Inside the NSA Conference 2024 - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with John Chan of The Durable Slate Company. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

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Hello everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com. I am back again for a Roofing Road Trip, and today I'm tripping over to go see my friend John Chan. I'm so excited, today we're talking about the NSA Conference. Hi John. How are you?

John Chan: Great, how are you?

Megan Ellsworth: I'm so good. Excited to learn about the conference and everything that the Slate Association is doing, so I'll just have you introduce yourself to get us started.

John Chan: Sure. My name's John Chan. I'm one of the principals of the Durable Slate Company, and I also serve on the board of directors of the National Slate Association. So yeah, the National Slate Association is going to do their conference down in Charleston this year. It's October 24th through the 26th. It's a Thursday, Friday and Saturday and it's the perfect time of year to go down to Charleston, for those of you that haven't. Charleston's a fabulous city for many, many reasons. It was settled way back in, I want to say around 1670 or so.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow.

John Chan: Yeah, it was actually named after King Charles and it was called Charles Town at first and then they shortened it, but it's got so much history. There's all the plantations that used to be there, so it had a lot of money. So there's gorgeous old mansions scattered throughout, especially down on The Battery, which is right on the, I guess the, southern tip of the city and there's all these fabulous mansions that date... Gosh, they're prerevolutionary. I know we worked on a couple of them that were, I want to say, early 1700, so yeah, really old.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's incredible. What a great city to host the conference in for people to see all that culture and history. That's great. It's exciting.

John Chan: Yeah, like I said, it's a fabulous city because of all that history. Beautiful old homes with slate roofs, tile roofs, metal roofs and it's got all kinds of other charm too. It's a great place to go shopping, fabulous restaurants. Fort Sumter is right there, so you can take a ferry ride over to Fort Sumter and see where the Civil War all happened and everything.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow. And it's being hosted at the Limited Hotel, right?

John Chan: That's correct. So it's the Limited Hotel. It's a Marriott property. It's within walking distance of a lot of things, so that's always nice.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that is nice. So what can people expect from the seminars at the conference this year?

John Chan: Okay, so we've got a number of speakers lined up and it ranges the whole gamut of the industry.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome.

John Chan: You've got Trent Cotney, everybody knows Trent, he's a fabulous attorney and he's going to go over some of the pitfalls of things that we're seeing now in roofing. We've got Rick Damato, who's... Gosh, he's written articles for Roofing Contractor Magazine for decades and decades and he's got some stories about Charleston and it's going to be just... We have so many different aspects of speakers. Tom Stortz is going to speak about various tools. It's quite interesting because slate and sheet metal kind of go hand-in-hand.

There's a lot of European tools that people don't understand what they are here in the US. I remember, long, long time ago, I bought this tool from Tom's dad, John Stortz and he said, "Hey, John," he goes, "I got to ask you a question." I said, "What's that?" He goes, "What do you use that tool for?" I said, "You sell the tool and you don't know what it's used for?" And he goes, "No." He goes, "In fact, I've put it up for sale and you're the only one that's ever bought it." So I said, "Well, you open up standing seam panels with it." I said, "If you-"

Megan Ellsworth: Got it.

John Chan: You can use other tools, but if you use other tools to open up your standing seam panel, a lot of times you'll damage it." So he said, "How does that come in handy?" I said, "Well," I said, "For instance, we're working on this church and basically they had storm damage on the first three panels of a standing seam roof that's about 150 squares.

Everybody's coming out and saying, 'Yeah, we've got to remove the whole roof.' I said, 'Nah, you can just take out the first three panels' and we use pre-patina copper, so it's all green and nobody knew what we were doing." I was just like, "Yeah, you just use a seam opener and you open it up." And so Tom's going to explain a lot of different tools that aren't common here in the US that you can do all kinds of really interesting things with that.

We just did a couple courthouses where we did pleated valleys, which you basically fold the valley in such a way that it goes around, these were clocks, so it goes around it and you don't have to cut or solder anything and basically it's like an accordion. So when it gets hot, it expands, when it gets cold, it shrinks and it does all this without tearing any solder joints apart.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, nice.

John Chan: So there's all kinds of tools that are used in Europe that are relatively unknown here, so Tom's going to go over some of that.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome.

John Chan: Yeah, we've got Jared Ribble from the NRCA and he's going to talk about the Slate Pro Certification program and I believe all the assessors will be there. So it's myself, I'm trying to think now, Chad Brandon, Russ Watzke, Jeff Lavine. I'm pretty sure we're all going to be at that conference. So basically, the assessors are able to come into your company and basically give you the stamp of a pro certification for Slate Roofing.

Megan Ellsworth: That's so great.

John Chan: Yeah, so Jared's going to go over all of that, and I'm going to talk about some historic roofs to Charleston and New Orleans about how they use some of the old Penrhyn Slate and those old Welsh/English V tiles. And Troyce Jackson, who sold a lot of slate down in Charleston back in the day of Hugo, so we are going back to the late eighties and early nineties and he's got some terrific stories, so we've got a whole host of speakers. Yeah, it's going to be really awesome.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Okay. Well, that sounds amazing.

