Introducing the RCMA Virtual Training - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Chadwick Collins of RCMA. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Heidi Ellsworth:
Welcome back. Here we are. My name is Heidi Ellsworth with Roofer's Coffee Shop and this is a special edition RLW, that we are hosting with the Roof Coatings Manufacturers Association today. We are so excited, there's a big announcement and we're proud to be part of it. I'm excited to welcome Chadwick Collins to the show. Chadwick, thank you for being with us.

Chadwick Collins:
Thank you for having us. I'm really excited to be here for RCMA and to talk about what we're about to announce. It's a really great project. We hope a lot of people get a lot of use out of it. We're excited to be here and have Roofer's Coffee Shop be part of the way we introduce this to the roofing industry.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, I tell you what, we're honored. It's a big announcement. We're very excited about this and so before we totally get started, what I'd like to do is remind everybody that this is being recorded. And so it will be on demand, available, within 24 hours, so feel free to share that with your friends or come back and watch it again. There's such great information you're going to want to see it probably a couple times. We also will be taking questions, so feel free to chat throughout the RLW or to put questions into the Q&A and Chadwick will be happy to answer those at the end of the presentation, so let's get started. Chadwick, can you introduce yourself and just share a little bit about you and the RCMA?

Chadwick Collins:
Absolutely. I have been in the roofing industry for about 16 years, a little over 16 years. I started off with a manufacturer as a field tech and slowly worked my way up the technical side of the business from field tech to guarantee services technician, got into codes and testing. Moved to another manufacturer, continued with codes and testing, got into R&D development, innovative technologies, those sorts of things, and really got exposure to the code standards development side of things. Had a brief stint on the consulting side of the business working for an engineering consulting firm, and then four years ago, started serving on the association side of things as a technical director for a couple different associations.

Chadwick Collins:
And today I'm here on behalf of the Roof Coating Manufacturers Association, which is the industry voice for all the roof coating manufacturers primarily in North America. We'd love to say it would be 100%, but we want to be honest too, we got a majority of them, a lot of the bigger players, the larger manufacturers are members. At this point, I would also take that, if anybody makes coatings or supplies raw materials to coating manufacturers, we'd love to have a talk with you about possibly joining our association and contributing to the projects like what we're about to announce here on Roofers Coffee Shop.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Amazing association. You're groundbreaking, you are leading the way on technical on education as we'll see today. And really the people who are involved, the past presidents, all of the board, everybody, Dan, the executive director, you guys, RCMA is just topnotch. I would say anybody who's not involved, if you're in roof coatings, you need to be involved.

Chadwick Collins:
Thank you. I appreciate hearing things like that.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Let's make the big announcement. You have been working very hard, Chadwick, on getting out training. What's the history of this and what are you doing?

Chadwick Collins:
Like any roofing product, our manufacturers, our members, recognize the importance of a well trained workforce to install those products correctly. It does no one any good for the ultimate users, the building owners, the facility management people, if a project's not installed correctly, no one has a good day on those days. We all understand the importance of training, of having that workforce being trained and being up to speed not only on technique but current technologies as well as the new technologies and perhaps new methods that are improvements over the old standby methods.

Chadwick Collins:
And so starting in 2019 in earnest, we had always had a couple different slide decks that many of our members could go out and present on their own as part of their own training programs. But in 2019, our members at our Baltimore meetings and our technical meetings, got together and kind of decided we need to, as an industry, put together something for contractor use and for other stakeholders in the industries use, to become knowledgeable about coatings.

Chadwick Collins:
We're having a lot of the same conversations and if we can find a way to facilitate those conversations, then that allows all of our people within our individual membership to focus on their products specifics, rather than the same general knowledge that needs to be a foundation to have a conversation about coatings. We left Baltimore thinking we were going to create a PowerPoint presentation that we would go around and present to people and unfortunately the pandemic changed plans just like it did for everybody. And the transition that many of us made in business to facilitate day to day business also presented the opportunity to us to create a virtual training platform. So instead of creating something that would have to be taking out to the community, we made the decision to create the same presentation that could be digested virtually. That way, it takes it out of the hands of scheduling, logistics, getting people there and everything.

