Everybody comes together for SkillsUSA

By Lauren White. 

Competitors and industry professionals from across the country are joining forces to usher in the next generation of roofers, starting with SkillsUSA. 

Roofing made a statement at SkillsUSA 2024. And while this year’s event has already come and gone, people like Rick Damato and John Esbenshade are already planning for and looking forward to 2025 to get students interested in roofing and help bridge the labor shortage gap in the industry. They joined Heidi J. Ellsworth for an episode of Roofing Road Trips® to share the importance of highlighting roofing as a skilled trade at SkillsUSA and how the industry is coming together to celebrate and support the future workforce. 

"What's happening is our workforce, our really best, our highly skilled workforce, those 40s, 50s, 60s folks, they're aging out, they're retiring. And the industry as a whole, and not to be critical, but we've really not done the job we needed to do of replacing them,” shared Rick, National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) recruiter, entrepreneur and dedicated member of the NRCA and Roofing Alliance. 

Roofing wasn’t always a competitive trade at SkillsUSA. In fact, this year was just the second roofing competition held at the national competition. “There was every conceivable skilled trade represented... Every manner of construction except roofing," shared Rick. “And the light bulb sort of went on that roofing has never been recognized as a specialty trade in career and technical education in this country. So I didn't really start anything. I just discovered this huge gap, and I saw it as a real opportunity when it comes to workforce development." 

And what an opportunity it has become not only for the roofing industry, but for career and technical education (CTE) schools as well. "NRCA makes our TRAC (training for roof application careers), curriculum completely free to any and all career and technical education students in the country that want it, including those who are in correctional education, known as justice impacted students,” shared John, NRCA director of workforce development. “There's this tidal wave of momentum and excitement about the progress that is very visual for the first time. And it's very much snowballing, it feels like, on a week-to-week basis. It's a really exciting thing to be able to be a part of.” 

This snowball doesn’t stop at the curriculum in schools. Professionals from across the industry want to be a part of SkillUSA and usher in the next generation of roofers. Like many other industry events, SkillsUSA is where everybody comes together, whether they’re competitors, large or small companies or individual contractors – it's a full industry event. 

The Roofing Alliance has been a strong supporter as one of the first donors when they helped NRCA get involved with SkillsUSA, and in 2024 they committed to donating $50,000 per year for the next three years. Other stakeholders have stepped up to donate time, materials and labor to make the event a success: ABC Supply, Atlas Roofing, Beacon Building Products, Georgia-Pacific Building Products, IB Roof Systems, Jobba Trade Technologies, Johns Manville, National Roofing Partners, RoofersCoffeeShop, Roofing Corp of America, Roofing Contractor, SRS Distribution, TAMKO Building Products, Service First Solutions, Roofing Technology Think Tank (RT3), Sunbelt Rentals and National Women in Roofing, among others. 

It takes a village, or in this case an industry, to make this event happen. From donating materials, volunteering their time and getting students, teachers and parents excited about roofing to working the booth and organizing the event, people from all over the industry are coming together to support, train and welcome the next generation of roofers, and SkillsUSA is a big part of that. John shared, “After you see it for the first time, it's different. You think about how we fit, how our industry fits into this career and technical education space with all these other trades that we are competing against for skilled labor. And when you're there for the first time, you are not going to think about it the same way again. And that's a really important thing to get out.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about how industry professionals are getting involved with SkillsUSA and career technical education in the roofing industry.