Pushing for ProCertification

By Cass Jacoby. 

IB Roof Systems steps up to bring the industry into the future and shows support for ProCertification by hosting events designed to get as many people certified as possible. 

In Season 4, Episode 51 of the Roofing Road Trips Podcast, Heidi J. Ellsworth travels down to Texas to visit with CEO of IB Roof Systems Jason Stanley for a conversation on how they are working to make ProCertification® from the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) more assessable.  

ProCertification is leading the industry towards a more competent and sustainable workforce, built up of experienced workers who regularly demonstrate substantial roofing knowledge and skills. “The vision of the NRCA is to truly lift this industry,” says Jason. “It is truly just a godsend for the roofing industry during this time, to provide accreditation and credentials for those that want to demonstrate that they know roofing.”  

To promote this industry transforming initiative, last July IB Roof Systems launched a program that would make it easy to complete ProCertification assessments at their headquarters. The event was an astute demonstration of how roofing manufacturing company support can make a significant difference in creating an industry-wide standard for certifying skills and experience for roofing professionals. 

“We decided to put in together a kickoff event and it was wonderfully attended thanks to a lot of really great contractors here in the metroplex. I can't name them all, but we had many, many contractors representing,” says Jason. “They all came in as a panel to speak about how certification has impacted them personally and impacted their company, and then spoke on the vision of what they think certification can do to the industry.” 

The event was successful, it inspired a large-scale commitment for people to sign up to get certified. However, IB Roof System knows that the biggest barrier to individuals getting certified is the accessibility of the practical exam, which has to be done in person. That is why the company made plans to have 32 people take the in-person assessment on both September 27 and 28.  

“We're setting up 16 of these decks. And we will have four qualified assessors, four of our technical folks that are here, that can then observe this,” explains Jason. “So that you can do 16 people before lunch, 16 people after lunch, and then repeat it the next day to where hopefully you can put 64 people through pro certification in two days.” 

Effectively, this event will prove that up to four people can take the test per certified assessor, which will help speed up the process of people getting certified and boost the program. The change is incremental, but can revolutionize the industry. “Could you imagine if we put on an event like this every quarter? We're a small manufacturer, what could other manufacturers do that are much larger than us?” says Jason. “If we, as an industry can really get behind this and start shouldering the load or sharing the load of this, we can start rolling many, many contractors through this program and see those numbers come up where they need to be.” 

Listen to the podcast to learn more about what IB Roof Systems is doing to promote ProCertification in our industry, and for more information on how you can get involved and get certified yourself. 

Learn more about IB Roof Systems in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.ibroof.com. 

About Cass  

Cass works as a reporter/writer for RoofersCoffeeShop, AskARoofer and MetalCoffeeShop. When she isn’t writing about roofs, she is putting her Master degree to work writing about movies and dancing with her plants.