Chadwick Collins:
We saw a lot of upside if we made this a virtual format. Also, as we got into it a little bit more, we realized everything we wanted to share is really too large for one setting, we needed multiple modules. And so we went from doing one presentation to making it three different presentations with three different topics. Obviously we understand that the people also when they're going to make that kind of commitment to learn, we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to recognize that. And so we knew we needed to get that AIA and IBEC accreditation, so we made sure to develop that where it was general, there was no product specific information, our modules, those kind of things. They are CEU qualified for the modules as we're rolling them out.

Chadwick Collins:
And so really the last year, year and a half, 18 months has been putting together these modules, building them out, doing the recordings, making sure they're long enough to meet all those requirements, testing the system, trying to make sure it works, doing a lot of front end working over making sure that it's going to work when we release it and launch it, today. We even had a couple meetings the last week, still stress testing everything, making sure it was working, double checking links and spellings and those kind of things. We're really confident that we've caught 98, 99% of everything and that it's ready for a release and we are looking forward to starting to hear feedback from people, the first people taking these modules.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is excellent. And when you really started looking at this, Chadwick, and I know in talking to you all, you really wanted to have this training for roofing contractors so that they could take this into their companies, but also be able to expand it like you are here with immediate requirements of AIA and IIBEC. There's a lot of roofing contractors who also our part of IIBEC.

Chadwick Collins:
Yeah, that's part of it. We recognize that when looking at a contracting company, it's not just the guys on the roof. There's a lot of guys back in the office, a lot of gals back in the office, that are putting together estimates, are looking at the specific product selection and trying to match up with what a roof specification or a project specification is outlining for products, so trying to make those decisions about product selection. Trying to understand what's already existing, what they're dealing with an existing building and trying to find what product compatibilities there are, those kind of things.

Chadwick Collins:
And so we knew there was a lot of knowledge there that would be applicable not just to the technicians in the field applying the product, but also everybody else that is part of the contracting company. And that was the other thing we really wanted to understand. We wanted to [inaudible 00:08:27], get their certification such as an architect or an RRO or an RRC or some other certification. And we wanted to make sure that we recognized their efforts in getting those certifications and then recognize the effort we put into these modules and making sure that this information is educational information, that would help support them and their endeavors that they're pursuing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's excellent. Let's talk a little bit about those training modules. You're launching it today. And these are the models that are coming out. Please share what they're going to be.

Chadwick Collins:
Yeah, so today we're launching the first module which is evaluating and preparing surfaces for roof coatings. Modules two and three will be hot on their heels with this first module today, roof coating technologies and roof coating application best practices. And so really this first module, while we do talk about roof coatings a little bit, this is really about what the coatings get applied to, identifying those surfaces, talking about the fact that there's a lot of different substrates out there that coatings can be applied to, and not every substrate and every coating match up perfectly. And regardless of the substrate, there's some work that has to be done in order to have a successful installation.

Chadwick Collins:
And so really it's taking a lot of that feedback that we know just from our experience in the industry from all of our members as well as feedback we get from consultants and contractors, just the common things that if people just knew this information up front, it would eliminate a lot of the heartache that people seem to have when they're first interacting with coatings or when they're having bad experiences with coatings.

Chadwick Collins:
Every product has those bad experiences, those bad installations or where someone did a poor product selection where that product shouldn't have been installed in those situations, coatings is no different. But at the same time, we want to recognize that the best way to eliminate that is through education. And so that's really one of the key tenets of what we're trying to accomplish with these modules.

