She Started Roofing in High School and Never Looked Back

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

Roofing has been a rewarding and lucrative career choice for this woman.

We’ve been hearing a lot about the need for diversity in the workplace and it’s especially important in the roofing industry, where women make up such a small percentage of the workforce. There is one woman in roofing who is trying to encourage more women to consider a career in the roofing industry.

Why women should work in roofing

Rebecca Welsh is a regional business manager for Weatherproofing Technologies, Inc. (WTI) in the south Atlantic region of the country (South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky) and she has a mission to try to recruit other women into the industry. “The work that we do today, especially our work with coatings, is not the back breaking work that it used to be,” explained Rebecca. “Now we are using our intelligence. Women tend to better at the details because they have a better patience level for it. When I was in the field, I did all the details and flashing.”

Women can make a decent salary in roofing. She says that it provides a better wage than most other jobs and is appealing to single moms, which she was when she came back into roofing work. “It allowed me to make a nice income and support my two children as a single mom.”

Her journey into the industry

Her start into roofing began when she was 16. Her mom remarried and moved the family from Missouri to Arkansas. Rebecca found a job working in a fast food restaurant making a few dollars an hour. Her stepfather had a roofing company and encouraged her to come work for him, where she was making double the money than at her fast food job.  

“I started working with him on weekends, after school and during summer,” she said. “It was all commercial roofing and we did lots of BUR, modified, and started to do EPDM when it was growing in popularity. I had plenty of money for clothes, gas and even concert tickets. It was hard work but also extremely rewarding.”

Rebecca worked there on and off for the next 10 – 15 years until she became pregnant and decided to stay home with her children. During that time away, she obtained her college degree in construction management and as she completed the degree, she felt like it was time to get back to work.

“I worked in general contracting and they really liked my construction and roofing background,” Rebecca said. “During my time working for the GC, I applied my roofing knowledge to try to solve problems and prevent issues.”

She became part of the Tremco/WTI team because she met Paul Hoogenboom Tremco Construction Products Group president following a presentation she attended. They had a nice conversation about the building envelope so a year and half ago when she was ready for a career change, she remembered that conversation and reached out to Paul. He connected her with the right people, and she joined the team. 

Changing perceptions

“Roofers are not always looked at in the best light and I would like to change that,” Rebecca explained. “Just because I work with my hands and get dirty doesn’t mean I am not intelligent. I can support my family working in the trades. We need to break the stigma.”

Tremco is a great example of having women in some higher up positions she said but she still wants to see more women in the field. She’s been working with the marketing and recruiting teams to develop ads that are more diverse. “They sent me some ads featuring women, but they were nicely made up with hair and makeup done, and really clean hard hats,” explained Rebecca. “I am hiring women for the field and want to represent that. We took some pictures of one of our female field techs at work who came to us with no roofing experience and she is rocking it.”

Rebecca stressed that experience is not necessary. “As long as you have the right attitude, I can teach you how to roof. I want problem solvers, people who pay attention to detail, who can be organized, be efficient, be neat, and who can communicate well. Be ready and willing to work with a good attitude and I can provide you a great career!” she concluded.

Sound like a fit for you? You’re in luck because WTI is hiring! Visit their career page/directory to learn more.