Coffee Conversations LIVE at IRE 2025 - Day 1 - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Josh Martin of Great Roofing and Restoration, Onnie Diaz of Northern Arizona Roof Services, Brad Beldon of Beldon Roofing Company and Laurie Moore of Kreiling Roofing Company. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: We're going to see what's hot and get the different perspectives. So I am so honored. I'm Heidi Ellsworth, president of Rivers Coffee Shop and I'm very honored to have this panel here today. So we're going to start with some introductions and we're going to start right here with Josh. Josh, can you introduce yourself, tell us about your company and a little bit about you.

Josh Martin: Yes, ma'am. My name is Josh Martin. I am the former owner and current operator of a company called Great Roofing and Restoration. So we're currently in Columbus, Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Denver, Colorado and soon to be Raleigh, North Carolina. So we were actually acquired by the Omnia Exteriors Platform in August of 2024. I have been in the industry now since 2012. Prior to that I actually worked for Abercrombie and Fitch, so out of Columbus, big retailer. If you guys have seen the Netflix video, there's unfortunately some truth to that. But yeah, so that's where I came from and I would've never thought I would be in roofing. Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. Hey, you made an upgrade.

Josh Martin: I did, for sure.

Heidi Ellsworth: There you go. I love it. Well, welcome to the sound stage and thank you for being here.

Josh Martin: Appreciate it.

Heidi Ellsworth: Onnie.

Onnie Diaz: Hi. So I'm Onnie Diaz, owner of Northern Arizona Roof Services in Flagstaff, Arizona and then Arizona Roof Services in Phoenix, Arizona. So been doing this for 40 years as a commercial and residential contractor, and just I'm quite the anomaly that I actually enjoy doing this. So many of the veterans that I talk to go, why do you stay in the business and da, da, da?

Heidi Ellsworth: You like it.

Onnie Diaz: There's just something about I like getting up there. I like everything. I like the people and fixing problems.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's cool. Talk a little bit about your mix, commercial, residential, a little of everything.

Onnie Diaz: So when we opened this new division in Flagstaff, Arizona, it's in the mountains. And I'm originally from Illinois, so you get so used to the weather and having being a sustainable business when you're in other parts of the country other than Arizona, because the rest of the state is warm all the time.

Heidi Ellsworth: Right.

Onnie Diaz: So many of our customers just kept talking about going to Northern Arizona. And it is somewhat of more of a sustainable market, probably the most in the state because of the snow and the hail and the rain. And so just for us going there, we really had no intentions on being in the residential business, even-

Heidi Ellsworth: Going.

Brad Beldon: So third generation family business, been doing this, well, I started when I was 12, but got out of college, spent two years in DC working for a contractor. Been back home with the family for 37 years, and we have a fourth generation in the business as well. We're licensed or registered in 45 states. So we do a lot of work all over the country, not residential. We only do residential within 60 miles of the office for very similar reasons. Most people either are involved in a business or own a business, and that's pretty much why most of us are in the residential business, but happy to be here.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. And Brad, you've been so involved for so long. You also, I just want to say real quick, it was your project that is going to be the student competition for the Roofing Alliance tomorrow with all those young, amazing students who are going to be here. So thank you for all the work that you and everything you give back.

Brad Beldon: Well, I will tell you that project was one of the biggest challenges we've ever had in a company.

Heidi Ellsworth: Oh, wow.

Brad Beldon: And it's just a hotel, but you never know, especially in the commercial side, there's so many unforeseen or intangibles that don't come into play until they do come into play. And you talked about solving problems. That's what most of us do for a living, is we solve problems and you got to solve them quickly.

You have to make instantaneous decisions based on the knowledge that you have. And sometimes you don't have a lot of time to make that decision. You got to live with it forever. And I think that adds a lot of the stress in this industry, and you only got one shot at getting it right. And most of us don't get it right the first time. And one of my philosophies, whether it's in this business or not, is and we teach our team members, is every day we want to get better by 1%. What did we do right yesterday? What did we do wrong yesterday? What are we going to do today to get better by 1%? Seems easy, but as you get through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 1% compound that daily gets harder and harder. And then you start micromanaging yourself and you think you're being micromanaged, but really you're not. Really, what we want you to do is to get better at what you do so that you can provide a better customer experience for our clients. And it's hard.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Brad Beldon: It's hard to want to be better.