John Chan: Yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: It looks like the agenda is pre stacked in full as well. You have a walking tour through the historic Charleston Foundation. What is that going to look like?

John Chan: So after the speakers Thursday morning, we're going have a historic Charleston Foundation. They're going to break us up into groups, so they're more manageable. It's wild. I had no idea how popular this location would be because we just put the link out just a few days ago and over half of the rooms are already taken.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow.

John Chan: Yeah, I know. I was surprised. So I braced them for that. I said, "Yeah, there's actually probably going to be a lot more people than we thought." And he said, "Yeah, what we'll do is we'll break it up into several groups, and then one group, we'll take you to, say, Charleston Harbor. One group, we'll take you into The Battery and then maybe one we'll take you to their historic properties, like the Aiken-Rhett House or the Nathaniel Hawthorne House," and then they'll just switch. So you can get a really nice flavor of Charleston through Thursday afternoon.

Then Thursday evening we left open so that people can maybe go do a beer crawl or a pub crawl or something like that, or go out to dinner with each other. Then on Friday, we're actually going to go off to the American College of Building Arts and we'll be there all day. So we're going to have more speakers just speak about different things. The college is going to also do a talk, and we're going to see some of the trades that they're teaching over there.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great.

John Chan: Yeah, they've got masonry and all these different trades, historic trades and it's really an interesting place. So we're going to do that, and then we're going to have a slate panel there. So basically, we'll have a panel of guys where people can ask all kinds of questions and that's one of the great things about the National Slate Association. You'll see guys just ask questions, "Hey, I've got this really peculiar issue. What do you think about this?"

We just got one yesterday or a few days ago, Brad who monitors the website. He said, "Hey, I just got this question. Here's the drawing they sent. Anybody ever seen anything like this before and can it be done? Because basically, they've drawn it this way and the roofer said it can't be done." And I said, "Yeah, that's a German slating technique that isn't used very much here in the US, but it can be done." So I sent them a picture of a turret that we did in this German slating style. I said, "It can be done, but they're going to be hard-pressed finding somebody that can do this." I said, "You need somebody that probably has learned how to slate over in Germany. But yes," so you get these questions and everybody's done different things, and you get little tidbits of what people have done, how they can be done and it gives you an avenue to go down, rather than going, "Wow, I've never seen this before. I guess it's trial and error." So that's one of the great things about the association, so we'll have a panel there and we'll have a membership meeting.

So in the membership meeting, we will talk about whatever anybody wants to talk about, what they want to out of the membership, is there a particular location that they would like to have the next conference at? That's how this Charleston thing came about. We were thinking about going to one of the quarries, and then we got a few requests saying, "Hey, what about Charleston?" And so that's how this whole thing came about. Yeah, we'll have the membership meeting and we'll have the lunch brought in by one of the cool barbecue places. If you've ever been to Charleston, there's some really great barbecue places.

Megan Ellsworth: Num.

John Chan: Yeah, they've got Lewis and they've got Rodney's and there's... Really, really top-notch, so it'll be a fun time on Friday. Then afterwards, we're going to do the cruise through the harbor. So yeah, we're all going to hop onto a ship, take it out on the harbor, have dinner and it's just beautiful out there. I mean, if you've ever been out in the harbor, like I said, Fort Sumter's out there. You can see Sullivan's Island, Follies... It's really, really beautiful, so that'll be a very nice Friday evening.

Then Saturday we're going to let people do what they want. Guys can go out and go golfing. There's going to be committee meetings, if you want to get more involved. There's going to be shopping. There's the Charleston Museum. So we're going to break it apart and let people explore the city how they want to explore it, because I think if we pack it too tight, people can't see some of the things that... Like I said, Charleston's so charming, and you'll get to see what you want. I was saying to Tom Stortz the other day, because he's a golfer. I said, "Yeah, some of those golf courses are amazing." I said, "I'm not even a golfer," but I remember this one time I was out there and I was on Sullivan's Island and golfing, and I was just amazed because at the tip of the island, you're surrounded by water on three sides and the grass is green and I'm out there playing golf, smoking a cigar. I'm like, how much better can you get? I'm not even a golfer and I love this.

Megan Ellsworth: This is the life.

John Chan: Then the markets downtown Charleston. You've got all these wonderful markets that they have all these knickknacks from the different islands and Charleston stuff, and it's just really cool. They'll make these hats for you out of, I guess it's grass or I'm not really sure what it is.

Megan Ellsworth: Cool.

John Chan: Yeah, I don't know the material, but yeah, it's really interesting. So you've got all these wonderful shops, like I said, all those really great restaurants. They specialize in this cuisine called low country, so you'll get things like she-crab soup. There's a lot of key lime pie there too, even though you're not down in the keys. I'm not sure what that is. But yeah, you get a lot of that low country food, which is lots of crab, soft shell crabs, things like that. It's just fabulous. So downtown Charleston's a great place to go shopping.

Then, like I said, there's also the Charleston Museum. Charleston has so much history because A, it's such an old city and then B, you had such an interesting time between the plantations and also the Civil War. So there's a lot of different things that happened in Charleston, and the history of it is just really, really fascinating.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely.

