Krista Gnatt - Unveiling Success - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Krista Gnatt of Tremco Roofing. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts, to on-the-road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. Fasten your seatbelts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello, and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. Guess what? This is live. It is a live Roofing Road Trips. I have come cross-country to Cleveland, Ohio from Oregon to be with my dear friend, Krista Gnatt, president of Tremco Roofing. Krista, this is so cool.

Krista Gnatt: Thank you so much for coming, planes, trains and automobiles all the way across the country.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. To get here.

Krista Gnatt: So happy you're here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You are so inspirational and everything that you're doing, I have to tell you, I just have been really excited about this.

Krista Gnatt: Thank you. Thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So much.

Krista Gnatt: Well, you know my boss, Paul and he's very energetic and he has high standards.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Love Paul.

Krista Gnatt: Hi Paul. I am up to the challenge for running this organization and making us even better than where we sit today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay. We've already been meeting this morning; so much is going on at Tremco Roofing and it really just starts right here with this lady. So why don't we start with an introduction.

Krista Gnatt: Okay.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background?

Krista Gnatt: All right. Well, again, Krista Gnatt, president of Tremco Roofing and Building Maintenance. I am an engineer by trade turned contractor turned manufacturer. I've got about 25 years in the industry. I have worked predominantly for some of the largest roofing and waterproofing contractors in the United States. My start with Tremco was actually with our commercial sealants and waterproofing group a little over 20 years ago, right when I came out of engineering school.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Krista Gnatt: So then I was introduced to Tremco Roofing about 12 years ago when I was approached by Paul Hoogenboom, Marty Billingsley, J.K Milliken, the previous president of Tremco Roofing, to introduce the contractor I worked for to a lot of our fluid applied roofing systems. I was a partner to the roofing and WTI teams for a very, very long time until I was looking for a change and called my partner friends at Tremco Roofing and they said, "Don't look anywhere. We want you to come on board." And here we are in 2024, 2025 fiscal year for us at Tremco Roofing and now leading this organization as the first woman, first female in the 96 year history of Tremco.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And the youngest.

Krista Gnatt: And the youngest. Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I just love that. Now we met when you first started with Tremco.

Krista Gnatt: Yes. Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I can remember we met in Chicago.

Krista Gnatt: About six years ago.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yep. And I was just like, oh wow, I just really like this lady. She is on it. We were having so much fun talking roofing, but I love the fact that you have this background across the board of both sealants, building envelope, roofing. I mean, that's really what you need in this space today.

Krista Gnatt: We really do. And the other part that I bring to the table is that contracting background.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Krista Gnatt: Because we are a sales company, we are a manufacturer company, but the service piece of that, whether we're working with our contracting partners, whether we're self-performing a leak or a warranty repair, you need the blend of all of that to work together as efficiently as possible.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it makes sense. And we love the contractors.

Krista Gnatt: We do. We do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: There you go. I know.

Krista Gnatt: I come from the world of being one of those. So having trusted partners in that world is so key and so important.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: What do you see as some of your success vehicles or qualities that has really helped you find that success in the positions you've held so far in construction?

Krista Gnatt: I'm glad you asked, Heidi, so I wrote down a couple of things. So three primary things: my blue collar upbringing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Krista Gnatt: Back to my grandfathers being cement masons, my uncles, my dad was union carpenter for 43 years. My brother is an electrician. My husband is actually a water-proofer, tuck-pointer. We actually did not meet in this environment, but it's amazing that you find out so much of your roots and your upbringing translate to your career and your happiness and your success later on in life. So my blue collar upbringing, I'll say. I'm a first-generation college graduate for my family.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We have so much in common.

Krista Gnatt: Okay, keep going. And then I guess first-generation even obviously graduate degree, too. So secondly, I would say my vibrant personality. This is a people business from our customers, from our clients, from our contractor partners, from the people within our own organization. You've really got to understand and be able to communicate the why behind what you're doing. And as a leader, you can't do it by yourself. You need a great team behind you. So having a personality that cares about and can relate to all the different aspects of our organization, I do really believe that I bring that to the table.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. And it's so important, that passion.

Krista Gnatt: It is.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: The love of getting out there and being with people.

