NWIR Day 2024 was a homerun!

450 women in roofing hit it out of the park at NWIR Day!

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

Karen Edwards: So National Women in Roofing Day was on Sunday, and they were about 450 women there. It was a packed house.

Lauren White: And there were so many educational sessions - 40 and summer in Spanish, there were some hands on demos for both steep slope and low slope and power tools as well.

Karen Edwards: And there were lots of sessions on leadership that were very well attended. And I think one of the most popular ones was one you went to.

Lauren White: Yes. Head Trash. Yeah, there were a couple of times where the room that the session was slotted to be in got so full because so many people were interested in the topic that we ended up going back to the main room for the keynote and everything was happening. Yeah, head trash is a book by Renie Cavallari. Just about framing your mindset and being in, you know, making better decisions and being happier and having more clear focus when you're in a good headspace versus a bad headspace and how that can spiral and affect your delivery. To your team if there's a problem and productivity then because when negative comment or action can, you know, ripple throughout the rest of the company. So that was really interesting, and I think we're actually ever discussing prob gonna take some of those discussion points and bring them to the rest of the group.

Karen Edwards: That's gonna be exciting. And then one of the last sessions was moderated by our own Heidi Ellsworth. And it was about earning professional certifications. And we heard from Amy Peevy with SOCOTEC Building Envelope, who is the president of IIBEC. Shari Carlozzi with FiberTite Roof Systems, Lee Ann Slattery with ATAS International and Sherri Miles with Miles Roofing, who all have impressive certifications under their belt. So they talked about what it takes and how to talk to your employer about potentially covering the costs of those certifications. And they also talked about the difference that it's made in their career. And it's given them an advantage because it is hard to be taken seriously sometimes. But once you hold those certifications, then anybody you're talking to knows that you really do understand it and you know what you're talking about?

Lauren White: Yeah, definitely. That was a really interesting one and just talking about financing and how how to go about studying and what it means for you personally for your career in addition to how it can help the company that you work with differentiate themselves from competition out there, too.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, and then our keynote speaker for NWIR Day was Dr. Kimberly Harden, founder and CEO of Harden Consulting Group. And she's a consultant she used to be a communications professor. And she talked about allies, advocates and accomplices and how how we can continue to support one another, you know, being women in roofing and what that means and kind of the different levels of support being an ally versus an advocate versus an accomplice. And yeah, she was she was great.

Lauren White: She had very sparkly tennis shoes.

Karen Edwards: She did. Yeah. She had a bright yellow suit, golden, sparkly tennis shoes on
and talking about showing up as our authentic selves, which she definitely did. Yes.

And then, you know, the, the award, the awards, wrapped up the day with the Rising Star Award, and that was given to Amanda Veinott, who started her own roofing company just about a year ago and has just seen tremendous growth and gives back to the community and it was really great to see her win that award and she said it was at this event last year that she talked to several women about starting her own business, and she met other women owned businesses. And that gave her the confidence that she could do it. And she did. And then our WORLD Award winner went to Devri Pieratt. And she's been in roofing for 30 years since the 90s. And she currently works for Integrity Insurance & Bonding and is very involved in the Oregon National Women in Roofing council and she was one of the four women who got together to start that council, and they've done tremendous community service projects. So congratulations to Devri.

Lauren White: And also there is a surprise marching band that for the theme was hitting it out of the park. So for our seventh inning stretch, they had snacks and a photobooth and asked everybody to write what their walk up song would be to make a playlist for everybody to enjoy after NWIR Day and then all of a sudden there is a marching band playing music and getting everybody jazzed up for the rest of the evening and even welcoming us into the reception which was really fun.

Karen Edwards: Some good swag this year. The swag bags had lots of goodies in there.

Lauren White: Yeah, SRS gave this really cool portable charger with the cords already built into it. You don't even have to bring your own cord. It's all in one little package.

Karen Edwards: There was a candle, there was some work gloves had with the new NWIR logo. We heard all about the new logo. With the I being black because they wanted to emphasize the I standing for so many things. One being inclusion, one being insight one being inspiring. 

Lauren White: And it now has a roof over the top of it too.

Karen Edwards: And that it's a safe space for every for everyone in this organization.

Lauren White: Yeah, so that was exciting to hear about and we met the new executive director, Katie Bodiford, got to meet her in in person and hear about her goals for NWIR coming up. And then we finished with the reception where you just got to hang out and mingle with everyone and
have some snacks and some drinks. And that was a wrap. It was it was a full day, but it was a good day.

And here's what some of the rest of our crew said about NWIR Day:

Yvette Cruz

I went to the tough talks session and I think that had some very good points to take away not just for like everyday life but especially during the workplace like when you need to ask or have a conversation with a senior or a boss or even just trying to a colleague without jumping to conclusions and avoid work drama. It's very much like you know, you want to state the facts and then how you feel and how you might have interpreted something and then you want to ask them for their side of the story and get their facts before you know jumping to conclusions. 

Yeah. For me, I was like for my personal life. Like, I already like we, we communicate my personal life, so I need it for my personal life. It was more so for me standing up because like, there's some times where I've, like wanted to talk to people and I'm like, I don't know how not to sound like a little bitch. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Megan Ellsworth

National Women in Roofing Day 2024 was so great. I think it's so important for women to have a safe space in the roofing industry to just be themselves and share their challenges and their triumphs with one another. And that's exactly what National Women in Roofing Day was this year and there were some really great dynamic classes. I really enjoyed the certification class, as well as the intergenerational diversity class. And I think that the marching band was actually my favorite part. It was so fun. It was so cute to see the high schoolers doing their little dances. And I liked that they had root beer floats. That was fun.