Scott Carpenter - Strengthen Your Knowledge with a SPRI Membership - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Scott Carpenter fromn Single Ply Roofing Institute (SPRI). You can Read the interview below, Listen to the podcast or Watch the video.

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Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. This is live in person at the SPRI, single-ply Roofing Institute, winter meeting. And I am with my dear friend, Scott Carpenter. Hello, Scott.

Scott Carpenter: Hey, honey girl. How are you?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I am so happy to be here with you.

Scott Carpenter: Welcome to Clearwater.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, it's beautiful. I mean, even though it's rainy, it's still beautiful.

Scott Carpenter: It's okay. Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And what's really beautiful is just being here, when I walked in, this is my first SPRI meeting and it's like all my friends right here. It's so great.

Scott Carpenter: It really has a family component to it. And my wife, this is her favorite week of the year.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh my gosh. I love that.

Scott Carpenter: Where we just get together and we just enjoy each other, learn things and be a part of something really special.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I sat through all the technical yesterday. I shouldn't say sat through, I engaged, listened. So interesting. You guys are doing so much great stuff on the technical front. It's amazing. But you know what, before we go too much further and dive into all this, let's start out with an introduction. So for those few who don't know you, can you introduce yourself and tell us about Anchor Products, give us a little bit of your history in the roofing industry.

Scott Carpenter: So blessed to be part of this organization. I celebrated my 40th year in the roofing industry in September, and it's just been a wonderful journey for me. Director of sales with Anchor Products, a company in Texas that does rooftop attachments. It's funny. We figured out how to put roofs on really well. We're good at it. Rooftop Anchors basically puts a mechanical attachment to hold things on a roof. So in a wind event or seismic, it's all these things that are bouncing across the roof that gives us problems. So that's what Rooftop Anchor does and worked with Joel Stanley and his team-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Great company.

Scott Carpenter: It's just been a real blessing for me.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. And you're president of SPRI-

Scott Carpenter: That's another-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: For the next two years.

Scott Carpenter: That's quite another blessing. So yes, SPRI, as you know, just a wonderful organization. I've been active in it for many, many years and was nudged to get involved in some of the chairs and have served through different committees and now blessing to be president for two years-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. For two years.

Scott Carpenter: And excited. Was officially inducted yesterday morning.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I saw it. I was here, Brad Van Damme, who's the outgoing president or now the past president. And it was just such a great interchange between the two of you passing the gavel. And really you can see that whole board, the whole SPRI board is so impressive.

Scott Carpenter: Well, a little emotional for me, just having a front row seat to watching Brad do his thing so well, he is such a pro.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: He is.

Scott Carpenter: And have learned so much from him.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, I tell you what, you can learn so much, just period, just being here, from the wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience of the people attending this, incredible. Can you tell everybody, for those who may not know who SPRI is, what does the membership look like and who are here during this winter meeting?

Scott Carpenter: Way I describe it at times, especially to new members and candidates, it is just this wealth of information. Walking into this place, it's like the Hall of Fame of technical minds.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is. It is.

Scott Carpenter: And just building bikes over there, what we did while ago, you just got these great engineering minds and these huge influencers to excellence in our industry. And for me, I'm sometimes intimidated with just the talent in this room, but to be part of the group is really special. And although they're these just crazy roofing giants, they're so welcoming-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: They are.

Scott Carpenter: And humble and everybody has a real desire to be difference makers in this room can truly contribute to the roofing industry. So SPRI in general, I think you know a little bit about it. Founded in 1982. Many of the European membranes were developed and SPRI was founded as the introduction really to thermoplastics and thermosets started to get popular here in the States and really to educate the market on flexible membranes. And then later through really almost an evolution, later we added modifieds to that. Then we opened it up to accessory and raw material suppliers and adding consultants and architects, testing facilities to that membership. So some 86 strong is by way of membership. And this morning in our board meeting, we welcome six new members.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, that's great.

Scott Carpenter: Which is crazy exciting to me-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great.

Scott Carpenter: As SPRI continues to grow.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. And when I saw here too was just such a breadth of expertise across the industry. So it's not just single-ply manufacturers like you were saying, but there are architects, consultants here and then there's how do you anchor the roof? What are the accessories? What are some of the chemicals that go into some of the roof? I met some great chemical providers here who are here talking about how can you continue to make single-ply roofing better and stronger?