Krista Gnatt: And putting your work boots on and getting on a roof and riding with your sales reps and your contractor partners.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Krista Gnatt: Just spent quite a lot of time on the west coast in southern California doing just that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Krista Gnatt: And then my third success point, I would say my love of math and my love of analytical thinking. That's ultimately what drove me to engineering. I did think I would work under a licensed engineer and get that stamp, but I got an internship with a contracting company sophomore year of engineering school. So that was where my pivot came. But for those of you out there that understand any type of engineering, mechanical, civil, structural, computer engineering, whatever, it's a way of thinking. It's an analytical way of thinking to problem solve and think outside of the box. So that has really attributed me to my success, because you've got to be able to do that and pivot and think to promote growth.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: When you think about that... I love those answers, by the way. I think that's great. First of all, I came from a blue-collar family.

Krista Gnatt: Love it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: First one to graduate in our generations. I didn't think I liked math, but when you run a business and you're [inaudible 00:06:24]-

Krista Gnatt: It's so important.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... all of a sudden you just all of a sudden become a junkie of the analytics and the data and the numbers and-

Krista Gnatt: Understanding the why. Right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, the why. It just brings it all together. So, okay, you told us this a little bit before, but we met when you first joined Tremco.

Krista Gnatt: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So tell us a little bit about that journey since you've been with Tremco and what all you've done and your experience with the culture and just overall-

Krista Gnatt: All of that?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Krista Gnatt: All right. Well, four positions since six years. So I've been a little bit busy. All of them promotions, so that's been great. There's a good and a bad to that, right? Because you get a promotion, you're in a position and you really want to dig in and then if you get the next promotion you got to make sure that you have somebody back filling that position behind you. And I've been very, very fortunate that we have great people to promote up in the organization, such as James McDonald who took over for me as vice president of Weatherproofing Technologies, Incorporated.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. Great guy.

Krista Gnatt: So when I first came here, I worked for Marty Billingsley and I was our director of our hub program, which I don't need to get into that right now. But within about a year, I was asked to actually take over running our service division in Canada.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, I remember that.

Krista Gnatt: And working with developing our leak response teams and our warranty, some of our TremCare programs and things like that. So did I know when I came to Tremco that I'd be asked to get a work visa within the first 12 months? No, I did not. But you know what? I'm always up for a challenge and I totally respected Marty's opinion on where she wanted me to spend my time. So I said yes. I did that, got my work visa. We launched our program in January of 2020. And then COVID hit of March of 2020. But that did not detour what we were doing. It just meant that me being based in Chicago and the epicenter of our Canadian operations being in Toronto, that I would have to do a lot of driving. So that first year I made 67 border crossings.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh my gosh.

Krista Gnatt: The second year I made 44 because the Canadian government will do business. We were obviously considered essential. But the airline and the flying was a little bit hard to combat.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And sometimes even getting across the border.

Krista Gnatt: Oh, totally, totally. So that's what I did for just under two years. Then I was approached by J.K Millican to run WTI, both the US and the Canadian part of the business. So I was promoted to vice president to do that. I actually really set that as a goal for myself personally when I came here to Tremco, based on my background. That's what I really wanted to do. I had a lot of ideas about how we can improve, what we can do to grow. So when I took on that position, I had set my sights on doing it until retirement.
Then when I was approached to take on the position as president of Tremco Roofing and Building

Maintenance, one of the items that really struck me as something that I could add value to the organization is we've never had a president of Tremco Roofing that had that contracting background, that service background. We've always had sales or product folks that have led the organization. I've obviously worked with a lot of different manufacturers in my contracting days before coming here to Tremco. So I bring a different lens to all of that. Here we are almost a year and a half, a year later, I was approached last June to take on this position. So it's been about 15, 16 months now.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's a lot of firsts.

Krista Gnatt: It's a lot of firsts. It is.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And I'm going to say first for Tremco, that makes it so exciting, the first one with a contracting background. I just think it's so important.

Krista Gnatt: It is.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: If you really understand it. I mean, that's [inaudible 00:10:17].

Krista Gnatt: Our contractor partners are the lifeblood of our growth.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Krista Gnatt: Right? Exactly.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And being the first woman, you and I have been talking about that kind of stuff.

Krista Gnatt: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: How are we doing these things? And then being the youngest. I just think all of that is really cool. So now as you are looking at your role as president and where you want the company to go, what are some of the things that are really important to you? I love how you said you visualized where you wanted to be, because I believe in that 100%, too. So as you're visualizing the future of Tremco and as you're going... How is... Yeah.

Krista Gnatt: Well, I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the shifts that I've seen that I actually am a little bit concerned about. Not just COVID, but technology in general.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, yeah.

