Making education accessible

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how a partnership between the Roofing Alliance and Clemson University is forging new career pathways. 

Bringing new people into the roofing industry and making sure they get the educational resources needed to succeed is key to solving the labor dilemma. In this episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Heidi J. Ellsworth learns about how the Roofing Alliance and Clemson University are working to make educational opportunities accessible for individuals of all backgrounds and experience levels. She spoke to Alison LaValley, who is Roofing Alliance’s executive director; Piers Dormeyer, the chief executive officer at EagleView; and Dhaval Gajjar, who is the director of undergraduate programs at Clemson. 

The partnership between the Roofing Alliance and Clemson is the natural progression of the Roofing Alliance’s construction management initiative. Alison explained, “It started a decade back with our student competition that we host every year at the International Roofing Expo.” From there they developed faculty retreats to educate teachers, and are now, by working with Clemson, able to make education available to students directly. This year, there are three different courses that are being taught. They are all self-paced and online, allowing individuals across the country and of all skill and education backgrounds to participate.  

Dhaval, who worked with the roofing industry prior to the now five-year old partnership with Roofing Alliance, added that this is filling a huge gap in many higher education programs. He explained, “When you look at any construction management curriculum across the nation, what we find is roofing was only talked about for maybe 30 to 45 minutes. That includes undergraduate, master's and PhD.” This partnership is doing valuable work helping students understand the career options they have and gain the skills needed to succeed. 

Piers emphasized how these types of educational opportunities can set students up for successful careers. He explained that the day-to-day demands of working in the industry often mean that the training of new employees isn’t as thorough as it should be. That’s why this type of program has a huge return investment. He shared, “To just get a roofing contractor, a salesperson, a branch manager of a distribution location, the basic 101, information about the roofing industry is invaluable. And we're not talking about, ‘This is going to save you 20% versus doing it in-house.’ It's hundreds of percent of ROI or maybe even greater than that.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the episode for more on the amazing partnership between Roofing Alliance and Clemson University.