Season 3 of Coffee Conversations Starts With a Bang!

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter.  

Reid Ribble kicks off the inaugural episode of this season of Coffee Conversations with a state of the union on the industry and what the “new normal” is. 

Coffee Conversations is back for its third season! On the first episode back from the hiatus, RoofersCoffeeShop® partner, Heidi J. Ellsworth talks with Reid Ribble about the state of the roofing industry. Reid shares updates about NRCA initiatives, what is happening in Washington D.C. and the overall status of roofing as we look forward to the fourth quarter of 2021. This podcast episode also features an active Q&A session with roofing professionals from across the country. 

Reid is the current CEO of the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA), and has served as the NRCA chairman of the board. Previously he served six years in the U.S. House of Representatives and before that was a roofing contractor in Wisconsin for over 30 years. Reid brings an incredible amount of expertise and insight into his analysis of the roofing industry; you won’t want to miss what he has to say! 

“I started in the roofing business in 1975. That's 45 years already. And I've lived through the high inflation rates in the late '70s, through the Y2K change in 2000, the recession in 2001, 9/11, the great recession of 2007, 2008. But there's been nothing that has compared to the last 18 to 24 months in the roofing industry, and for the country,” Reid tells Heidi.  

Reid addresses how the pandemic has seriously affected the roofing industry and will continue to make an impact. “I think we're in for a pandemic that's going to last much longer yet. We're not at the end of it. And until we get a higher population base vaccinated, we're not likely to get through it,” says Reid. 

COVID-19 continues to create supply chain delays and material shortages for roofers and exacerbates the ongoing labor shortage. “We have this perfect storm of events that are coming on us,” says Reid, "However, with all that negative stuff, I'm still really optimistic, because everybody reports that they're busy, and that's a good thing. I'd rather have a backlog than no backlog, even if it's a long backlog.” 

Reid discusses how getting workers vaccinated is a particular challenge to jobsites. “In an era where it's particularly difficult to hire roofing workers, to put an additional layer of requirement on a roofing worker to hire them becomes an even more difficult challenge,”says Reid. 

Read, Listen or Watch the entire Coffee Conversation for more insight from Reid Ribble about the state of the industry and what fourth quarter of 2021 will look like.