Show Up for Roofing Day

RCS Influencer Charles Antis says that when we show up together for Roofing Day, we will move the industry forward.

Editor’s note: Watch the video to see and hear what Charles Antis has to say about the importance of Roofing Day. You can read the transcript below the video, but we recommend seeing it for yourself.

Karen Edwards: Hello everyone. This is Karen Edwards, editor at RoofersCoffeeShop® and joining me today is Charles Antis of Antis Roofing, who is one of our RoofersCoffeeShop roofing influencers. Charles, welcome.

Charles Antis: Thank you, Karen. I'm happy to be here. What's our topic?

Karen Edwards: Hey, this month we are going to be talking about Roofing Day and I know you've participated several years. I know you've had some experiences that even stretch beyond Roofing Day, and we'd love for you to share your thoughts.

Charles Antis: Well, I'm excited about Roofing Day. In fact, I'm thinking about it every day right now, because next week is Roofing Day and I've been asked by the National Roofing Contractors Association to lead the SoCal delegation to one of the congresspersons, that is Congresswoman Katie Porter. And I take that calling, that ask, I take that very seriously because my job is going to be to go in there and make certain we're heard so that we can lift this industry.

But I want to tell you why I was asked to lead this, at least why I think I was asked and why I'm involved. And it really goes back to wanting to be heard, wanting to lift things for my family, and trying to lobby for things, but not always being heard. For years, I've lobbied senators and congressmen for Habitat For Humanity, for things that affect our industry, and yet I haven't always been heard.

But a few years ago, Reid Ribble, right when he came on board as our new CEO, he started this one voice initiative and he didn't say let's just all go to Washington, which hadn't been done before. 400 or more roofing professionals showing up. But he didn't only say that he said, "Come, but please bring those that do the work." And what he's saying is don't just bring those that supervise. Don't just bring the families of the owners, but bring those workers that are up there doing the work, because they're the ones that are really living it in the real way. They are where the most of the people are employed in the roofing industry and so I did that.

I brought some employees and one of them I'll talk about is Jesus and I'm going to talk about Jesus a lot because Jesus is a really good employee. And I asked him to come to Washington with me because Reid asked me to and Jesus said, "I don't think I can come.," And I asked why. And he said, "Well, I'm afraid," and he was afraid because he was not a citizen of this country. He was a legal resident and he's in his path to citizenship. But his daughter who was going to college at San Luis Obispo, studying political science said, "Dad, please go," and that's why he went, but he didn't want to go.

And I remember being in Washington with him, this really good all in employee, this supervisor that really lifts everyone he touches in the field. And I watched just when he went...What happens when we went to this delegation to go see Mimi Walters, who's in the same district then that Katie Porter is in now. And when we went to see her, there was like 30 of us in the room and I knew her well because I've lobbied her for years. Yet in that room that day, I noticed she wasn't hearing me, and this is not anything to do with her. This is not a putdown to the former Congresswoman. This is certainly just what the atmosphere in the room, the expectations in the room and we all introduced ourself.

It was me, I'm Charles, and I'm Bob, and I'm Tom and when it got to Jesus, he didn't talk as fast as we did. He wasn't used to the cadence of a meeting like that, nor did he speak with this smooth English, because he was an immigrant and I just remember how we spoke. And he said, "Hello, my name is Jesus Zermano." Now that is not a good impression of him. He says his name much more clearly than that, but his voice came out in a way that we all paused and remember. And I got right then what Reid was talking about.

And immediately after that meeting, we went to our next delegation and I was called to go off to see one Congresswoman and Jesus was pulled off on his second meeting ever all by himself to go visit Lou Correa, who I knew from lobbying for Habitat. And I thought, "Oh, why can't I go? I should be going, I should be going," but I was stopped by the NRCA staff. And they said, "No." Dwayne said, "No, Charles, this is for Jesus." I didn't know that he lived in his district and that's how it works.

But he shows up and afterwards I say, "What happened?" And he was beaming and he said, "I went there and Congressman Correa said he wasn't coming to the office today because he just worked the last 24 hours. He was in a motel room, but he saw that a man, one man showed up in his district and that's why he came in." And so Jesus knew that Lou came and heard the issues for the NRCA solely because he went to Washington. And what that did for Jesus and what that did for our men was it made us realize that everything we do really does matter. We can really lift everything we touch and we can help everyone in our industry if we lobby together.

And that was a powerful experience for me, because two months later I was back at a fundraiser event and I saw a Lou Correa and I knew him well enough that I knew he'd recognize me. And I came up to him, I said, "Congressman," I said, "I'm so happy to see you." I said, "You have no idea the effect you had on my employee Jesus Zermano." And he cut me off at the end, he grabbed my arm and he said, "Charles, no you have no idea the effect Jesus had on me." And he told me the same story. That he wasn't going to work that day, but he did and he was profoundly affected and those in his staff were profoundly affected forever.

And that brings me back to Katie Porter because I was in a meeting last year at the NRCA, in a lobbying meeting and we had tried to contact Katie before. She's a very busy woman and I had stood up in that meeting and I said, "How are we going to be heard in Washington? We need to tell our stories. We need to tell how we're donating the roofs of Ronald McDonald House. We need to do what Reid says and bring our people to Washington." I swear this just lined up so serendipitously. I wonder if people in that room believed us, but right at that moment, five minutes after I sat down, I got a text. The first ever text I've ever received from Congresswoman Katie Porter. And she says, "Charles, yes, I do remember you. I remember the roofs that you donate for Ronald McDonald House and I remember Jesus who you brought to visit me last year that told me what it was like to live in his neighborhood. We were profoundly effected for that too."

And so when we went and we spoke with Katie, we had great success because she listened and she actually came to [inaudible 00:06:14]. When she came to [inaudible 00:06:15] exactly a year ago, almost exactly a year ago today, before we started, we were in lockdown. She came in and she gave me a great compliment by saying, "I've been visited by a lot of people in Washington but the first time ever this man," and she pointed to me, which was a great compliment. "He did something no one else has ever done. He didn't bring his family, which would have been fine. He didn't bring his senior VPs, but he brought the workers that do the work."

And she pointed off to Louis, another of my employees who's involved this year and to Jesus and everyone in our staff, the 40 or so that was in there inside the building that day, we all saw that. We all knew that everything that we do matters and that's what I want to say. That's my pitch to everybody. Show up with us. I'm showing up because if we show up we're lobbying for infrastructure, we can create more roofing work that needs to be done. We all know we need to keep these structure's dry or they're going to just rot. And so infrastructure renewal, we need that.

We're also lobbying for those people that do the work. We know we might hear there's a lot of people here, but we don't have them in the roofing industry. We have a hundred thousand more jobs that we can fill. We just need people to do the work and we need to treat them well. And then we need to also invest in our people, not just invest in college. There's a lot of different ways. When we stand back today and look at it, we need to invest in the trades. Why can't we invest in the trades and we're lobbying on these three issues. I didn't lay them out very clearly, but they're accessible. When I post this I will have all three of the issues that we're lobbying on laid out very clearly. But I think if we all come on this, we all want the same things. So show up with us, let's move the dial forward. Let's take all the folks that keep everyone safe and dry in this land that we love and let's move the dial ahead for everyone in Washington. See you in DC.

Charles Antis is the founder and CEO of Antis Roofing & Waterproofing. See his full bio here.