John Chan: If some people really like that Friday outing on the boat, you can take a boat out to Fort Sumter. I did this a few years ago, and it's so fascinating. There's such amazing history there. You can see the cannons in place and you're way out there, so you've got water 360 degrees and it's a gorgeous ride out there. So some people might want to do that. There's so many things within the proximity of it, also. Olive Palm, there's Hilton Head. If anyone actually wants to just get out of the area. Some of the most amazing golf courses and resorts are down there in Kiowa and Hilton Head, so it's got a lot of different things for different people.

Megan Ellsworth: For everyone.

John Chan: Yeah, different interests. So it's really, really an amazing event area and especially that time of year because Charleston gets really hot and muggy, but by October, it's going-

Megan Ellsworth: It'll be beautiful.

John Chan: ... to be just be gorgeous.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm sold. If people listening to this aren't going to the NSA conference this year, then I don't know how they're not going, because this has been amazing to learn about all the different things you guys are doing. What a packed agenda. I am so excited. So I want to know what are you looking most forward to personally throughout conference?

John Chan: Gosh, one of the great things about the NSA Conference is just the camaraderie of the group. So you get to see and talk to people that you haven't seen in months or even a year or years, because not everybody comes to every conference. So some guys you haven't seen for two or three years. You ask them what they've been doing. You see interesting projects that they've done or cool places where they've restored or it is just really great talking to people and getting back into communication with people that you've not seen in a little while. So that brotherhood or camaraderie that you get from going to the conference is fabulous.

Like I said, I guess I'm going to go on and on a little bit about what I'm most looking forward to, because I'm looking forward to a lot of different things, actually. So we've done a lot of work down there. We did a lot after Hurricane Hugo, and then we've done work sporadically through the times there. So I'd love to just go and take a look at some of the homes that we did way back when, and that was another idea that Tom threw at me. He goes, "You could actually do a tour." I said, "Actually, I've done that before," because I've spoken at the College of Charleston, their historic... Gosh, historic architecture class.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, wow.

John Chan: Yeah. I did a walking tour for them and pointed out different types of slate roofs, different types of metal roofs and different aspects of how you flash the chimneys or whatever. So yeah, that was another thing that Tom threw out. He goes, "We could do that." I said, "Yeah, if there's any interest in it. We're going to be talking about a lot of slate, I'm not sure if people want to spend even more time at it," but I said, "I'd be open to it if they wanted to."

Megan Ellsworth: That would be awesome.

John Chan: Yeah, I'd be really interested in just seeing some of our old roofs, and it's just a really, really quaint city. It's got a lot of the charm of a New Orleans, that old historic charm, but it's cleaner, so to speak.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, for sure.

John Chan: Yeah, it's really a great place. So those are the things I'm most looking forward to, but there's even more the fabulous food and everything.

Megan Ellsworth: I know, and just getting to see everyone, like you said, is always honestly the best part, getting to reconnect with industry friends and colleagues. So if people want to attend, because I'm sure you've convinced them, because I want to go, how do they register? Where's all that information?

John Chan: So the NSA sent out a link, and what I'll do is I'll forward the link to you and then they just follow the link. They sign up and register at the hotel. What have to do is I'll probably have to contact the Limited and actually get more rooms. I had no idea that the rooms would fly off the shelf that fast. Usually, we're getting closer to the conference time and we're thinking, "Oh, we better nudge everybody because there's still all these rooms available in the block and we have to get a certain percentage of them, or we're going to have to eat the block." Right now, I said to Tom, "There's no way we're going to eat the block because we're already halfway to the max, and it's just been a few days." So they're just really getting snapped up. Yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Well, that's good to know. Everyone out there, book your room now. Get on in the block so you get a good deal and register. You can find all that information in the National Slate Association directory on RoofersCoffeeShop. You can find the registration link there. And then John, maybe a company's listening to this and they want to sponsor. Can you explain the sponsorship package and the benefits that come with being a sponsor?

John Chan: Yeah, so Tom, the president, actually has more data on this, but basically that you get a free attendance to the conference and you have your name put up as being one of the sponsors. I think there's other benefits too, but I actually have to ask Tom exactly what they are.

Megan Ellsworth: No worries. That's great. I mean, even just getting to go and having your brand out there in front of the great people of the National Slate Association, that's huge. So can people reach out to you or they'll find that information on the directory?

John Chan: Absolutely. You can email me at jchan@durableslate.com, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions about it.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Well, John, I'm so excited. I hope to see you there. Maybe I'll squeeze my way into going because it sounds like an amazing time.

John Chan: That would be fabulous. We'd love to have you.

Megan Ellsworth: Well, this has been so much fun, and I hope that the conference goes off without a hitch and that you all have a blast.

John Chan: We sure will, thank you.

Outro: Awesome, John. All right, everyone out there listening, this has been Roofing Road Trips from rooferscoffeeshop.com. Make sure to check out the NSA directory on rooferscoffeeshop.com and find out more about this great association. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road trips.

If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next Roofing Road Trip.