Heidi Ellsworth: But that's one of the great things I think about this industry and then that's really there is that kind of passion and care. So thank you. Thank you for being on it.

Brad Beldon: Thank you for having me here.

Heidi Ellsworth: This is awesome. Laurie, please introduce yourself and tell us about your company.

Laurie Moore: Well, I'm Laurie Moore and I'm going to add to this addiction thing we're talking about here, because we are fixers. That tends to be what we do, and it's an addictive thing almost because you're saying, well, I can still make it better and it can be even better. It can always be better because none of us are ever perfect, we're not perfect companies. We're never going to have perfect knowledge in the industry. Things are always going to change. And so it's really great to have this conversation to talk about where are we at in all this change and uncertainty, that it doesn't seem like where is the absolute truth? That's just kind of where we are right now, it seems like, as a society. But anyway, I am from Peoria, Illinois. The company that I am running and own is a hundred and let's see, four years old now.

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow.

Laurie Moore: Been around a while. We service the area in Illinois between-

Brad Beldon: You look good for 104.

Laurie Moore: Thank you. We service the area from St. Louis to Chicago. We don't go into either one of those cities, but there's a lot of space in between there. So we tend to have a very diverse business as far as types of work we do, because we just service the whole area. There's no space for a niche in that area. You have to be able to do everything. So we do a lot of historical work, we do slate and tile, we do custom copper work, we do big industrial work.

Heidi Ellsworth: Awesome.

Laurie Moore: We've done it all basically, about any material that there is, I think we've probably used it. And we maintain a lot of trades people, a lot of different trades.

Heidi Ellsworth: Right.

Laurie Moore: Because of that, we have to have our own because we just don't have a big collection of people to draw from.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's so cool. And you are currently president of MRCA?

Laurie Moore: Yes, I am current president of the Midwest Roofing Contractors Association.

Heidi Ellsworth: And the first woman?

Laurie Moore: I believe so.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Laurie Moore: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes. Laurie and I have been working together about National Women in Roofing or women in roofing initiatives for many, many years.

Laurie Moore: Yes, yes. It's a really great opportunity to kind of put that perspective on the whole association, not just roofing technical safety, but I mean this is kind of where some of the mental health focus comes from. I think that's part of the broadened perspective we're seeing in the industry.

Heidi Ellsworth: We're seeing that across the board. In fact, that's one of the trends that I would say is out there, especially MRCA is very focused on that right now too.

Onnie Diaz: I think it's kind of cool because we've got a couple women in our business as well, and for me, being a veteran in the business, we do get into the, this is the way it's always done and the women that are in our business bring a different perspective to it. And I think, again, for me anyway and even people that I worked for growing up, it was just yellers and screamers and do this and do that. And they'll go, do you really want to say that, honey? Maybe you should think about doing this, or maybe you should think about doing that or maybe we should think outside the box. I'm like, that's great, because it does really kind of refocus, at least for me, to think other ways. And it's awesome. My daughter's in the roofing business as well, she works for SRS and so I really admire that we're seeing more women in the business.

Heidi Ellsworth: Brings a little bit of balance.

Onnie Diaz: It's freaking awesome.

Heidi Ellsworth: You're seeing. So Laurie, let's start with you. What are some of the things that you're seeing that are really influencing us going into 2025?

Laurie Moore: Well, I think with all the different technology apps, AI, all the stuff swimming around us, what I think is funny is that all of a sudden face-to-face communication is a way to differentiate yourself.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's true. Yeah.

Laurie Moore: It just kind of back to basics.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Laurie Moore: That's going to be different.

Heidi Ellsworth: It's the relationships and boy, are we seeing that out on the trade show right now.

