Passion for the Next Generation of Roofing Pros - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

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

Speaker 1: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello everyone and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth and I am road tripping east to talk to a very special lady, Sherri Miles with Miles Roofing. Sherri, welcome back to Roofing Road Trips.

Sherri Miles: Hello, Heidi. Welcome, virtually east.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. East and West, we've got it all going here. But what we're really here today to talk about on this roofing road trip is all the great stuff you've been doing around the next generation of roofing professionals. And Sherri, you're the leader. I'm telling you, you are doing such amazing things.

Sherri Miles: Thank you for saying that. I'm not sure. There's lots of us doing lots of amazing things, but I'm happy to talk about what we've done here and what we've learned. It's a continuing process of tweaking and changing and just trying to figure out what sticks and what's going to work.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: What works. What works, I know. And we sit on a lot of those committees, on NRCA, and working in the background trying to just really get roofing in front of the vocational schools. So before we kind of dive in, for those of you who may not know you, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company?

Sherri Miles: Sure. I am Sherri Miles. I'm a fourth generation roofing contractor. My companies have been around since 1910. My great-grandfather started them here in Chesapeake, Virginia. And currently we have couple different companies, but we service residential roofing and residential exteriors. And then we also are a commercial roofing contractor. And we act as GC often on big projects where there's a lot of stuff going on, up on a roof, especially re-roofing world. And then we have some property development stuff. It's fun and interesting and ever-changing. And the theme throughout, no matter what business it is, we need people.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Sherri Miles: We're always looking for that next, replacing the people who have been with us their entire careers. And we used to be able to bring their children in. Whether they came to this country as first gens or whether they had been here for a while, it seemed to be we were a truly family company, where fathers and sons and nephews and the whole town would come to work for us. It's not the same anymore. It's not the same. And we're seeing that difference with the second generation, especially. And it's been the common theme throughout the country is the importance on post-secondary education. Everybody needs to go to college, everybody needs to go into a ton of debt, that whole cycle.

And so we've lost this generation, the next gen to come into a skills trade. So we're trying to swing the pendulum back the other way. I'm a huge proponent of college. I'm not going to say I'm not. But what I'm saying is that there's a place for everyone. And it's not saying that you're better or worse as a person, you're not, it's a different path. And there's dignity in all work, whether you're a philosophy major or whether you're a plumber or a roofing contractor. Live into your purpose-filled life. And if we can keep teaching that and preaching that and living into that and helping our people live into that, we're going to start to see a swing where it's aspirational to come into roofing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Sherri Miles: Where their fathers are telling their children, "I have had a great life. I have made a great life with this profession. You should come and join me."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And women.

Sherri Miles: And women, absolutely. I said children. I did not say sons, I said children.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Children, right.

Sherri Miles: Super important. And with National Women in Roofing, when people can see others that look like them, that's super important.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It makes such a difference. And I agree with you so much, Sherri. There have been so many times, and I get it, parents are like, they were kind of the mind that in order for their children to have a better life, they had to go to college, they had to do things where there are a lot of people who don't want to do that. They don't like academics, but they love working with their hands. They love being outside. And so that shift in what do you really love to do? And you can have a great living, whatever that is, it is changing.

Sherri Miles: That's right. And I think that the important piece, the thread throughout is critical thinking skills, which need to be taught. That's a soft skill and I know that. But it needs to be taught.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: No matter what track you're on, and I hate to say track, but no matter what path you're on, learn how to critically think. And I will tell you, the guys that work for us up on the roof, I am so amazed by their critical thinking skills. They can look at a problem, they can find a leak, they can figure out this very complicated geometrical insulation plan. What type of insulation? They know how to talk to an owner, our-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Sherri Miles: They know how to talk to each other, which sometimes is different. Most of the time is a different way of talking. They just have these skills that are amazing that you can't necessarily teach in schools, but we can help along the way, get those critical thinking skills. And then add that hard skill, that trade in, wow.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: Amazing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And when you talked to people, I was just talking to a contractor yesterday. He started at 15. He started his own company at 19. He is incredibly successful. He is out of Maine. And he loves the roofing industry, but he's also done a lot of construction too. So I think getting to that younger generation, giving him an opportunity to work with their hands, see how much they enjoy is so critical. So you have done a great job getting involved with your local vocational schools. Can you tell us about that?