Chadwick Collins:
Roof coating technologies is pretty straightforward. It's going to be introducing people to coatings because I think a lot of times people think coatings, they think about the specific type of coating they're used to, whether it be acrylic or an emulsion, aluminum. And maybe introducing them to some of the technologies they're not as familiar with, such as a silicone or any of the polyurethas, that urethane formulations that they might not have exposure to or they might still have questions about before they're ready to take that plunge. And then roof coating application best practices is really getting into the nuts and bolts of not necessarily product specific or type specific, but about the equipment and the ways you can install it and the things that need to have attention paid to, to make sure that you could have a successful installation.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Excellent. And then the best practices, as your third module.

Chadwick Collins:
Yeah. The best practices, and this is coming from the feedback of all of our members, this isn't specific ABC manufacturer or XYZ manufacturer's way of doing things. This is after all of our membership had their input provided. We've put the module together, we've had several members do in-depth reviews, we've had our technical affairs committee have some last minute reviews. Our board of directors have looked over these modules, with all of these modules, not just these three. And so this is really the agreed upon industry consensus in each of these modules about the information we're presenting. This isn't going to be lent toward any one particular product type for manufacturing. We want to make sure we're really clear about this. This is an industry consensus, a sharing of information on best practices.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Which is what our CMA is all about.

Chadwick Collins:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Bringing the best of the industry to give the best out to the contractors, consultants, engineers, everyone. The evaluating, preparing services for roof coatings is launching today. The roof coatings technologies and roof coatings application best practices is following very soon. And then are there more planned? It sounded like you said that.

Chadwick Collins:
Well I think right now, because we've put so much into it, obviously now we're used to building these. And so I think for us to sit on our laurels with just three, wouldn't be prudent, but at the same time, we're waiting to hear feedback because I'm sure we're going to hear from people once they start taking them and doing some of the feedback forms of, "Well you didn't talk about this," or "What about this?"

Chadwick Collins:
And so I think we expect to add modules as being able to disclose what we're working on. I think we're wanting to see what that initial feedback is and kind of be responsive to the people that are investing in their knowledge of coatings by taking these modules and meet their demands. If they're starting to ask a lot of questions around one particular topic, one particular aspect of coatings, I think it behooves us as an association to respond to those people first, with additional modules, as well as getting that feedback from our members on what they're hearing from their customers that are taking these, about what they'd like to see in the next modules.

Chadwick Collins:
And as always, the industry, when we talk about regulations or building codes or anything, those things are very fluid anyway. If anything, the industry always seems to find something for us to talk about and I think that will create environment for us to create additional modules as well.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's great, so ongoing. Not only is there an opportunity to take these courses and work through those, there's also an opportunity to get a certificate of completion. Let's talk about the assessment rules and how this is going to work and that people can really show that they've done this.

Chadwick Collins:
Absolutely. One of the big things we heard that our members thought would be valuable to people who took these modules and something that was kind of confirmed from us talking to people in the consulting community as well as contractors, is having this [inaudible 00:14:26] person who took the module, having it known that this person took the time to take these modules and acquire this knowledge. For each module at the end of it, there'll be a test, it's a 10 question test. We didn't want it to be really burdensome, but at the same time, we wanted to make sure we asked enough questions to assess that they were paying attention. We did set the pass level at 70%, seven out of 10 questions to get the certification for completion. You get two chances though. So you take the test once and let's say unfortunately you were right there on the cusp, you miss a couple, you do get the chance to take the assessment again and try for a higher score.

Chadwick Collins:
Unfortunately, after our discussions we were like, "Okay, if you take the test twice and you can't hit that 70% threshold, we're going to think that perhaps you just need to rewatch the module, take the module again and try to get a little bit more out of it." With that, one of the key things, and we'll talk about it later on, the price point that we set for this, we don't think, going back to reaccess the module is a really high hurdle. And so we do have a cooling off period, let people ponder what they've watched for 30 days, retake the assessment and take another shot at it.