Laurie Moore: Oh yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know there are so many people out there. What are some of the things you're seeing, Brad?

Brad Beldon: I think the key thing, and nobody wants to talk about, is immigration. I mean, it continues to be a problem that's been around as long as I've been in the industry, maybe not as long as I've been in the industry, but quite some time. And we both have issues in our states with immigration. And I think that for those of you that played by the rules, we've been doing E-Verify since the nineties. And people walk up to our office and there's a big sign that says we E-Verify and oh, by the way, we also drug test.

And then they look and they're reading it and then they walk away. And there's not going to be anybody left to do the jobs. We can all be great salespeople, but if we can't find people to do the work, we're going to have a problem. And I don't know the answer to it. I think the H2B program, we've been part of that for 17, 18 years. It's a great program, but they don't have enough people in the program to handle the needs that we all have. And as Reid spoke this morning, it's a numbers game, right? I mean, I had four kids, I did my part. But if we're not having enough kids, if people aren't having enough children, we don't have enough people to do the jobs. And even by my office, we're losing restaurant after restaurant because there's nobody to staff the restaurants. The food's great, the service, everything's great, except one person can't handle 10 tables by themselves. And then when that happens, everybody's complaining the service stinks. It's not the employer that's having the problem, they're not doing it intentionally. They just can't hire anybody.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's everywhere. That's the thing that I think is so interesting because in our little town in central Oregon, we have restaurants closing there too. And we have the roofing companies looking for labor, looking for skilled labor. And I think it's everywhere. And when you start looking at immigration, we need this.

Brad Beldon: We need a reliable system that vets individuals that want to come here and, as Reid said this morning, have that American dream and do the jobs nobody else wants to do. The jobs are there.

Onnie Diaz: Yeah.

Brad Beldon: Everybody wins. In the H2B program, they're putting hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes. They're paying in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes every year, and they get zero. They never get a nickel taken out. Everybody here wins. Everybody that's in America wins. And there's just got to be a better answer than for both sides to be fighting over this year after year. We've been fighting over it for 25 years, and somebody just needs to stand up and fix the problem.

Heidi Ellsworth: And now it's escalating.

Brad Beldon: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: And so where do we go? You're right. We got two states on border states. What are you seeing?

Onnie Diaz: Well, I mean exactly the same thing. We make the immigration thing, I think personally, a little more difficult than it needs to be. They are the workers. I mean, just run an ad in the paper. Who's going to show up, if they show up, but who's going to show up to work? We need to come up with a system that's a little bit easier to employ immigrants. In short because people aren't-

Brad Beldon: But if you paid them 25% more would they show up? I don't think they would.

Onnie Diaz: I don't think they would.

Brad Beldon: They're not going to. You just can't-

Onnie Diaz: I'm saving my speech for when we got down there.

Brad Beldon: Sorry.

Onnie Diaz: No, that's okay. That's okay.

Heidi Ellsworth: Let's go. Just move to it.

Onnie Diaz: Yeah. So I was in Phoenix here just recently, and I'm listening to... I try not to listen to too much talk show because it makes my blood pressure go up and my ears start burning, and I want to rip the stereo out. It makes me angry and I don't even have anger problems and both sides. So all sides, let's just say that. But anyway, they were talking literally about this and talking about how they're stealing Americans jobs and that's what just kind of pushed me over the edge. And I never called in ever, and I'm like, this guy's full of crap, that they're stealing American's jobs and that we're underpaying them.

Really? Really? Nobody's underpaying. I shouldn't say nobody because I don't know everybody's business, but in our business it is how are we attracting people? We are paying more money for them to come. And to think for a minute that we're paying immigrants less than we're paying somebody else. Strictly speaking for myself and every other roofing contractor that I know in our state, it's just wrong. I mean, it just is. Our laborers are starting at 25 bucks an hour that know nothing. I mean, that was unheard of when we were younger. So to say that they're stealing our work, it's just not-

Brad Beldon: And at $25 hours an hour, how many people come in every day?

