, when did it start and maybe what it means to each of you.

Deborah Mazol: Yeah, thanks. Roofing Day in DC on this scale started out in 2018. It was a fulfilled vision of then CEO, Reed Ribble, former congressman. And he really understood intimately the value of being there, being seen, being heard, putting a story and a personal touch on all the policy goals that we have. The first Roofing Day back in 2018 had upwards of 400 participants storming Capitol Hill, introducing ourselves on a much larger scale. Even to this day, although we're not quite at 400, we're one of the largest fly-in events in DC itself. For me, what it means is as a former congressional staffer, I know how important it is to put that story with the policy goals, what it means to your business, what it means to your employees and in the broader picture, what it means to your community. It's fun for me to plan kind of from the other side and share my tips and tricks of how to be successful. And then Duane and I and Terry throughout the year and all of our NRCA friends and team, we build on those relationships.

Members help us get a foot in the door, and then we carry on that relationship throughout the year by tracking legislation, helping put together tours for members of Congress to visit job sites. And if something comes up, then members of Congress know that we're a resource for them to let them know how it would affect their district and their state.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome.

Duane Musser: Yeah. And I would just jump in and say Roofing Day is very meaningful because it's really NRCA and the broader industry at its best.

Megan Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Duane Musser: As Deb mentioned, Roofing Day started in 2018. Before that, we did have a smaller advocacy event, but this is taking things to the next level, and it's just really been rewarding for me to see the impact that we do have through this event on Capitol Hill and some of the policy issues. And we can talk about that in a little bit. And it's also really rewarding when people come back and participate. They have fabulous experiences. And in particular with some of our field installers that have come back, it's been very meaningful for them to be able to go up on Capitol Hill, go and meet with their members of Congress and make a difference on behalf of their industry, their company and their community. And that's just really rewarding to be a part of that.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's very magical. And all the members of Roofer's Coffee Shop that have gone and experienced Roofing Day have nothing but amazing things to say about it. Congrats on that. And since 2018, so coming up on five years, six years. Kind of trailing off of that, why should new companies that have never attended or people that have never attended come and attend this year's Roofing Day?

Duane Musser: Well, basically our theme this year is be seen and be heard, and that's 'cause we really want to emphasize that that's what Roofing Day is all about. Deb and I and Terry Dorn who also works with us, we are back here in Washington DC working on behalf of the industry all the time, and we do develop relationships. But there are 535 members of Congress, and it's very critical that members of Congress see their constituents in person directly and hear them on the issues, see them up on Capitol Hill en masse, because in a democracy, numbers make a difference. And so we really just emphasize the fact that this is our big event. This is kind of our Super Bowl of advocacy for the roofing industry, and we need people to participate, to come show up. And as I discussed a minute ago, I mean, it's usually a very rewarding experience for those who do attend and it makes a difference on behalf of the industry and our companies.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Deb, anything to add on that?

Deborah Mazol: Yeah. I would just add, if you're a new company, don't be scared. We give you all the tools and tips and training that you need all in about two days. We also have veteran attendees. Again, Duane said it's important for the numbers, but it's also important to come multiple years so that you can not only mentor younger companies or new attendees, but also to build on that relationship. As you can imagine, members of Congress have 10, 20 meetings a day, and so you just kind of have to break through the noise. And the best way to do that is to show up frequently, but also to show up with a lot of people that really helps amplify your voice. And Duane mentioned, again, you don't have to be an NRCA member to attend. It's a very industry-wide event. Our Roofing Day in DC advisory committee puts together the issues that we're going to focus on, the program that we're going to provide, the educational experiences, the tours, if you are interested in that, we help organize some tours.

But I do want to stress it's important to attend. I haven't heard anyone say, "Wow, I went to Roofing Day and that was a waste of my time." Most people say, "I was pleasantly surprised. My member of Congress heard what I was saying. I followed up with them throughout the year. They came to my business, they co-sponsored the bill." I think that the numbers matter. Don't be scared if you're new. We have about 50% new people each year, so that's 50% people just like you and the other 50% to help train you along the way. If you can make it, we would love to have you.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's great. And I'm sure you're getting to meet your Congress members and also making friends along the way, basically, and mentors or networking, and that's never a bad thing. Why would you say it's important for roofing professionals to come together and speak about these industry issues, not only with their members of Congress, but with each other?