Krista Gnatt: I feel like we've really shifted away from that belly to belly and getting back to the culture and the grassroots. Our regional sales managers, our vice presidents, me even as president, spending those ride days back with our teams, whether they're internally our teams or whether they're our contractor partners or they're our customers or clients. I've seen a shift away from that over the last three to five years, and I want to bring that back.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Let's talk about... Sorry, but talk about heart blood. That is the heart blood of our industry.

Krista Gnatt: It is. It is. And we all bleed green, right? But you need that balance. So one of the things that I love about my job is when I do have an office day, oh, I need that office day because the emails, the phone calls, the big picture things that you still have to focus on. Because as the leader, you're tactical, you have your operations, but you have got to be able to show that vision to your team and get them excited about the future. As you know, 2028 is Tremco's 100th anniversary.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. I'm super excited.

Krista Gnatt: So we have a lot of 2028 goals that we're working towards within the organization. But the blend of personal and professional as a mom, as a wife, as a career woman. And then you have the blend of the office and the field. So spending a day on teams or a day catching up in the office, are you also blending that with being out there with our contractor partners? Being out there with our sales reps, putting your work boots and your jeans back on and getting out there and visiting a job site, taking a look at a new product mock-up that we're putting down. We've gotten a little bit away from that. I feel like it's just because there's so much in front of us. Sometimes I say to my team, "Do you have to send that email? Do you? Or can you pick up the phone and talk to that person?"

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Yes.

Krista Gnatt: Or actually just schedule an in-person meeting with that person with maybe 10 items you want to talk through and do breakfast on Friday. And we've really gone back to regionalizing our management and that they really truly live and operate in an environment that they oversee.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I like that.

Krista Gnatt: We've gotten back to that. So as my role as president, I really am back to grassroots. We talked a lot about that, the grassroots part of our organization.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. You know what? And we were, like you said, just talking about that, how authentic that is, that grassroots really brings [inaudible 00:13:31]-

Krista Gnatt: People feel that, right? They feel like you care about what they're doing in this huge big organization.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And they want to be part of it.

Krista Gnatt: They do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And the culture, because Tremco has such a great culture. And you know what? You and I have talked a lot about innovation and how Tremco has changed the roofing industry. And maybe talk just a little bit about the changes you think Tremco has brought and what's next.

Krista Gnatt: Okay. Well, I do think our research and development is the best. I wrote down again a couple of notes. Our internal collaboration across all the different groups of RPM is getting stronger every single year with trainings that we have, bringing the leaders of each group together. But even internally with us, within Tremco, you have our commercial sealants and waterproofing team, which we've rebranded as Construction Products Group. And then you have our roofing group, which I'm the president of. Scotty Stinson is my counterpart in the other Tremco team. In the 96 years that Tremco has been a company, I feel like we are in the healthiest place with Scotty and I at the helm.

We recently, this past fiscal year, in April of this calendar year, we brought together all of our product and technical solution teams under one umbrella under Mike Steele. And Mike Steele is a direct report to me, but he has a dotted line to Scotty, meets regularly with both of us. And the innovation we have... We're launching 53 products this year. 53. And I know you met with Mike Steele yesterday.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. Yes.

Krista Gnatt: About the timeline of that and how we can market that. But we're talking about the next gen on everything. What is the next gen on this product? How do we improve this and make it better? What contractor partners we're bringing in to get that feedback? So much of my last visit out to the West Coast was our contractors telling us how we can be better with packaging, with labeling, with pot lifetime, all of those different things. Everything, we want to hear it. We want to improve.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: When it's contractor driven, it makes sense, right?

Krista Gnatt: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Although sometimes they don't even know what to ask for, which is what I've loved about Tremco.

Krista Gnatt: But tell us what your problems are-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Tell your problem.

Krista Gnatt: ... and we'll figure out a way to solve it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Exactly.

Krista Gnatt: We have the Innovation Center of Excellence, which is by RPM, but it's in Greensboro, North Carolina. It opened last year. Got to get you down there, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I would love that. Let's do that.

Krista Gnatt: It's amazing. It's an amazing lab. It's an amazing space.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. Wow.

Krista Gnatt: And then we just built a new fluid plant here in the Cleveland area. We call it the TAG plant, the AlphaGard Bio Plant. That's our acronym, TAG, here in Mimico. And it's just for greater production and greater collaboration between our Tremco teams.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I tell you what, I've been lucky enough to do some tours of the plants, Tremco plants. I'm always blown away. I'm blown away.