Chadwick Collins:
But at the end of the day, once they do have that passing grade, which we think a lot of people are going to have that very easily out of the gate, they will get a certificate of completion and it will have their name on it. It will specifically say they completed the module. And so this isn't going to be tied to say a company or say to an event hosted by anyone. It's going to be tied to the individual that sat down, watched the module and took the assessment.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's great. To be able to have that and to be able for roofing professionals out in the field, who are doing on coatings, to be able to show that and show that completion, I think, it just adds to what they're already doing and to their experience.

Chadwick Collins:
And we see that value. One of the things we are talking about and trying to figure out, and again this is part of the reason we took the time to build your modules, we're taking the time to do this right is, trying to figure out if there's some kind of combination of modules that someone takes, can we tie some kind of recognition to them, some kind of acknowledgement of like, "Hey, this person didn't just take a module, they took this combination of modules," and in our minds as an industry, that allows them to be recognized in a certain way.

Chadwick Collins:
And so we are talking about that and trying to figure out what we want that to look like. And again, once we're ready, we'd love to come back to Roofers Coffee Shop and announce that as well. But just to let everybody know, just like we know we're going to have more modules, more than likely, we are talking about that as well of how we want that program to look, how it rolls out and how we can make sure and keep track of whose done what modules and doing that recognition to follow them as well.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great. I think this is just such a resource for the roofing companies out there, whether they're already doing roof coatings or they want to get into roof coatings, because that's what we're seeing a lot of too. A lot of companies are differentiating to bring on different types of products, especially with material shortages. This is really powerful. How? How to get the training, Chadwick?

Chadwick Collins:
Yeah. We make it really super easy. You go to RCMA's website, roofcoatings.org and at the banner at the top, the very first option on the far left is the virtual training program menu button. Has a drop down menu, it'll take you to the landing page, which they've grabbed here on the screen, on the left. The module landing page, basically, you scroll down, it'll show our sponsors at the top that has supported the overall program, as well as a little bit of a mention of individual module sponsors who financially supported the development of these. And at the bottom of the page you'll be able to select the modules once they all roll out. $100 per module is our pricing option. We thought that looking at other training options and the fact that this is virtual and access anytime and we want people to learn this stuff.

Chadwick Collins:
We're not wanting to try to keep it secret or put it behind a huge paywall or anything. We want this information to be accessed and learn. We thought $100 would be a great price point for contractors and for individual technicians. Once you purchase that, that'll take you to the testing platform. You register, you'll get an email that gives you the link as well as your username and password to access the module itself. Click on that link, put in the provided information in that email. You'll be able to watch the recorded webinar video and then at the end, it takes you straight in to taking the test and of course passing the test. We highly expect everybody to be passing those tests and getting those certificates of completion.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's excellent. And I wanted to remind everybody, if you have any questions about the training, the assessment, anything you do, please put those either in the questions box or into the chat, so that we can make sure you get all the information you need to get started on this. You kind of touched on this a little bit, Chadwick, but what is some of the feedback from the members of our RCMA, around this training? I know they've been taking it and they've been helping, so what's some of their feedback?

Chadwick Collins:
A lot of our members are very excited. I would say over the majority, if not all of our members, that have participated in this program and provided feedback are excited about this program rolling out. Because they recognize the fact that a lot of things that we cover in these modules are the things they have to cover when they go train a contractor. Like you said, a lot of contractors, and we've had some surveys that bore this out, a lot of contractors are either expanding their coating's offerings or first now getting into having a coating's offering. And so anytime that, that's happening, our manufacturers, while they're training them on their product offerings, they're having to do that base level education of just general coating knowledge. And while it's always in that context of their product lines, it's pretty common the stuff they're having to share with them.

Chadwick Collins:
How to take meal thickness, how to use rollers, how to use spray equipment, setting the spray equipment, how to make sure it's properly mixed, the things you need to prep the surface for and what surfaces you can install it on and those kind of things. Storage, proper storage, where the information on instructions are at, those kind of things. And so I think a lot of our members see this as kind of a prereq course for them to do their product trainings now. If they work with a contractor, I think a lot of them are thinking, it'll be one of those things where if a contractor wants to be trained on their product line, their first question is going to be, "Have you done any of RCMAs training program? Have any of your technicians done that?" And then, that'll be the entry point for them to say, "Hey, before we come out and train you on our products, a great place for your guys to start or to do this training program."