Deborah Mazol: Definitely. The roofing industry, and especially Roofing Day represents everyone from contractors to manufacturers to field installers to consultants and architects, other associations and each one of those groups all have priority issues that they care about. And there's probably 100 issues that the roofing industry, depending on the company, would really say that's my priority issue. But the one thing that's really great about Roofing Day is we decide on one or two issues that really embody all parts of the industry and something we all can agree on. They tend to be less controversial and they tend to affect all industries, whether you're a manufacturer or a contractor or a field installer.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. Duane, anything to add on that?

Duane Musser: Yeah. I would just add we emphasize the fact that we need to be together. There are disparate parts of the industry, and however, we're going up against other industries, we're going up against other interests within Washington DC. It's important that we come together and speak with one voice so our message gets through loud and clear. It is very competitive back here, and there's so many different issues going on. Members of Congress are pulled so many different ways, but by focusing on a few key issues and those that are a priority for our industry, that's how we can make a difference.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Going off of making that difference, how much of an impact have you seen since starting Roofing Day in 2018?

Duane Musser: Sure. We've seen a significant impact. More members of Congress, they see us up there in good numbers. They know the industry shows up to be seen and be heard on an annual basis, and that's very important. A really good example. One of the issues where we have been able to make a difference is on a career and technical education, in particular, the Perkins State grants that go from the federal funding that go to the state education departments and then are utilized for career and technical education programs, which is very important to our members workforce development needs. And the first year of Roofing Day back in 2018, we did advocate and make a priority of getting the Senate in particular at that time, get some legislation to reform and expand these career and technical education grants. And the House had already passed the legislation when we were here, and then we focused on the Senate and that legislation passed a few months later. And so we were able to get that enacted into law. And now Congress has to fund those grant programs every year on an annual basis through the annual appropriations process.

And so in subsequent Roofing Days, we've been able to advocate for greater funding for these improved programs. And we have seen increases, I believe the last fiscal year, we saw a $50 million increase in the amount of funding for those career technical education programs.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow.

Duane Musser: That's one good example of how we've been able to basically have an impact.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow. 50 million. That's not chump change.

Duane Musser: It is for the federal government.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, yeah, I guess.

Duane Musser: Which is why we have to be here every year because there's so much funding and so many issues, programs and whatnot being funded that we have to be in there and advocating for it.

Megan Ellsworth: Exactly, exactly. Deb, anything to add on changes you've seen since starting Roofing Day?

Deborah Mazol: I think Duane did a really nice job. We all come up here, have the big picture, we're all walking around as a group. And we meet maybe 160, 200 offices out of the 535, but that goes exponentially further when you're at the coffee shop and you see a bunch of people with red shirts and then people start talking, oh, are you meeting with your roofers? Oh, I don't know. I don't know if they came in this year. Let me follow up and see what roofing we have in the district. And so a lot of people, it's not just the meetings we have, but the overall reach within the industry. We also have speakers that are a bit of influential people on Capitol Hill will do a chief of staff panel, so we might not be meeting with those offices, but then they'll go back and tell their friends, "Look, I spoke on this panel. We had a great event. Really enjoyed it." This year we're having someone from the Cook Political Report come in and speak. Just kind of being around and getting people interested, creating that buzz goes a long way as well.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. You said you don't have meetings with all 535. What states are you missing attendees from, if any?

Deborah Mazol: Oh, you're putting me on the spot here. I know last year we had, I think 35, it was either 34 states and DC or 35 states and DC. I forget the exact metric, but as you can imagine, a lot of the less populous states, we'll get people from Wyoming sometimes. We don't have anyone from Nebraska, Idaho. Oddly enough, the Carolinas tend to be a little sparse for us. If you're listening from Carolinas, we could really use you. Our top states I know are Florida, Oregon is up there actually, because you guys do such a good job getting your people there. But again, Illinois, California, Florida, Texas, Maryland, some of the closer and local proximity to DC, but if you're from a small state, we need you, please come. Every new state we get, that's at least three meetings. And so we'd love to get those states. Every year we work to get 50. I think we've been right around 40 most years. That's a goal of ours.

Megan Ellsworth: Mm-hmm. Hey, yeah, that's 90%. Wow. Okay. Yeah, thanks for answering that question. That was off the cuff. I was just curious.

Deborah Mazol: No problem.

Megan Ellsworth: What are some of the key issues that y'all will be discussing this year on Capitol Hill?