Onnie Diaz: Every day? Very few. But we do get them. The good thing that we are seeing on the trend side is that we're seeing tradesmen, tradespeople coming over from different industries. And I never really thought that I would see that, which gives us the opportunity to train and train right, as opposed to getting somebody that's been trained wrong. And I've hired several framers, I've hired several concrete guys that just want to make a change in their business and they even make significantly more than the roofers do. But I got to say that their attention to detail by far has been greater than most of the roofers that we employ. And so I've been impressed there. But of course you've got to train them. And it's not easy to convert somebody to be on a roof. It's just not. And you can work on flat roofs, you can frame, you can go up and down stairs, but when you put somebody on a sloped roof or even a flat roof baking in the heat with no shade, no nothing, it's a whole different story. So it's not for everybody.

Heidi Ellsworth: And that's one of those things. Skilled labor is something that's coming from 2024 to 2025. Immigration, these things, they're not going away. Josh, what are you seeing trend wise in?

Josh Martin: So the policy from the government, you don't really know what they're doing. So we had a customer two weeks ago kind of freaking out. It was a multi-year project with wood shake. Well, that product's made in Canada and it comes from Canada. So they were concerned about a 25% increase on the cost of the product. So we ended up writing it up in anticipation of that happening. They were nice enough to do it. Had another project that the funding for it is through HUD and it was frozen, so we were supposed to start that project next month. They think it's opened back up. So there's a lot of misinformation, disinformation, there's real clarity and it's things that maybe we wouldn't even thought about. I didn't know.

Heidi Ellsworth: You know what? That's interesting and I'm glad you brought that up because that is one of the things I actually heard during National Women in Roofing Day too, is a lot of minority businesses, whether that's veterans, women, ethnic, are concerned because and with federal work, they're like, this may go away. And our whole business is built around this.

Josh Martin: Totally out of business.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. Our whole business is built around this, and that's causing so much... And that's a bummer, I think.

Josh Martin: I agree.

Heidi Ellsworth: It's causing uncertainty in a market that, no matter what they do, throw at us, covid, material shortages, everything else. We keep going and we will go through this too.

Josh Martin: Well, it'll be interesting to hear what the suppliers say about those things too. We had a chat about that yesterday, and they don't really know either-

Brad Beldon: But they did say that 98% of their product that was manufactured was installed in how much time? It was ridiculous how quickly it was installed.

Heidi Ellsworth: The business is still there. It's still going.

Brad Beldon: Well, you talk about the sheet rocker, how many times in a lifetime will that sheet rocker have the opportunity to hang that sheet rock in a house? Once? And in a roof? They could roof it three or four times.

Onnie Diaz: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brad Beldon: And depending on some markets, Denver or whatever and Dallas-

Onnie Diaz: Denver a lot.

Brad Beldon: ... You could roof it that many times in a year.

Onnie Diaz: And that's really the trend for us is it just kind of happened that we started getting people applying from other trades and we just kind of went, maybe we're onto something here. I interviewed a young man two days ago that's a bus driver.

Heidi Ellsworth: Why not?

Onnie Diaz: I mean, he came to us.

Brad Beldon: So are you recruiting them or how are they... They're kind of organically coming to you?

Onnie Diaz: Yeah. And he called and I blew him off. I mean, you're a bus driver, really? You're going to get on a roof? And he kept calling and he kept calling and he is like, oh, yeah, yeah, I drive the bus for the city and I'm driving by this job and I see you guys up there working all the time and da, da, da. He just kept calling and I kept blowing him off. And so he called again and finally I said, well, why don't you come in for an interview? And so I interviewed him. He never worked construction in his life. And he just goes, I just think it's neat to be out there and da, da, da and I have a real interest. And so I just painted this really ugly. Well, I mean, it is an ugly picture, because it's roofing, right? I mean, it's hard. It's dirty. You're wet, you're cold, you're all the above.

Brad Beldon: And then it starts over tomorrow.

Onnie Diaz: Yeah.

