IRE 2024 - That's a wrap!

NWIR Day, product demos, meeting customers and making new friends, we had a full week at IRE!

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a conversation the Coffee Shop crew had at the end of the International Roofing Expo during our celebratory dinner. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I thought it was a fabulous week starting out with National Women in Roofing and all of our team, streaming it live. It was phenomenal. The booth setup looked great right in the lobby. And really my favorite parts of IRE we're seeing all of our friends, so many great roofing professionals, new products, new initiatives. I just felt like I learned so much this week and it is such an amazing industry to work in. I'm so happy and I'm really grateful for our team at RoofersCoffeeShop.

Alex Tolle: This is my first National Women in Roofing Day and it was super fun. It was really powerful to be in a room with over 400 women who are in an industry where there's not a lot of women. I got to meet a lot of my contractors of the R-Club finally in person which is really cool and make those connections and then got a lot of new ones joining us.

Megan Ellsworth: And this IRE was definitely the busiest for RoofersCoffeeShop. We had two multimedia floor teams going out and getting floor interviews on the tradeshow floor of all of our customers and clients and friends. And the soundstage was poppin and Evelyn held it down which was amazing and all of our team at home did so good monitoring the YouTube and doing all sorts of stuff and keeping everything on track. And it was just crazy. I was so so busy. So much foot traffic I think everybody that I talked to throughout the entire week has gotten so many leads and really great things out of out of the show and it was really fun to see all of our friends.

Nicole Hougland: I had such a good week. This was my first National Women in Roofing Day and I think that was my favorite part of the whole week. It was so incredible. And I also just got to meet so many people this week and it's so fun seeing people that you have only ever seen their headshot, and especially getting to participate with the interviews. I just got to meet a lot of really cool people and just so many genuine people I love love, love meeting people who work in this industry and it was great.

James Ellsworth: I think my favorite part was meandering around the show floor and talking to people and then having them guide us through their booth getting multiple videos of demonstrations and examples and people moving their machines around and almost tearing things down by accident. Trash Rocket from Rocket Equipment, that was fun that hit a big thing on the floor accidentally. That was cool. I think that's about all for me. You can check it again same time same channel next year.

Evelyn Witterholt: This is my second IRE. I think compared to last year, I think the location of our booth was a lot better. We had minimal issues when it came to interviewees. Getting there on time. I was mainly at the soundstage the whole time I didn't really get to walk the floor but for the next few weeks I'm gonna get to sift through all the floor footage that our team got, which is a blessing and a curse because they got a lot but I'm excited to have plenty of content to post.

Tim Ellsworth: And there's a common theme here that I agree this was the busiest and the most positive and productive IRE that we've been at and we've been to quite a few. And our booth was hoppin all day long. First day and second day. Today was a little slower, but that's to be expected. I do have a funny story. We're at the IRE show and here on Sunday. The roof of the show floor has 20 to 30 leaks in it and I just thought that was funny. Everybody's so hard working and I also was impressed with all the people that came up to me and said what a team you have. So I'm really proud of all of them. And we made new friendships, with associates in the business in that trade and our team got a little closer I think. This is Tim saying goodbye.

Yvette Cruz: I would probably say the most positive thing that I've kind of experienced was just meeting everybody here. It's weird how comfortable we immediately all are even though we don't ever see each other face to face. But yeah, it was fun, exciting. 

Karen Edwards: I would say that I think the best part of this week was hearing from the industry, how much what we do means to them, and what an impact it makes. And we're going to take that message back to the rest of the crew who's working hard back at the office because they don't get to hear that every day. And sometimes you're just doing it and doing it and doing it and thinking does anybody even really care? Wow. Yes, they do. So that was pretty incredible for me.

Lauren White: And just like everyone it was a super busy week and it was really fun when people asked how many people from our team were here. Their faces light up when we say 10 and that we have 20 at home making sure everything else is still running and getting the stuff up that we need or answering questions. So that was really fun and just walking around and talking to people. Especially today people are so excited to show off all of their equipment and talk to us about things because it was a little slower. So we got some really fun demos from people and really up close with some of the machines and anytime we busted out a phone or a camera, all of a sudden there's a crowd there. It's like what's the next attraction you know?

And my favorite part was probably in the Beacon booth. They partner with is K9s for Warriors, where they rescue dogs from kill shelters and train them and pair them with a veteran who could use some support. And they brought in a veteran and a dog to the booth! The dog's name is Eagle and he was hanging around the the Beacon booth and making friends.

Heidi Ellsworth: I just wanted to say that when I look back over the week, I think our live Coffee Conversations with the four contractors and the four manufacturer distributors and technology companies was really insightful to the IRE overall, sharing trends such as sustainability, technology which was huge everywhere you went. AI in fact, if you had to pick one thing from this whole week AI was the topic and then followed closely by sustainability and of course labor but I also think the educational classes that went on all week I heard phenomenal things about the educational classes, and we definitely want to mention the keynote, who is our buddy Josey Parks who talked about AI as a highlight of the week also.

Megan Ellsworth: I just wanted to say I got a testimonial from Molly Quinn for who was with Owens Corning and is now with Carlisle and she came up to me in the soundstage. She was saying how going from residential to commercial seemed really daunting and she didn't know if she would be prepared for an interview. And so she went back and watched loads of Coffee Conversations and listened to a bunch of podcasts and she just says I can't thank RoofersCoffeeShop enough for the great educational content that they provide for the industry and they actually asked in her interview if she did any preparation for the interview, and she said in the interview that she used RoofersCoffeeShop as a resource.

And when Yvette and I went to the SRS Para Latinos award ceremony today that Julissa Chavez hosted, I was talking to her a couple months ago, and she was telling me about this idea she had to have a contractor awards. And next year they want to do it a full awards kind of like the NRCA awards. And so it was really cool to see that come to fruition because I'd been talking with her about it for quite a while. And then we got to interview all the winners and they had you know, best successful woman of the year, emerging contractor, best culture, work environment and some others. But the one that really stuck out to me, was emerging contractor. Pedro. He started a roofing company right out of college with his dad, and he was showing us a picture of when he was 12 sitting under a roof that his dad had worked on and he said, I wanted to start this company, because I saw how poorly my dad was treated, being a roofer up on the roof throughout my life. And so my dad and I started this company and he was crying on stage when he accepted his award because he was just so honored. Oh, it was amazing. That was the highlight of my week, getting to talk to him and his dad. And they won some raffle prizes, which was fun. Megan out.

Thanks for following along with us live on YouTube, on social media, in the Newsroom and more. See ya'll next year!