Krista Gnatt: And Paul does a great job. Mike Steele does a great job. I'm getting more involved with those. But we love to talk about Tremco and our products.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and there's so many of the products with root restoration, such a focus on restoration that have just been leading the industry on being able to install them at all different temperatures, all different climates. I mean, it's really making a huge difference. I would be remiss, and everybody out there watching would think I was remiss, if I didn't do this. And I have to ask, how has your experience of being a woman in roofing-

Krista Gnatt: This was my hardest-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Question. I know.

Krista Gnatt: I know you gave me the questions beforehand. I'll be fully transparent about that. This was actually my hardest one to answer because I actually don't even think about it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I like that. Yeah.

Krista Gnatt: I really don't. It doesn't even cross my mind unless there's a feature or a focus on something, to be honest, I have worked in a male-dominated industry since I came out of college and even during my internships in college. I have definitely had to ride swing stages, 55, 60 stories hopping over the parapet wall in downtown Chicago when I'm 23, 24. I never came up in the trades where I didn't hold a tool in my hand in that regards, but I had to learn how many squares, the production, the facade restorations, the caulking, the flashings, all of those pieces. And you have to earn that street credit at some point.
I don't even know if I necessarily thought in the beginning of my career it was because I a woman and we didn't have a lot of women in the project manager estimating construction trades. We didn't certainly, but I looked at it more like, I'm green, I'm young, I'm 23 and 24.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You'll learn.

Krista Gnatt: I've got to learn and I've got to figure out a way to be valuable to all the people that are within the organization that I work for, whether I'm male or whether I'm female. And that has really carried me through my career at this point. It really, really has. And putting my work boots on and being out there with the guys, I love it. I love that part of the job.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: One of the things I have found is, there are so many amazing men in this industry who are solid family men, who have great careers, who are willing to reach out and mentor. But there's the same amount of great women in this industry.

Krista Gnatt: There are.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's one of the things that attracts me to not just roofing, but to construction overall. And like you said, blue collar, family, generations. There's just so much that we are getting beyond, or maybe we're getting back to the fact that it takes all of us.

Krista Gnatt: It really, really does. And everyone's got a different skill set. And when I came to Tremco Roofing six years ago and worked for Marty Billingsley, I remember looking at her team and how many amazing women were on that team. And it made me feel like, wow, this is the first time I've actually worked for a company that actually had almost as equal women as they do men, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. Yes.

Krista Gnatt: And Paul Hoogenboom, who's my boss, I mean, he loves to promote men, women.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Whoever's right.

Krista Gnatt: Whoever is the right person. That's not even part of the conversation. Right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: As it should be. I mean, honestly.

Krista Gnatt: As it should be. If you can do the job and you are really great at what you do, it shouldn't matter what your gender is.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that. I love it. That is so true. Okay. We're getting into some more philosophical, fun questions here. But how do you define leadership?

Krista Gnatt: So I actually looked up this quote that I heard years ago, and it's, "If you think you're leading, but no one is actually following you, then you are really only out there taking a walk." And that is so true.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is perfect.

Krista Gnatt: That is it. A leader to me is taking people where they would not be able to go alone or where they can't even envision for themselves to go. My job as a leader is to empower the people that work on my team and get them to the point where they actually can promote growth within themselves so as an organization we're elevating,

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We're all rising.

Krista Gnatt: If I don't end nearly every call that I'm on with, "How can I support you in this? What are the follow-up items? And then do we have to set up another meeting to hold each other accountable?" When I go out and I do my travels, we meet, we strategize, we whiteboard all these ideas. And then everyone goes to wherever they're from and you're like, oh, we talked about that. Did we actually do anything about that?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, no, that's true.

Krista Gnatt: As a leader, I am... Who's the head of an orchestra?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, the maestro?

Krista Gnatt: The maestro.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: The maestro.

Krista Gnatt: Has to pull all the different instruments and segments together and the glue that holds it together. So setting up that 30 day call. Did we move the needle? Did we say what we're going to do? Okay, we didn't. Why?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. What's in our way?

Krista Gnatt: What's in our way? Why can't we do it? Okay. And then you learn more about it. So to me, you lead by example, right? Don't ask somebody to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that. That's so true. And really with your experience and where you've been, you've done-

Krista Gnatt: A lot. A lot.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... a lot of what you're asking other people to do.