Josh Martin: And then you do it again.

Onnie Diaz: And he's like, no, that just sounds great to me. And I'm just kind of like, I don't know. And I still haven't offered him a job, and I probably won't.

Heidi Ellsworth: You should, because he'll probably be on this stage in a couple years. That's kind of what's happening.

Onnie Diaz: He could. Yes. But with today's safety, and it's a whole other topic, but you start hiring somebody that's really not familiar with the trades at all. I mean, it's one thing to climb a ladder. It's a whole other thing to step off the ladder onto the roof and step off the roof onto the ladder. So it gets a little touchy when you start really getting somebody that's not from the trades at all.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. That's interesting. Laurie, what are you seeing?

Laurie Moore: I think we're seeing a shift in the culture and how the culture perceives the trades. I think that's been happening. I think there's more trade schools. The kids coming out of high school are more interested in working in the trades. There's a lot less push to go to college. I think the attitude in our younger people is, I hate that I'm saying younger people though. I thought I was one.

Heidi Ellsworth: We all were at one point.

Laurie Moore: But there's really a shift there like, oh, what's the point in paying for college? I can go to work now and start earning now. And they're seeing that these positions in roofing companies pay well, and they can support a family and do all the things maybe they want to do in this career path. They're also seeing that it is a career path. And I think that's something really important that we're seeing results from people from other companies, or people in the area know that other people in our company used to work in the field and now they're superintendents and they're project managers and they're estimators and they've seen these people move up through our company and that's attractive to people.

Heidi Ellsworth: Definitely.

Laurie Moore: I think that kind of working on being a training machine, as a company and looking to always keep raising people to their highest level of value, whether it's within your company or outside your company. I've helped people find jobs being in a different trade because that's where they wanted to go, because it's not really important what the company wants. It's really important to support what they want. And once they see that, that translates to them that you care, that the company cares, because we're willing to train and spend this time with you, even though we know this is temporary. That's okay. Maybe there's something else for you. But that goes a long way, and it's very attractive and people are drawn to it.

Josh Martin: I do agree that there is more of a prestige with the trades these days. I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, and the DaVinci rep who runs that territory, his daughter went into welding and she absolutely loves it. She actually makes a lot of money, which I would've had no idea. And we were kind of talking about that. It's sort of that same idea.

Laurie Moore: We have a father-daughter on a same crew.

Josh Martin: Nice.

Laurie Moore: In hers-

Heidi Ellsworth: That's awesome.

Laurie Moore: We've had father-sons before, but not father-daughter.

Heidi Ellsworth: Daughters. That's cool.

Brad Beldon: So my whole career, I've worn a tie and I only know one other person, Hap [inaudible 00:22:09]. Hap and I are the only two that I ever see. I haven't seen another person here today wearing a tie other than Hap. And it's because Hap and I firmly believe of trying to raise that level of the perception, and maybe the cultural shift would be different going forward, because I've always felt that we were a step above or a step below a used car salesmen in the eyes of the public. And I don't want to be that. I want to be a professional service provider who happens to sell or service roofing for a living. And to me that's a difference from being a roofer.

Heidi Ellsworth: I've seen a shift, and I mean 30 years of being with manufacturers and now with the Coffee Shop for the last 10, I have seen a shift. And it kind of goes to what you're saying, people are coming from other trades because they're seeing the shift in the professionalism, roofing respect. And exactly what Laurie is saying too, is that that's kind of the trick. And that what we're hearing a lot, same trends, is that people, we have a labor shortage, so they get to pick where they go and they're going to the companies that have good culture, good training and good opportunities.

Laurie Moore: Yes. And so you want to look good. You want your group on the roof, you want them to look professional. You want them to act professional because this is part of your company image. Your trucks that are driving all over town with your letters or your name of your company in big letters-

Josh Martin: I feel like I need to go change real quick.

Heidi Ellsworth: You're okay.

Onnie Diaz: And that's just it-

Heidi Ellsworth: You looking good.

