National Women in Roofing Day Highlights

The Coffee Shop crew shares their experiences from National Women in Roofing (NWIR) day.

Editor's note: The following is a transcript of a conversation the Coffee Shop crew had after National Women in Roofing Day.

Karen Edwards: Hey everyone, we are sitting at our round table, and we are going to discuss National Women in Roofing Day. So who would like to share their thoughts of the day and go first?

Megan Ellsworth: I'll go first. I really loved Mandy's seminar on mental health. It was like devastatingly emotional. Like she was talking about different people that have passed from suicide and drug addiction and the rates in construction are staggering. And it was just really, really interesting. I think she's such a good speaker. I also really loved Heidi's sexual harassment seminar. It was really, very impactful, and created a safe space for people that has never been made before. And then I thought the opening session was great. 

Lauren White: The keynote was great, Nora burns. It was fun that she was interactive. She was moving around the crowd. She was talking to people, she was engaging with people, talking to YouTube, because we were live streaming the whole opening and closing of NWIR. So for all the people who couldn't make it or had other plans, they're still able to either watch it live or On Demand. So that was great. 

My other favorite part was just seeing people, just being together again, was really fun. Whether it was in breakout sessions or at the cocktail hour afterwards. It was just fun to be together again and everybody's always so happy to see each other.And the photo booth. We had a great time at the photo booth.

Karen Edwards: Okay, so I would love to hear from a first-time attendee and their perspective on the day.

Evelyn Witterholt: It was great! I hear this year had the biggest turnout, about 500 people, and it definitely showed. I liked meeting other people in the industry which is always nice, especially because I work from home and I don't talk to a lot of people from this industry in person. So it's nice to see people in person and hear their experiences as either young women in the industry or long-term industry folks. I also liked that I was helping Megan with the live streaming and video stuff, which I liked learning a lot about. That's a skill set I've been wanting to develop. So it's interesting being at an event that's celebrating women developing their skill sets while also actively doing that.

Karen Edwards: Awesome, thank you. All right. So I want to hear from the OG now., Heidi Ellsworth.

Heidi Ellsworth: My favorite part of the day was the posse who's here right now. Watching Evelyn work the camera with Megan, Megan having her diamond sponsor videos playing at the event. It was so great and having Karen and Lauren, just that whole group to me. Representing that we actually we walk the talk, right?

And I really liked Nora Burns, the keynote speaker. I thought she was authentic. I thought she was down to earth. I liked what she was talking about. I daresay I really liked the photo booth.

I was really excited about the two classes that I spoke in, one on developing career path and another about sexual harassment. I think we need to talk more about women and their career path and and share our stories and encourage people. I really feel we have to talk more about harassment. And when I say harassment, that's not just for women. That's what we talked about during that session. It wasn't just about women.

Karen Edwards: And this was the first time there's been a session about harassment in the workplace. Yeah. And the industry ever.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. And it was really good. Of course, I love seeing all my friends, our friends, we see so many people there. It was just it was amazing. I thought Michelle Boykin was awesome as the chair and I was super, super, super happy that Stephanie won the World Award.

Karen Edwards: I agree with everything everyone has said. The photo booth was fun. The sessions were great. I liked Nora burns. See, everything was really fun. The sessions were really informative, and they were interesting. And the reason that I know this is because they went so fast. And I wasn't looking at my watch to say 'oh, God, how much time do I have left to deal with this?' It was like, 'How much time do we have left to talk about this now?' We're running out of time.

I said to Lauren, and Evelyn, 'How have we stuck to the schedule?' Usually we're behind schedule. They did a fabulous job today sticking to the schedule.

We are looking forward to a new day tomorrow with an RT3 meet up at SRS Distribution stop talking.

Megan Ellsworth: This was the best NWIR day that I've been to. It was the most fun I think, because I've never been this engaged in the industry before. And I have friends of my own and I know a bunch of people there. And it was just really cool to have that and build my own community in that sense.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, you were bringing friends over who you knew. 

Lauren White: And also another first for this year was there were Spanish breakout sessions at every single breakout session. There were four different Spanish speaking sessions for that community that's in roofing and that's a big part of the roofing community which was very exciting.

Heidi Ellsworth: I thought it was a great day. And RT3 is tomorrow. Evelyn and Megan are gonna set up the booth for IRE and then we're gonna hit ROOFPAC at 430. And onward we go!

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