Sherri Miles: Yeah. It's been great, it's been also difficult. You just have to keep at it, whether it's changing of principles or changing of mandates or mission statements by schools, whatever it is, you just have to keep in front of them and stay in front of them. And so we've done a couple different things starting with middle schools. We're part of World of Work, which is WoW.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Sherri Miles: And so they had recently had come in and we were able to present in front of the entire City of Chesapeake, all 3,000 8th graders got in front of us because they came through and we took platforms out where they could nail some shingles. We had videos, we had the solar piece, we had the drones, all this stuff. But the hands-on stuff. The parents of those kids came through. Really cool. Like, "Oh, this is what my kid could do." Right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: NRCA has an amazing list as part of their careers in roofing that show salary ranges for different positions. They were super excited about that. Just being in front of them and showing them this is an option and it's a really good option. So starting young. So that's one initiative we've done. We've teamed with other high schools at the high school level for field trip day where we've put a bunch of scaffolding up and the kids come out by busloads and they come see a roofing project being done.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, smart.

Sherri Miles: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's awesome.

Sherri Miles: And for the teachers, it's great as well. Speaking of teachers, we've taken groups of guidance counselors for middle school and high schoolers. And we've done a whole construction day where it's after school, they have to get some continuous learning credits. So this is all for that. And we have an array of contractors, general contractors, specialty contractors, and we talk to them a little bit and we show them some of our joint spaces where we teach and do hands-on training. And then we bus them around to job sites and they see what it takes and what actually happens during the day. And again, we show them that list of range of salary. And so many of those kind of teachers be like, "I think I need to change my career."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Sherri Miles: That's not our intention, but that's starting to them to think and it gets them to say, "Hey kids, this is what I've seen. This is what you can make. This is the kind of living you can have. This is the kind of impact you can have on your community." It's really great. I think that's really key and important. But the really cool thing we're doing now, Heidi, is SkillsUSA.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. Yes. Let's talk about that.

Sherri Miles: Yeah. I just got my four members only, I know this is a visual. The headline says Roofing Officially Becomes Part of SkillsUSA. I mean, how exciting is that? We have been working for this for years, and it's finally coming to fruition.

So last year we had a demo in Virginia, was lucky enough to have it. We worked with this City of Virginia Beach. I sit on their CTE board, their advisory board. I have the ears of all of the people that I need to talk to and can kind of make it happen from the administration side. And they can put pressure on their teachers and also coordinate or introduce me to the right teachers. So we worked with a carpentry teacher. We gave them the mockup, dimensions and schematics. They were able to make that in carpentry class. And then we brought in some roofing materials. They actually bought some heat welders as well. So some of the bigger things that they knew they needed and that they could reuse.

So they were learning on track training for roof application careers, which is what NRCA does, and thermoplastics. So it's kind of like a introductory level to thermoplastics. We use it here as onboarding. So we all have common language, but they can use that in the classroom. Kids can do it online after school, they can do it at home. And it tracks their progress of going through these modules. So they go through and they get to hear and learn roofing jargon and lingo, and get to hear a little bit about thermoplastics. Hearing and reading about is one thing, but actually doing it is another. So on rain days, and those are the emails I'm getting, we set up on Mondays. We look at the calendar and we say, okay, it's going to rain on Wednesday. What time can we come by and teach and do hands-on demonstrations? So I have my pro-certified roofers in thermoplastics going to teach these kids.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is awesome.

Sherri Miles: So the cycle of uplifting both at the professional level, these career roofing guys, and then them teaching this next gen and saying, "Hey, not only here's the skill, but this is the life I've built because of roofing."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And here's my life. And I love it. And so they see adults, it's not... There's so many myths and things in roofing, that reputation that hasn't always been great. But when you really get down to it, roofing is such a noble profession. I so many great people who, like you said, craftsmen and women who are on the roof, critical thinking, all that. And now they're giving that to that next generation. Makes all the difference.

Sherri Miles: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And so from that, we were in the classroom probably four or five times with hands-on. And we did it for all of the construction cluster, whether you were in masonry, carpentry, plumbing, or electrical, they all got to come in and heat weld and try to pull it apart and play with. It was safe, don't get me wrong, but it's fun. You got to make it fun.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: And then out of that, two kids were identified and said, "Hey, I'd really like to see what I can do as part of the competition." And so they learned enough and they competed at the SkillsUSA at the state level in April of last year.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And how did they do?