Chadwick Collins:
The other part of that too is for the contractor, because it's a one on one interaction with the modules, he doesn't have to take a whole crew off the roof and be at the shop to receive that general knowledge training in the morning and then do the product training in the afternoon or have a really compact morning where it's a half day loss leading up to that product training or now they can even focus on doing onsite training. The contractor could take one technician at a time over the course of a week, week and a half, two weeks maybe, and get them all through this basic course knowledge and then they can jump right into that onsite product training.

Chadwick Collins:
I think it's going to be beneficial to the manufacturers because they're going to have an easy tool for them to use to get this basic knowledge in the hands of their customers. And I think it's going to be great for contractors because they're going to be able to have their crews acquire this knowledge. It's going to be tied to those technicians because of the certificates' completion, but then they can do it one at a time and still keep up productivity on all their other obligations for their work schedule. I think it's really a win-win for everybody involved with this program being available.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It really seems like it. And have you had an opportunity, I know this obviously just launched but, with roof consultants because of having the IIBEC certification, any feedback from them or from that? Because I see this actually helping between roof consultants and roofing companies to be kind of working from the same.

Chadwick Collins:
And I think too, that'll be the thing. I think we're going to see probably some of that consulting community maybe even take the modules just based on what the subject matter of the modules are. Talking about what substrates coatings can go to, I think that's a value to a consultant. What are roof coating technologies? I think that's a value to the consultant, helping them stay up to speed on that. We are looking forward to hearing back from feedback from the consultants. But to be honest, the biggest feedback we've always heard from consultants as an association is, you guys need to get training to the contractor base, that the contractors need to understand and know how to install coatings properly. Because again, if a consultant's having a bad day with a coating, it's usually one of two reasons. It's either product application or product selection.

Chadwick Collins:
Again, I think our modules are going to help with that because we do talk about substrates in the technologies, that's going to help with product selection. And then if we're talking about substrates and best practices, that's going to help with product application. These first three modules that we're rolling out, we are hitting the big rock items that the consulting community's telling us about. We're hitting the items that I know contractors want to know because I haven't met a contractor yet that doesn't actually want to install it right. I know all the guys out there, they want to do it right the first time. And really, that's what we're hoping these modules help is, in some way finding a way to help them do it right the first time so they can get onto that next rooftop and keep on installing coatings hopefully.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I think that's going to be excellent. One of the last questions that I had here from before was, as we're talking and there's a number of manufacturers on the line right now watching, thank you all, and there's a number of contractors, I just love the audience out here. But manufacturers, this is like you said earlier, this is just a great opportunity for them to actually get these training classes out to their contractors too and be able to really share with them that bigger picture of the RCMA. Again, I know we went, in fact I'm going to go back, I know we went over this, but I want to make sure everybody has this, kind of where they can go to get it and either share it or start using it within their companies.

Chadwick Collins:
Again, like I said, it's really super easy to get to our website, roofcoatings.org, coatings is plural, roofcoatings.org. And then at the very top of the page when you get to that first thing, the banner at the top, virtual training program is the very first option on the left, click on that, takes you right to the page. All the information's on that page, you scroll down the purchase buttons at the bottom. It's very, very easy to get access to the information and then once you register, you'll get the email, it's with the link. You don't have to go typing in a lot of stuff, really, you type in your information or purchase and then you type in the login information from the email we send you, and that's really it. After that, it's really clicking to start the video, clicking to open the test and clicking your answers on the test.