Josh Martin: I never had to wear a tie at Abercrombie's. I was like, I'm not doing that here either.

Onnie Diaz: So we're talking about being honest. I mean, that's really what got me in the roofing business. So it was 1984, so I'm still in high school. My buddy on the wrestling team's uncle owned a roofing company. So it kind of just started just like, hey, do you want to come out and help me load a roof? Sure. I mean, what was minimum wage then? 3.35 an hour? And you could make nine bucks an hour to go load a roof. So anyway, so that just kind of materialized. But I got to meet his uncle and his uncle showed up every day with a tie, every day. And he had started as a roofer. His dad was a roofer, his grandfather was a roofer.

Brad Beldon: 39 years in a tie.

Onnie Diaz: And I didn't know Floyd at the time from anybody, and I asked him as time went on, I'm like, you wear a tie every... And he would come up on the roof. So I'm learning, I'm training to be a roofer. And he'd come on the roof dressed just like that. He'd have a suit jacket on and a tie, nice shoes. And he'd get right down on his knees and go, this is how you do it. Never a wasted move. Never a wasted move. And so as the time went on, he became a mentor to me. Because I'm like, he's driving a nice truck, he's got a nice house, he's got a nice family and I'm going to college. And I'm kind of going, look at this. And I'm looking at the estimators that are working there and I'm going, this guy's got nice trucks. And so his brother, Mike, he drove a Porsche with a custom made ladder rack on the back and he had the old wooden estimator ladders that he collapsed down. And I thought that was a little extreme, but hey.

Anyway, the point is it attracted me to stay in the business. And I agree with you because every day, so many times I wore sport coat and a company shirt and whatever and it does inspire the people around us to want to be a part of that, but not have their opinion of me to just be an owner that doesn't know anything because I'm wearing a sport coat or a nice pair of boots or whatever. And then just doing things like this. We talked about that on the interview here this morning, was to bring your team along and make them feel that they belong, that you want them there. Because so many over the years, as we've grown up in this business, you see the owners coming and maybe not part of the teams. What's your team saying? Oh, it must be nice to go. They do this. So when you start involving them, they really take an interest in the business and they care. And I think that that's the part of the business that we miss anymore. We've all gotten to the point where we are because we care.
We want to put a good roof on, we want to look good, we wanted this, we wanted that. And so many of the people don't care. And so if you can engage them to get them to care.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's all about the people. I tell you what it kind of comes down to.

Laurie Moore: Yeah, they say there's a really small percentage of people who really you're talking about who are trying not to do anything. There's a small percentage of them, and then there's these people in the middle and they could go either way. And there's things that can influence that. So I think what we're talking about when we're talking about professionalism, we're talking top down, we're talking throughout the whole company and we're talking about it's a matter of pride in what you do. Each person and what they do every day, what they produce, they can look at that and go, look what we did today.

That's very visual. And I think people are proud of the work they do, and we want customers to see that it's good for them, it's a good experience for them. And sometimes we all need feedback about what that means, and are we open to listening to that and taking that feedback and going, oh, I really appreciate that criticism because I can take that and use it to make a positive change.

Heidi Ellsworth: And customers are doing a lot more research. So they are-

Laurie Moore: And communication.

Heidi Ellsworth: ... Having expectations. Yes. And communications.

Onnie Diaz: That's dangerous.

Laurie Moore: And this kind of leads to another topic that's on here about the increased responsibility of management. All this translates into more and more and more things for management to track. There's like with safety, we're expected to show proof that every day we're meeting about safety, daily toolbox talks. We're showing proof of unannounced visits by management and just all these things that we're having to track and manage, including how do we look? How do we act? Like every minute it seems like it's just getting more and more that way. And there's regulations that are put in place that put us in that box from our customers, from our government, from lots of directions. It's insane. If you think about having to do what we do now, 30 or 40 years ago, you couldn't possibly do it.

Heidi Ellsworth: Well, and that's really the technology that is enabling all this. Brad, you were going to say?

Brad Beldon: Well, I was going to swing to the technology because, without the technology, you can't do all those things.