Sherri Miles: They did amazing. They were both outstanding. Unfortunately, because of timing, we couldn't get them down to Atlanta. But we're hopeful this year that the winners, because we're going to have more than two this year, I've already talked to three different school systems within Virginia, two outside of Richmond or near Richmond and one down here at the beach that they will have students in the competition this year.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great.

Sherri Miles: Starting to grow. And then in the meantime, I talked about working with the guidance counselors, but on tap for next year, there's a group of alliances or associations for CTE teachers. We're getting in front of them next year.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Sherri Miles: So they have two different types, whether, I can't remember whether it's more STEM oriented and then more trades oriented. We're getting in front of both of them at their conferences, showing them what we've done, how easy it is to participate in SkillsUSA, how easy it is to partner with companies who will hire these kids, how easy it is for kids to get their certification eventually as part of ProCertification and what that career path looks like. Because that's ultimately what they want. They want to make sure they're placing kids in somewhere that's not going to be just a dead end job, that they're going to have a career in front of them. And it's on us to show those teachers so that they can understand and push that down, those administrators to push it down to the teachers who push it down to the kids.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And communicate with the parents.

Sherri Miles: Oh, for sure. For sure. And I think we're still building this rocket ship as it's taken off, but we've tried to get with NRCA different talking points to different constituents. Different people need to hear things differently. And so you're right, to parents, you need to tell them, "Your kid's going to be safe. They're going to learn a skill, that's a lifetime skill. They're going to be able to get off your payroll and be a self-sustaining human by themselves." That kind of thing. And it's a different way of talking to a CTE teacher where I'm like, "You're going to have job placement and stability and all of that." And principals who are looking to make sure that their kids go into the military or college or have a job right after. They want to make sure that the kids aren't floundering. So different ways of speaking, but it's all part of the same song.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And what I love too, the SkillsUSA competition, I think just adds such an amazing element to it, because I'm thinking, as a parent, and I know that my child is going to this competition, that is a point of pride. It's exciting and it's something they can really get into. And then all of a sudden, that correlates over to, because for all those listening, and Sherri you can, SkillsUSA has all kinds of CTE vocational programs.

Sherri Miles: For sure. We had a booth, for years, at SkillsUSA, at their competition in Virginia. And so I would bring my roofing stuff, but we weren't in the competition. Right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: You could be on the outside, but you can't go inside while the competition is happening. Parents can't go inside either. And so I got to meet a lot of parents pacing back and forth. They'd pick up their kids, they were in cosmetology, they're doing auto mechanics. There's all these different skills. I can't remember the exact number now, but it's in the hundreds of what the competition entails. And the sense of pride for those parents, pacing up and down, wanting to know what's happening on the inside and excited for their kids and the kids coming out when they won. It was so thrilling and exciting.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That makes all the difference. And the fact that roofing has not been a part of it, dang. But it is now. And it's going to, like you said, the NRCA just came out, we are going to have roofing demos at the national level in Atlanta in June this year.

Sherri Miles: Yeah. And at different state levels. I can't remember how many. Shoot, I want to say 15 states maybe had started the process. But once it starts going, it's going to build some momentum here. And this afternoon I have a call, it's really important for contractors. There's different ways to get involved. One of the ways is to be on your SkillsUSA construction cluster team. And so I'm on a team throughout the state with other construction people, and we make the competition happen. We make sure that we have the materials there and logistics of the thing, we make sure that judges are there, we make sure the right power is there, all the safety stuff. So that's a really important place to be as well, to have your finger on the pulse to make sure that you can get roofing in, is to make sure a roofing is at that table as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll come back to that at the end on how to get involved, because there was one other thing that you've done lately. I saw it on social media and I thought it was so cool. And it's getting even, you said the eighth grade, you were in front of all the eighth graders, but you went even younger to middle school with the Girls Rock program recently.

Sherri Miles: Oh, yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Tell us about that.

Sherri Miles: Okay. So yeah, that's with the City of Virginia Beach, and it's all about letting girls and young women and their parents, again, know what kind of careers are out there. And we do two different seminars. They're on Saturdays and they come in and they have different speakers, they have different booths that you can go by. I was one of the speakers in construction. I was with an architect and an engineer and a salesperson.