Krista Gnatt: I have.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I've found that in my career too. It's like there's really not a whole lot that I haven't done that I'm not asking you to do.

Krista Gnatt: And I love that about you, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Sometimes it's technology, sometimes I don't have that. Even though we're all set up and it's working. So that's good.

Krista Gnatt: I struggle a little in that area myself. I still like to hand write a lot of things.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, I know.

Krista Gnatt: Yours is typed out at least, mine's hand written with a pencil, not a yellow number two but I have plenty of those.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm not against those. I like [inaudible 00:22:01].

Krista Gnatt: Yes, I have a pencil sharpener in both my offices.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So do I. You're kind of scaring me now. We have all these things in common. I love it. Okay. So let's talk about... There's two things I want to talk about. Some of the goals for Tremco with the board.

Krista Gnatt: Okay.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You said it earlier so you have me all curious, looking towards your 100th anniversary in 2028. What's on the horizon?

Krista Gnatt: What's that look like?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Krista Gnatt: So we've got five big pillars of growth. I will share two of them because there's some things we got to keep a little close to the vest, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Secret sauce.

Krista Gnatt: So every year we do what's called growth in strategy. It's usually in March. Our fiscal year ends at the end of May, so it's right at the tip of the beginning of the fourth quarter. I've really set up our pillars of growth for Tremco Roofing to be a five year plan that we're moving the needle against. So two big ones. Our first one is One Tremco, and our second one is our growth of our latest acquisition. Tremco Roofing is not... We've grown organically very well over the last decade, if not couple of decades, even before that. We actually excel within RPM and I think excel in the industry with organic growth. So acquisitions are not really how we get to that next level.

But we did make the acquisition of Pure Air, which is our HVAC restoration company. So two of our five big pillars of growth are the growth of our HVAC restoration program. Can talk a little bit about that. And then our One Tremco approach. So back to One Tremco, I mentioned how healthy our organizations are coming together now between Scotty Stinson as the leader there and myself as the leader of Tremco Roofing. So taking our solutions and our problem solving to that building envelope are six sides of the building. So what are the six sides?

Starting with the roof, you've got the four walls, so that brings you five. Depending on who you ask the sixth one can be the floor inside the building or it can be any... A parking garage or a plaza, any external component that's not the roof that falls into that conversation.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Waterproofing.

Krista Gnatt: And then I just heard from one of our Pure Air sales managers this seventh side of the building is the HVAC. So when we bought Pure Air, it fits in with our restoration concept getting to it to restore it before it has to go and get replaced. And if you don't know what Pure Air Control Services is or that arm of WTI Tremco Roofing, YouTube video it. There's some amazing videos on there that share that.

But we get a lot of phone calls about, "Our roof is leaking," and a lot of the times it's the HVAC unit. And of course during COVID and everything, the indoor air quality conversation is a big piece of it. And the sustainability goals that we have as an organization, not just within Tremco, but within RPM International, taking those HVAC units and putting them into a landfill when you can restore them, recode them, build the engines on the inside, all of that stuff all has to do with our sustainability goals.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That hits all the marks.

Krista Gnatt: It really does. It really, really does.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Makes sense.

Krista Gnatt: So those are two of our big five pillars of growth.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And really when you're talking about One Tremco, I think a lot of people out there don't realize that Tremco just has such a rich history in sealants, adhesives, the building envelope along with roofing.

Krista Gnatt: I'm really glad you said that because through our purchasing of Nudura, our insulated concrete forms, Dryvit is now up under that umbrella and we are taking more and more market share every year under Scotty's leadership with Dryvit will seal our expansion joint product line now. Even New Brick, all of those different pieces of the business fold into that six, seven-sided part of the building.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Krista Gnatt: Yes. That's a huge growth for us as One Tremco.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Just so everybody knows out there, when you're talking about RPM International, there are 100 plus-

Krista Gnatt: Rust-Oleum, [inaudible 00:26:14], Stoneheart. There are. We have our four groups. We're in the construction products group, Tremco Roofing is. RPM is our parent company. Tremco Roofing was purchased in 1997 and became part of RPM International at that point in time. But obviously Tremco as a company was originated in 1928, which is coming up on our 100th anniversary.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's so exciting. So 100th anniversary, we're going to be back here.

Krista Gnatt: Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm hoping I'm coming to the birthday party.