Duane Musser: Sure. I'll start off with talking about the workforce-focused issues, and then Deb can talk about some of the tax issues. Basically, workforce development has been one of the key issues facing our industry for many years now, and that has been a focus of Roofing Day events in the past and will continue to be this year. We will be focused basically on three prongs of our policy issues to address workforce shortages. And number one is what I had talked about earlier with the Perkins Career and Technical Education state grants. We're going to be advocating for increased funding for those grants, which we have been doing and doing so successfully for the past number of years. And it's even more important now because we have this thing out there called the Federal Budget Deficit, and Congress is trying to rein in spending because they have to at some point.

And so there is pressure to cut certain programs. And so now we find ourselves in a situation, we hope for an increase, but we may even be at this point fending off a decrease in funding because many programs are being targeted for decreases in funding, purely for budgetary reasons. That's why we have to continue on the Perkins Career and Technical Education grants. And then another key workforce issue is reform of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which is also workforce development at the federal level, funding that goes to state programs that are focused on training for hard to employ individuals and also some veterans, but open to all people really. And we want to get more people involved. We have seen some of our contractor members have some success with these programs in recent years to get funding for training of on the job and new workers.

But we think a lot more could be done if the programs could be streamlined with less paperwork, more effective workforce boards that direct these programs at the state and local level. Some more funding and recognition for competency based programs that, in terms of our CAs, Track and PRO certification, the new training and certification programs that we have. And basically if we can have some improvements, and we have seen just recently here, legislation has been introduced and passed by a committee called The Stronger Workforce Act, which would include many of those reforms. That's going to be the second prong of our workforce. And then the third prong is immigration reform that meets workforce needs. And we have what is called the Essential Workers for an Advanced Economy Act, and that is basically a new visa program, which would match willing foreign workers when our domestic supply is not sufficient with contractors who need more workforce to meet that with immigration reform.

And then there are also some immigration reforms with respect to certain people who are here on temporary protected status and also those called DREAMers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that we've also focused on. A lot gone on there with workforce because workforce is a big deal for our industry, but that's going to be our focus on the workforce side for Roofing Day this year.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. That is so exciting. And this is going to be great. Wow. Okay. Deb, what are you chatting about?

Deborah Mazol: Second pillar, very exciting tax reform.

Megan Ellsworth: Woo-hoo.

Deborah Mazol: Yep. We're going to do two bills this year. One is particularly important to our contractor members that are organized as pass-through entities, and then another tax provision, both are very popular, that affect more of our manufacturing members. The first one we're going to again support at Roofing Day, the Main Street Tax Certainty Act. What that bill does is it makes permanent qualified business income deduction for those organized as a pass-through entity. LLCs, S-Corps, Limited Partnerships. Without this tax provision becoming permanent, at the end of 2025, a lot of our members would see a large tax increase that would put them at a disadvantage for those businesses organized as C-Corp. A lot of pass-through family businesses like ours, a lot of varied community involvement, legacy Main Street businesses. We're going to again support that bill and those efforts.

We're building support right now because in the end of 2025 when a few of the tax provisions from the 2017 law expire, we want to make sure that everyone's educated on the bill and why it's important to their communities. Last Congress, about 30% of the House and Senate were new members. That comes new staff, and that comes an education hill to climb, particularly in tax issues that can tend to be a little bit more complicated. Even if you follow it day to day, there's a lot of what ifs and buts and well, if this happens, that happens. Working on that, and we've been really successful. We did this issue last year for Roofing Day and prior to last year in the last Congress, we had 99 co-sponsors of the bill. This year, throughout the last year of work that we've been doing to follow up on Roofing Day, we now have 160 co-sponsors in the house.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow.

Deborah Mazol: Our goal is to get 200 and hopefully Roofing Day will help us do that.

Megan Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Deborah Mazol: Working on that, but that's a huge win for us. And then the second bill of the tax side is the American Innovation and Research and Development Competitiveness Act. Now it's very, very bipartisan on the Senate and the house side, and what this bill does is permanently restores the ability for a business to immediately deduct their R&D expenses. Recently, this moved from immediate to you have to amortize it over five years.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay.

Deborah Mazol: Big for our manufacturing members to be able to have that. The United States is one of the few countries that actually makes you spread it out over five years or 15 depending on what kind of business you are. Just restoring that is going to be really helpful. This change did pass a house committee this year, and the house chairman, who's a Republican and the Senate chairman, who's a Democrat, are working together right now to put some sort of package together that would potentially include this. It's right for us to really push once Congress this year, unless they continue kicking the can further down the road, which can certainly happen. In April, they're going to need some things to do once the funding, I shouldn't say debacle, but that's the word that's coming to mind. The funding fights are hopefully over at least for this year, as well as some other expiring provisions.