And we got to share our career stories with these young women. And they asked fabulous questions and were so engaged and were like, "Oh my God, I never knew I could do that." And in a school, and it was really cool because a lot of us had worked on that same school in different aspects of whether it was the design function. And so that person with the architect firm got to say, "This is the kind of block we used, and these are the chairs that we used." It was really cool. And then bringing in all the different elements of that. And I was like, "Well, if you go up top," and showed them some pictures and, "Here's your roof and you don't think about it, but I put this roof on." And they're like, "What?" It's really cool.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And getting that to that level of where they first are thinking about it, and it's cool. And to see someone like you in front owning your own business, doing that, those are things that young people remember and they're like, "Ah, I can do that too. So important." With all of these things, I'd love your advice to all the contractors out there because they're thinking, "How do I even start?" So just really simple, Sherri, like 1, 2, 3, what's the first thing that they should do?

Sherri Miles: Honestly, if the easiest thing is to call the school within your district. Do you have a high school? See what they're doing as far as CTE. See if you can be a guest speaker. See if you can get on one of their advisory boards, because then you'll know who you need to get to make it work and connect with them. And it's just like everything else, Heidi, it's relationship building. If you go into school that's close to your shop, if you have kids... That's one way, I'll say that.

And then if you have a career center or career, we have, as part of our economic development, we have a service there, they will help you find internships with kids and pair you with those that are no cost to you. Or you can have field days. We've had field days with Girl Scouts that come in and take tours of the solar. They get badges for that. There's now a Construction Badge in Girl Scouts. And it's just whatever group works that you have any connections with. Boys and girls clubs are a fabulous place. Just start making the connections and the relationships. And it does take a little while sometimes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I've been trying to do it with our local community college. I went in there, visited with them, talked to them. I get back in touch with them and I'm just going to be perfectly honest, I haven't gone very far because it's when I have time, "Oh, I'm going to go talk to them and stuff." So it takes time. I'm not giving up. We're going to be involved. But those are the kind of things that I think when contractors can reach out to other contractors. So for everyone listening, on the NRCA directory of RoofersCoffeeShop, there's items about SkillsUSA, we can get you in touch with the NRCA. But then on your local level, send it in. Ask us. We can get you in touch with Sherri. I know Wendy Marvin is in Washington. Hilary McPartland is in New Mexico. There are contractors who are doing this and starting these groups in all the states. So now's the time to get involved.

Sherri Miles: That's right. And that way, even now, even in Virginia with SkillsUSA, the three different school systems I'm talking to are doing it three different ways. It's whatever works for them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Sherri Miles: They just have to know that we have a contractor partner. I have different, some competitors up in Richmond, and I take... Because there's also like I want to beat them, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: [inaudible 00:24:32] Built in. But I want them to partner with these school systems, right? And be there for them along the way. Not just teaching, but then supplying them with internships or jobs or whatever after. We all need people. We need qualified, skilled people.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And the word will spread because the young kids will talk to each other, right?

Sherri Miles: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Sherri Miles: Absolutely.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. Well, Sherri, wow. Thank you. This is so fun. So okay for everybody, again, I just want to go through, if you want to get involved, John Esbenshade is the director at NRCA. Again, we can get you his information, you can find it on the NRCA directory. We're going to be having a lot of articles that are going to be coming out on this. And then getting involved in a lot of these other programs that are out there, just finding out what's in your local. I know we have a number of Let's Build for young girls coming out now through National Women in Roofing. So there's just so many different ways to be involved. And Sherri, I got to say thank you. Thank you for all you do.

Sherri Miles: Hey, no problem. I love it. I love getting in front of the young kids. It gives me hope that there's some great people out there. And it gives me hope for not just roofing, but our future.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Our future, and the fun future of the roofing industry, which is so great. So Sherri, thank you. Thank you again, and we'll be seeing you soon because we've got all of this going on. In fact, I'm pretty much planning on coming to Atlanta in June, so be able to see your winning teams.

Sherri Miles: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. All that information's also available on RoofersCoffeeShop. Thank you everyone for listening. Please, please get involved with your local CTE, vocational schools. Just like Sherri said, whatever is there, because we need to bring that next generation into roofing. And please be sure to listen to all the podcasts. We're going to have more. We actually have a podcast earlier with John Esbenshade. You're going to be hearing a lot about SkillsUSA. So be sure to go on to RoofersCoffeeShop. Listen to all those on podcasts under the read, listen, watch and the Roofing Road Trips, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and hit the notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We will be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi, from the RoofersCoffeeShop.com.