Scott Carpenter: Right. Yeah, I agree. It's again, just a special group. And one of the things that we're doing as part of our five-year strategic plan that Brad was wonderful to lead us through is to really open that up more and more. I mean, we all touch single-ply in some way, shape or form, and to open that up beyond just the general manufacturers, but anybody that really contributes to single-ply roofing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And we're so proud at Roofers Coffee Shop that we are member, not members, but we are active within SPRI. SPRI is on the Roofers Coffee Shop with a full directory. And we're able to come attend these meetings and really see what's coming in the future on great discussions around PVC.

Scott Carpenter: Oh, that was a hot topic.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That was a hot topic.

Scott Carpenter: So again, PVC has somehow found its way onto a red list. And so, as a group, collaborative minds and spirit, working with Deb Mazol from the NRCA, it was just a wonderful way to come together, strengthen numbers and be able to stand together and talk about the benefits of single-ply.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it's really the speakers we had today, which with David Pope from on CBS Sunday morning talking about AI. Incredible. That was incredible.

Scott Carpenter: It scared me a little bit.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. It scared me a little bit too.

Scott Carpenter: It was powerful.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know.

Scott Carpenter: And just to have him, he just has such an energy to him. So that is for our SPRI committee, our annual committee, it's always a challenge to connect the right speaker.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Scott Carpenter: Of course, you see all these different, be the best version you can be. But what we wanted to do is have a topic really that speaks to the heart and he just knocked it out of the park this morning.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: He did. Talking about AI, just across the board, not only in the creative sense, but also in automated cars. The airplane I found absolutely amazing, the electric airplane.

Scott Carpenter: Electric airplane.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Airplane. And you know this is going to start affecting the roofing industry.

Scott Carpenter: Sure, absolutely.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So, as you're looking at this and looking at the rooftop with everything you've all been talking about with the labor shortage and all, really what are you seeing out there in the industry? And let's talk a little bit about SPRI's initiatives going into 2024 and your five-year plan to address continuing to make it more productive on the roof.

Scott Carpenter: Sure. Great question Heidi. So for us, important that we're active at all the code bodies. So we were blessed to hire the great Chadwick Collins this year-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes, [inaudible 00:08:26].

Scott Carpenter: As our truly first fully funded technical director. And to have Chadwick present at all the code hearings and being an advocate for single-ply. If you don't know Chadwick, reach out to him. He is quite the gift, this crazy giant, gift to our roofing industry and to be very active in the codes and testing bodies. Also, I mentioned to you that we're looking by way of initiative to add members to that. Anyone that really touches the single-ply industry to be part of SPRI. And then we want to continue to be a strong voice to Washington-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Scott Carpenter: Where we are dealing with labor issues and PVC red list and other things that are important topics that could affect our roofing industry, in positive and negative ways. Just in awareness is important.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Deb Mazol was awesome this morning. Man, such great information coming out of NRCA and what they're doing with the roof pack. Just amazing. So Scott, over the next two years, what are some of your goals? What are some of the things you would like to see accomplished during your presidency?

Scott Carpenter: Well, a couple of things. One is, I should mention, one of the wonderful benefits to being part of this organization is the statistics information we get, which comes in quarterly by roof membrane, by roof type, by boards. We get that quarterly and then we get it on an annual basis. And the power of those statistics and the power of data to really shape strategies for our different organizations is key. And we want to drive that and continue to do that. Market's down about 20% based on the statistics. But at SPRI this year we saw our attendance up. We had some 130 people here. The sponsorship level was at an all-time high.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it was great.

Scott Carpenter: So, people continue to invest in SPRI and that's what we want to see, just not financial commitments but getting involved. So one of the initiatives that I sponsored last year, acronym simply is OMNI, on-boarding members nurturing involvement. And it comes from my heart of walking into this organization, probably 25 years ago, and not really knowing anyone, being intimidated by all these wonderful minds, but to have someone, in my case there's an individual that grabbed me, took me under his wing, showed me the way, introduced me to people, pointed me in different directions, different committees that would be good for me to serve on. And of course I'm president [inaudible 00:11:16].

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Here you are.