Laurie Moore: That's right but now we're expected to do it.

Brad Beldon: But part of the problem-

Josh Martin: And well.

Brad Beldon: Part of the problem is that the clients aren't necessarily on the same technology platform that you're on. So we subscribed to about 25 different platforms, and you pay your membership for that platform, but you can't pass on that cost. Right? The customer doesn't understand it. They insist that you be on this platform.

Laurie Moore: Wait, you're not passing on that cost?

Brad Beldon: I wish we could.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, wait minute. No. Talking that way.

Brad Beldon: Yeah, but the problem is that you got to become proficient in multiple disciplines and then you have to train your personnel. So it's really, really difficult. But I mean, you think about it, you have Informa said this morning, seven miles, 10 football fields, 600 booths and I walked the floor this morning just to see if I could do it in an hour. It's kind of hard, right? Somebody's going to stop. Yes.

Laurie Moore: Did you get it done? My gosh.

Brad Beldon: I wanted to see if I could walk it.

Onnie Diaz: You didn't talk to anybody, did you?

Brad Beldon: I didn't talk to anybody.

Onnie Diaz: You just put your head down and went.

Brad Beldon: And I put my badge inside.

Josh Martin: They just waved.

Brad Beldon: But I wanted to see how much AI and technology had come into play. And you don't have to be in the technology section to see it.

Heidi Ellsworth: No, it's everywhere.

Brad Beldon: It's on every aisle, everywhere. And I think part of the cultural shift is it's not a boring industry anymore.

Laurie Moore: It's very sophisticated, I think now compared to what it was.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know.

Onnie Diaz: Well, I agree with you. What you said earlier, Laurie, talking about it, differentiating yourself with the technology. To me, it's very frustrating and I've been fighting it as long as I can possibly to stay away from the AI and still trying to keep it somewhat simple. I mean, because it just gets, it's overwhelming.

Laurie Moore: It is. There's a lot.

Onnie Diaz: If you allow it to be.

Laurie Moore: There's so many choices. It's like, and it's kind of like letting your need drive the usage. Well, we need a better way to do that. Let's see what there is and find it, and what works best with what we already have instead of going out there and trying to do all the stuff that's available. It's impossible.

Onnie Diaz: Well, but you look at our business, so we're all veterans here in our business. You look at our business, the way we grew up, we didn't have any of that stuff. And here we are successful.

Laurie Moore: No we had a black rotary dial phone.

Onnie Diaz: A Rolodex.

Josh Martin: I walked into book bags full of Manila folders, went into an office. I'm like, what are you doing?

Brad Beldon: You sell work, you produce work and you keep score. It's still the same, right?

Onnie Diaz: Yeah.

Brad Beldon: That's all we did growing up.

Laurie Moore: And then it used to be on a paper napkin and handshake. And now what? We have what? Hundreds-

Brad Beldon: 200 page contracts.

Laurie Moore: ... Of legal contracts, and we're supposed to be lawyers on the side now too, so that we can know when to not agree to something.

Heidi Ellsworth: You're putting through it.

Laurie Moore: There's a lot.

Onnie Diaz: It is. And there's those people out there that, I mean, they're almost looking for ways to get around it and the legal-

Laurie Moore: Oh, they know how to get around it.

Onnie Diaz: And the legal terminology that gets involved in all of these things. It's so hard to even write a proposal because-

Laurie Moore: And it's changing all the time. So you have to keep up with the education.

Heidi Ellsworth: It's everything.

Laurie Moore: Because something new's going to pop up and you're not going to know about it unless you go and find the education.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know.

Onnie Diaz: And it's difficult to even get our manufacturers behind that. Some of them are great to get behind it. If you have a problem on a job and maybe your contract didn't cover you and you're reaching out to the manufacturer for support, some of them-

Laurie Moore: That's called the cost of education.

Onnie Diaz: Some of them are great, some of them not so much. We've got-

Heidi Ellsworth: And that's differentiating everybody too.