Chadwick Collins:
There's not a lot of input areas for input error and we were working on that. We're actually still having conversations behind the scenes of even trying to make it more streamlined. So we're hoping with the second and the third module, that we'll be able to make it even more streamlined for user access. To your point Heidi, about manufacturers seeing the value, we can even announce the first 30, the first 30 app module purchases was actually by one of our manufacturing members. They got the first 30 and that was their thing is they see the value in it so much they're going to buy 30 already to hand out to their customer base. And so I'm hoping that at the end of the day, many other manufacturers will follow suit and see that kind of value with the price point we have is easy access and an easy win to get your contractors up to speed, with a not very much resource allocation to get that knowledge shared and disseminated.

Chadwick Collins:
We do have three sponsors right now. Western Colloid and Mule-Hide Products, have been gracious enough to sponsor the overall program, so they're the logos you're going to see on that landing page and in your emails. They've been great in supporting the development of the overall program. Karnak is supporting one of our modules and shout out, one of the guys there at Karnak, he was crucial in helping us get the rough draft of that particular module developed. So the manufacturers on the phone, we still have two opportunities to sponsor modules. Your logo would appear at the beginning and the end of the modules thanking you for your financial support of those modules and you would get seen in front of every person that takes that module for the rest of this year and the rest of 2023. But we're really proud to have Western Colloid Mule-Hide and Karnak stepping up to the plate and supporting and really championing this training program out to the industry as well. I definitely want to thank them for their financial support of the program.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It's so great. And I want to say Western Colloid, Karnak are both on Roofers Coffee Shop too, so please check their directories out and see what they're doing because they're really supporting the industry, Mule-Hide of course, so very exciting. I also want to say that all of this is going to be on Roofer's Coffee Shop, so you can find where to go on the RCMA directory. You can find out all the information of everything that's going on. And we did have one question that came here and I'm not sure you want to answer this today Chadwick, but possibly. It was how much is a sponsorship for a module or should they call you and get in touch?

Chadwick Collins:
Call us and get in touch. Dan Quinonez is our executive director. He is the point person for the sponsorship. I was lucky enough to not have to deal with the financial side of the development of the program. I'm the nuts and bolts on the technical side of things. But a sponsorship, if someone is interested, reach out to Dan Quinonez, his emails on our website or if you stay in the chat, I'll talk to Heidi after we're done here and we can get that information directly to you to contact Dan for that sponsorship.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Chris, thank you for that question. We will follow up. We'll make sure you get that, and anybody else who wants it, just you can either as always email heidi@rooferscoffeeshop.com or you can go right to the RCMA and get ahold of Dan or Chadwick and you can also find them in their directory on Roofers Coffee Shop. Chadwick, thank you. Thank you for choosing us to share this great announcement and also thank you for... Training and education is the most important thing we have in the industry for professionalism, roofing respect, and you are just delivering it in spades. Thank you.

Chadwick Collins:
Absolutely. I'm just excited that we were finally able, we got to launch day finally and to be here on Roofer's Coffee Shop, talking to the direct audience that we want this to get to, the contractor base, we're really excited and hoping to hear a lot of great things from you guys as you take these modules to let us know A, how much you enjoyed it, how easy it was to access it and the value of the information as well as like, "Hey guys, this is great. What's the module on this? What's the module on this?" We want see this program expand, definitely. And we also want to hear about any questions you have still about coatings. I think coatings is one of the more undervalued aspects of the roofing industry. Like I said, I've worked for a couple manufacturers, every product that's out there has a great story to tell, there's a great application for all of those products. But when you do decide to use coatings, I want everybody to be knowledgeable and be able to facilitate and use best practices installing products, because I love hearing all the coating success stories.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, there's so much. Thank you again. This has just been great. And we are on a roof coating's roll, let me tell you. Next Thursday the 22nd, we will have our next RLW at the normal time, 11 Pacific with Sekas Sarnenfeld talking about roof restoration. I'm telling you, this is great. We've got a lot of great information and I encourage everyone to go to the RCMA page, check out those modules. It's going to be great. And like I said, you'll keep seeing it all over Roofer's Coffee shop. Chadwick, thank you.

Chadwick Collins:
Heidi, thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And thank you all for being here today. We look forward to seeing you on the next RLW.