Malarkey Technical Services Team helps train tomorrow’s roofing contractors

by Malarkey Roofing Products.

Malarkey demonstrates industry leadership by participating in roofing organizations, product research and testing, and special events.

Since 2010, the West Coast region of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers has held an annual competition for apprentices. This year, representatives from the Malarkey Technical Services team served as judges in the event earlier this month in Pomona, CA. Malarkey also supplied 3-tab and laminate shingles for the steep slope roofing competition.

The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, based in Washington, D.C., has 22,000 members participating in nine regional district councils across the country. The union represents members who apply all types of roofing and waterproofing systems, including steep and low slope systems (including vegetative and solar photovoltaic roofs), structural waterproofing, and air barrier applications.

Roofing apprenticeship programs typically run 3½ - 4 years. Apprentices learn their craft by training on the job under close supervision and attending related classes at a training center. Once a year, apprentices compete on a succession of different roof decks to show their skill and speed installing roofing materials, dealing with penetrations and vertical transitions, applying liquid membranes, and safely utilizing tools of the trade.

A graduate of the program himself, Malarkey Technical Services Rep Ruben Lomeli served as a judge this year for the roughly three dozen competitors from four districts in California and Oregon, and separate categories for intermediate and advanced contestants. The top two winners of the day-long competition were from Portland, Oregon’s Roofers Union Local 49.

Malarkey Technical Services Rep Matthew Felt, who also served as judge, has led classes at Local 49’s training center in Portland, the Joint Apprenticeship Training Center (JATC) in Pomona, and been a judge at the Apprenticeship Competition since 2015. A roofer of 30 years’ experience, Matthew is a certified National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) Instructor and Registered Roof Observer with RCI, Inc. (formerly the Roof Consultants Institute).

Local Riverside, CA Malarkey Sales Rep, Dodie Daniel also attended the event to support the roofers of tomorrow in the West Coast Region.

Malarkey’s participation in roofing organizations, product research and testing, and events like the apprenticeship competition is testament to our support of the industry and the leadership role we play. We consider it an absolute privilege to be in a position to improve installations and help others learn a trade they can use to support their families and contribute to the kinds of communities that benefit all of us.

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Editor’s note: This article was first published on Malarkey Roofing Products blog and can be viewed here.