Krista Gnatt: We're going to a have a hell of a party. We're going to going to have a hell of a party in 2028.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I just think when you really look at the companies out there, there's just not that many companies who can talk about that, talk about 100 years. And it's in the building products. It's pretty incredible.

Krista Gnatt: It's pretty incredible.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay, so last thing. This is going out over all of our channels, Roofers Coffee Shop, Coatings Coffee Shop, Metal Coffee Shop. We're going to share it everywhere.

Krista Gnatt: Great.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We want everyone to see this. But for contractors, all the different contractors out there, since you have something for everyone, how can contractors get involved with Tremco WTI and that bigger Tremco CPG with really all those products? How can they get involved?

Krista Gnatt: I'm really glad you asked that, because I've been... We were talking about the acquisition that we made into the ACM and the MCM panelization piece on the product line, but we actually leased a very large facility outside of Dallas, Texas that were holding a lot of our contractor trainings in, in addition to the old Commercial Sealants and Waterproofing building that's across the parking lot here at Green Road. There used to be the war on Green Road, Commercial Sealants And Waterproofing versus Tremco Roofing. Well, now we're all in one building, all of our office is.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: One Tremco.

Krista Gnatt: And we have a joint training center across the parking lot. And now we have this facility down in Dallas. When I was working with the Commercial Sealants and Waterproofing group, I was part of the qualified applicator program as a contractor. And we now have 15 QAP programs, qualified applicator programs. And we train here in Beachwood. We are going to start training down in North Carolina at the Innovation Center of Excellence. And we're training down in Dallas in this big facility that we have down there. We at Roofing are actually trying to elevate our contractor program to be a little bit more sophisticated with our QAPs. And we're actually learning from our sister Tremco company on the best way to do that. Because we years ago had the President's Club. We had different tiers for our approved contractors. We need to revisit that. We actually need to elevate... We need to go back to our awards on an annual basis and elevate our contractors in that regards.

Because even when I was out in Southern California, I'll throw a shout out for Letner Roofing, we've been working with them since their inception in 1957. And just going to sit down with them for an hour, thanking them for their business, asking what we could do better and then all the amazing jobs we're doing with them in Orange County, I want to talk about that. I want to promote that. We have contractor partners in all the major markets that we want to just share the success stories with.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We want him on Roofers Coffee Shop. We want to tell that story.

Krista Gnatt: There you go. And as we're launching these 53 product lines, we really want to, of course, keep our warranty claims low. So we want to make sure our training on those demos and those mockups.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So important.

Krista Gnatt: And when you apply products in all these different geographies around the US and in Canada, sometimes you just need a good partner that's willing to take that step with us to launch that product and get in early on that innovation. So that's what we're doing there. Lots of good stuff. More to come even on that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And you'll be seeing it on Roofers Coffee Shop because I am so with you celebrating the contractors, celebrating these jobs. And the more training the better, because everybody wants to mitigate risk.

Krista Gnatt: We really do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Nobody wants to have that.

Krista Gnatt: And a lot of times you have to hear that message or see that installation two, three, four times for it to actually become ingrained in you and for you to be really proficient at that and make it happen.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh my gosh. Krista, I have to tell you, wow, this is even better than I thought. This is so great. I am really excited. I'm excited for us to do more. We got lots of podcasts coming-

Krista Gnatt: We do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... from the leadership and all... Everybody, contractors in the field, you name it. As you watch, you've already seen a bunch of our videos on I Love Roofing and that's brought to you by Tremco. So much great things. Thank you for having me here.

Krista Gnatt: Thank you for making the trek cross country and sitting down with me. And thank you for giving me the questions ahead of time so I can be a little bit prepared. And thanks to all of you that tuned in for this 30 minutes to hear from us and hope to see you guys soon.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We'll see you again. Thank you all for watching. I have to tell you, we're coming from the office, from Krista's office here in Beachwood, Ohio at the Tremco headquarters. It is just phenomenal. So thank you all for watching and thank you all for listening. Be sure to check out all of our podcasts and all of the Tremco podcasts. There's some great stuff both on YouTube and of course on the Tremco and WTI directories, on Roofers Coffee Shop, Coatings Coffee Shop and you can also find them on Ask a Roofer and soon to be Metal Coffee Shop. So lots of information. Check out all of our podcasts and all of our videos on your favorite podcast channel and on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe and hit those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. And we will be back again live from the roof, or I should say, live from the road on Roofing Road Trips. Have a great day.

Outro: 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.