SPRI and beyond: The power of collaboration

By Anna Lockhart.  

Previous SPRI President, Brad Van Dam, shares industry insights into the benefits of collaboration for the betterment of the industry’s future and shaping roofing standards. 

In a recent episode of the Roofing Road Trips® podcast, host Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Brad Van Dam of MTL Holdings, parent company of Metal-Era and Hickman Edge Systems. In their conversation, the two discussed Brad’s work with the Single Ply Roofing Industry (SPRI) and the exciting things coming to the commercial roofing industry in 2024.  

As the past president of SPRI and an involved member of many non-profit boards, Brad has done a lot of work for the roofing industry. Since joining the MTL Holdings team back in 2012, he’s seen many exciting new technologies enter the market and experienced culture shifts, which have significantly changed the way contractors in the roofing industry do business. He shared, “We're much farther along than we were back then. We've grown a lot. And I've been fortunate to be a part of that growth with a lot of amazing teammates... If you don't have good people, your processes will eventually break down. You have good processes and you can attract good people to keep moving.” 

As the industry continues to move forward with technological advancements, it’s exciting to see how these changes impact all sides of the roofing industry. With SPRI, a collection of commercial roofing experts dedicated to promoting the access to educational resources and innovative opportunities pertaining to single-ply roofing, their goal is to promote the interests of roofing across the board. “We try to advance the mission, technical resources, code, compliance, new codes and advancing the roofing industry together. So they can find common ground on an issue and then work together to try to advance that code position, also create white papers,” Brad shared.  

SPRI, he shared, is a great resource for finding collaborative efforts and industry professionals looking to make roofing better across the board. In the end, whether competitors or collaborators on the day-to-day, groups like SPRI bring together members of the industry for the betterment of the community.  

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about SPRI and Brad Van Dam’s work within the industry.