Scott Carpenter: Which is quite the blessing to that journey. But for me it is important for me to, as we reach out to new members. Again, six new members just this morning, and really come alongside them as a good wing man and get them more deeply involved in SPRI.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Scott Carpenter: It is our future.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, that's such a great goal because to get more people, especially young people. We have so many, and I saw a number of young faces here and to really get involved because we've made friendships over the years. Now it's their chance to make friendships, to be mentored. I think that's an amazing goal. You said something that I want to just go back on 'cause I'm always interested in this. You said that the SPRI numbers were down a little bit.

Scott Carpenter: The overall roofing numbers for single-ply.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Roofing numbers. How much of that do you think is really from Covid and from the supply chain issues?

Scott Carpenter: Well, good question. In fact, tomorrow we have an economist, Kermit Baker speaking to our group tomorrow. And we have our president of the NRCA speaking tomorrow, Kyle Thomas. I am quite sure one of those or two of those questions will come up for those folks. I think there is a, having gone through this nightmare of the pandemic and then the challenges of the supply chain meltdown, that I'm quite confident there'll be college courses taught one day-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, I think so, definitely.

Scott Carpenter: On what happened. Yes, we're still dealing with some of the fallout of that. But I think too, and I think Deb this morning, Deb Mazol touched on this, there's some shaky consumer confidence. There's some interest rates doing some crazy things. There is a surplus of IsoBoard and different material out there where people did some panic buying.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm wondering how much of that was involved with that. There was a lot of warehouses full of projects.

Scott Carpenter: I agree. Absolutely agree. So we are seeing some of that. We continue to see challenges with labor that the NRCA is looking to address. But it'll be interesting to have an economist tomorrow talk about that and then get Kyle's commentary on what he believes is the true number.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I agree so much. I have to tell you, I love listening to econo because everyone is different.

Scott Carpenter: Yeah. That's for sure.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'll have something different [inaudible 00:13:33]-

Scott Carpenter: Well, Kermit Baker, he's a pretty good one to have tomorrow.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's really good.

Scott Carpenter: So, he'll speak to us about that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm very excited. Well, Scott, I just have to say thank you and one of the things that I want to make sure everyone out there watching this understands is how can they get involved in SPRI, even contractors, how can they get involved? How can they learn more? How can this help their everyday business?

Scott Carpenter: Sure. Couple of things. One is DORA, I didn't really touch.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh yeah, let's talk about DORA.

Scott Carpenter: DORA is acronym, Directory of Roof Assemblies, and it's just another book on the shelf that a contractor, a consultant can grab. And it's a web-based listing service that SPRI has put together, not to replace FEM but should be an additional resource to the industry. So that's one and the importance and the wonderful story of DORA that has multiple listings that are not contained in RoofNav. So that's one place I think they can find a great benefit. I think the other one is just go to the website, look at SPRI, it's info@spri.org and just browse around, look at some of the pages, see some of the things we're doing. We're writing monthly blogs and putting some great resource papers out there, some precision papers, study ups. Call the office, call me and I'll tell you my SPRI story, which is wonderful, and would just encourage you to learn more about our organization.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And there's so many great technical resources. And so I do want to say DORA, there is a full directory on Roofers Coffee Shop for DORA. So you can find out information there and then get to it, use it in your business. Also, same thing with SPRI, full directory, all the information. Plus we are taking a lot of the blogs and articles and we are repurposing them out there so that you can find them, whether it's anywhere. But go to the SPRI website. But you can find that easily on Roofers Coffee Shop on the directories.

Scott Carpenter: And Heidi, maybe the one last thing to speak special to the carpenter's hearts is the relationships that are developed over the years in this [inaudible 00:15:48]. I mean, many times these are competitors that we're sitting amongst but comes together, the spouses come together. Like I said, my sweet wife will not miss this week. And it's just a really special, special, special group of people.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It really is. And really, but you know what, that's roofing overall.

Scott Carpenter: I think so.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is. This is one of the great places.

Scott Carpenter: And you're one of those too.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, you are too. Thank you. Scott, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Scott Carpenter: Thank you for being here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And thank you for everything you do for the industry and your presidency is going to show. Great. I love the inclusive, welcoming your OMNI. I think that's awesome.

Scott Carpenter: Well, I'm blessed. Thank you girl.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So, thank you.

Scott Carpenter: Appreciate.
Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you all for watching. We're going to be doing a lot of these this year live from the events that we go to. Love to hear the stories, love to bring my friends and bring them all to you. So please join us for all our Roofing Road Trips. You can find them under the navigation of RLW, under Roofing Road trips on Roofers Coffee Shop, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

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