Those are the two tax [inaudible 00:22:56] we're going to focus on. And I think with those issues and the workforce challenges, we really have a good swath of the industry as a whole and really good bipartisan bills that have had a lot of work on the front end to be introduced or even past committee. I think it'll be just the right time for us to push it forward.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. Yay. Right timing. We love bipartisanship. I know we kind of already touched on what impact you've seen Roofing Day have, but what kind of progress have you seen on past Roofing Day issues that you've addressed and are now seeing the fruits of your labor?

Duane Musser: Yeah., We did touch on that, but I would like to go a little bit further, especially with respect to what workforce. We have made workforce development issues a part of Roofing Day, whether it's career and technical education, immigration reform every year with Roofing Day because we know of the importance to our industry. And I will say we do have a really good opportunity here this coming Roofing Day here, coming up in April. I briefly mentioned it's HR6565, a Stronger Workforce Act. This legislation has just been introduced back in December, and it was approved by a committee and it would basically reform the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which I had mentioned, but I did want to emphasize this, and you just mentioned, Megan, the importance of bipartisan bills. This is a truly bipartisan bill. It was introduced by Congresswoman Virginia Fox, who's chairwoman of the House Educational Labor Committee, Educational Workforce Committee and Congressman Bobby Scott, who's a Democrat from Virginia, who's the ranking member. And it passed within all but one member voting for it.

There was one member who voted against for some reason, but given what we have seen with not as much bipartisanship in Congress in recent years, this is a really good development. And I think it does have to do with the fact that we've been back here every year talking about the need for bipartisan cooperation or workforce development issues, and this legislation really represents whole years’ worth of behind-the-scene negotiations among these members of Congress and their staff. And given the fact that you had a strong bipartisan vote coming out of committee, that bill's probably going to be on the house floor sometime around the time that we're here on Roofing Day. And then of course, it also has to go through the Senate. This is a really good example of where we're making progress and we have a great opportunity to make more progress this year. That's why we need lots of people. The more people we have come back, the more of an impact we can have.

Megan Ellsworth: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Wow, that's really exciting and it's so nice to see your progress and really the fruits of your labor, all the hard work that y'all have put in come to fruition. Congratulations. That's really exciting. Moving on to this year, what is the plan? What is the schedule like for Roofing Day this year? What are we looking at?

Deborah Mazol: Thanks, Megan. It's going to be very similar to last year. We're going to start on a Tuesday afternoon. It's going to be April 16th is when we start. Save the day when you come for April 16th in the afternoon and all day on April 17th. We're going to start with registration as normal. We'll be back at the Grand Hyatt Washington, which we've been at the last couple of years, right in the heart of downtown DC, close to a lot of good shopping and restaurants and gelato. Folks really like being there, just about less than two miles from Capitol Hill as well. Not very far. We'll do more of a formal welcome presentation and opening remarks to just kind of set the stage for us this year before we move into advocacy training and issues briefing. Some combination of Duane and I or someone smarter than us will give a little briefing on how to talk to members of Congress, how to run your meeting, what to consider highlighting, personal stories you can add.

And then an issues briefing that will just tell you what the bills are, why they're important to the industry, why they might be important to your specific company and then have the ability for folks to ask questions. And Duane and I will go back and forth a little bit about some of the more controversial questions you might ask us, or you might get asked like, "Well, why don't you just pay your workers more?" Or "Why do rich people need a big tax break?" Things like that. But most of our folks won't get asked that stuff, but we just want to make sure everyone's prepared.

Megan Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Deborah Mazol: Then this year we're bringing back more formal team leaders and group meetings. We're going to provide some space to get with your group that you're going to be having meetings with, talk about, "Okay, Megan, you're going to lead on this one because you know this member of Congress," or, "Well, you have a really great story and a field worker, so you were going to kind of lead off this meeting." Just give you time to get more comfortable, especially for those new participants.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Deborah Mazol: And also exchange phone numbers and emails if you want so you can really make sure you got your whole crew together for the next day. And then we'll do a cocktail reception. Everyone likes some nice snacks and drinks, and we can network with people, again, from across the industry. It's a bit like a baby IRE, right, where you get to see everyone from everywhere, hopefully from all 50 states. And then everyone's going to get to bed nice and early because they have a busy day the next day.

Again, we're just going to do a nice breakfast kickoff, kind of just go over logistics and explain kind of the same things we talked about last year, but any last minute changes. We'll have a congressional keynote speaker as we do every year. We'll have someone that's a champion in our issues, hopefully have a member of Congress who has lots of constituents there from their state or district. We're still working to finalize that right now.

Megan Ellsworth: Exciting.

Deborah Mazol: A lot of folks don't like to talk to us until it's the actual year we're trying to schedule because they just have so much on their plate, they kind of take it as they come. Then we do have our main speaker booked for this year, other than our congressional keynote. We have Dave Wasserman from the Cook Political Report to talk about the 2024 elections and how that might play into your business planning, play into your advocacy for the next year or two and beyond. And also, depending on our states, he'll dive into some of those state and local elections, local congressional level elections, so people from those states can kind of get a little preview of what they can expect as well. Then we'll have our senior congressional staff panel, so chief of staff, staff directors, give you best tips and tricks for your meetings and let folks ask questions of them. Then we're going to take a nice little break, allow people to just stretch and get ready for their meetings, maybe grab some lunch.

And then we'll bus everyone up to Capitol Hill, take a big picture, which is kind of fun in front of the capitol. And then we will go to our congressional meetings from about noon to 5:00 where NRCA and our partners that we consult with, we'll schedule all your meetings for you, so you'll have access to your schedule in real time as things have to move around a little bit, making sure you have time to get to everywhere you need to be and see everyone who you need to see. We'll do that, and then we'll kind of head back on your own. We won't have the bus on the back end, but head back to the Grand Hyatt Washington for kind of a closing reception, final remarks, tape some bloopers and some testimonials to see how it went and then we'll send you on your way. We're looking right now on Thursday. Historically, we've done an architectural walking tour.

We're looking to set that up again for those that are still around on Thursday, as well as just looking at some other special things that are available to the city that we can help facilitate for those that want to make it more of a, not just a professional trip, but get some history and sightseeing in as well.

Megan Ellsworth: I know I've heard Heidi talk about the Architectural Walk and anywhere you go with Heidi, she's pointing out roofs and architecture. I'm sure she'll be all over that. That sounds great and really, really excited to hear all about it this year. Everyone out there listening, make sure you sign up. How can people get involved and register to attend?

Deborah Mazol: Yep, definitely. Just go to our website. The registration is live now. It is www.nrca/roofingday. If you just go on NRCA's website, you can also click on advocacy and find the little Roofing Day tab. Again, registrations open. That one page has our registration link. Register early. We do have early bird pricing that expires on March 1st. You can book your hotel through our special NRCA Roofing Day rate, so we have that there, as well as our issue papers. We have our draft summary issue papers, so you can start learning about your issues. You can start researching your members of Congress on, I think it's findmyledge.gov I want to say, but you can just type that into Google and you'll find it. As well as some of our videos and position papers from last year, pictures you can see to get you excited. But it's April 16th and 17th. You can find us at Nrca.net/roofingday. Correct me, Megan, if I said if said.com, but.net, I'm still getting-

Megan Ellsworth: .net.

Deborah Mazol: Yep.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Well, Deb, Duane, this has been so amazing. It sounds like you really prepare the people that arrive and come and chat with the members of Congress. For everyone out there listening, don't be afraid. Sign up, register. If you live in Nebraska, definitely come. Idaho, definitely come.

Deborah Mazol: Exactly.

Megan Ellsworth: Any last words on Roofing Day 2024?

Duane Musser: Yeah. I'll just echo what you're saying. In particular, we did mention from some of the farther and more sparsely populated states, we need more folks to come on out, and we have a really good opportunity this year, again, to make a difference on behalf of our industry, and we need strong numbers to do that. We need to have people sign up and it is crafted so that new people can fit right in and hit the ground running.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you both for your time. This has been a blast chatting with you.

Deborah Mazol: Thanks, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome.

Duane Musser: Thank you. And thank you for your support for Roofing Day.

Megan Ellsworth: Always, always, always. Thank you everyone for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips from rooferscoffeeshop.com. Make sure to go to the podcast page on rooferscoffeeshop.com to hear more of our podcasts, and make sure to subscribe and hit the bell so you get notified when we upload a new episode every week. Awesome. Duane, Deb, thank you again, and we'll see you next time.

Duane Musser: Thank you.

Deborah Mazol: Thanks, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: Bye.

Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.