Onnie Diaz: Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Josh, I want to pull you into this because Omnia is national and you guys are using technology, you're bringing it all together. You've been dealing with M&A, you're kind of like in the middle of everything.

Josh Martin: There's a lot going on. So with us, we're doing a full integration. So I can't get too in-depth on what we're doing because I'm not allowed to tell all the secrets. But pulling all these different businesses together is a challenge. There's 11 different companies and I think nine CRM's. And if you think of it at their level, not just our level, you're trying to get data and try to understand what's going on in the business sales wise and then on the back end with the financials. It's crazy. So the way that I've tried to explain it to our people is that way, to make them understand what they need and how they need to get it. And say, would you like to learn how to use nine CRM's to make all this work? Or do you want to be a part of this that's plugged in? So it's a lot.

Heidi Ellsworth: And bringing it all together, I mean, that's the technology part of it. And, to your point earlier, keeping up with it. Because it's changing. With AI now, everything's changing.

Josh Martin: Everything's changing, and it's fast. And I will say when you bring these smart people together, because they have lots of funds to bring the right people in, it's very quick how they can do it. It's almost scary, to be honest, how fast they're putting things together. And we're going through all these different testing phases and we're rolling things out in a couple weeks that were in development relatively quickly.

Brad Beldon: But don't think whether you're involved in PE or not, it's helping the industry because-

Josh Martin: Absolutely.

Brad Beldon: It's also showing you the things that you can accomplish and saying, okay, wait a minute. If I'm going to sell to private equity, they're going to put these things in place. And you've already identified the things that you would change, so why wouldn't you do that today anyway?

Josh Martin: Yeah. And I would help anybody that has a question about that. Yeah, if I would've known then what I know now.

Brad Beldon: I think it's raising the professionalism in the industry because they've entered the industry.

Josh Martin: Totally agree. Yeah. It makes things work and makes sense, because some of the stuff like accounting, does everybody know what GAP accounting is? Probably not. The way that they do things and look at things is not how everybody does it, but that's where it's all going and becoming more professional to that point. For sure.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, you're right. It's redefining our industry. It is really.

Brad Beldon: Positively.

Josh Martin: Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Positively, yeah. Across the board, it's really... And we see today already.

Brad Beldon: Just in time. Everything about it is interesting.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's not just on the contractor level, it's a distribution level. It's the manufacturing and how we're really working through those mergers also.

Brad Beldon: Well, you're now down to three major players and then regional players, right? Who'd have thought that 10 years ago?

Josh Martin: Yeah. Well, if you talk to Dan about the whole SRS thing, the game-changer for them was becoming a technology company that happens to sell shingles and supply people. That's what changed it for them, and that's how they became what they are. And so our leadership's actually kind of consulting with him to understand that formula.

Heidi Ellsworth: That makes sense.

Josh Martin: And that's what we're trying to do with the technology, is wind it up and make it work. That way we can plug it in. Yeah, I tell you just plug it in instead of what CRM are you on?

Brad Beldon: Fortunately, I'm not sure that's technology would ever be able to put a robot on a 12 on 12 roof.

Josh Martin: That is true. They tried.

Heidi Ellsworth: Although there is one here. Just your markets, what are some of the things that you're seeing? Josh, let's start on this side with you this time?

Josh Martin: Yeah, so the only real concern I have, because the meeting we had, basically the entire allocation of shingles is sold for the year. That's how they go into the year. And with the environment that we have, we're getting all these storms, more and more storms and being able to supply what we need to build the jobs. So that's a challenge. And then on the economic side, just the uncertainty. Somebody asks me a question, I don't know. Who does? With the policy and what things are going on, nobody knows. So the uncertainty piece for me is the tricky one. If you give me the rule book or the manual, I can follow it and figure it out. If you don't know, then you don't know.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's kind of a don't know right now.

Josh Martin: You don't know.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's interesting because some people you talk to are just like, oh yeah, solid and things are cruising, other people are soft. And I'm kind of like, where's this all coming from?

Josh Martin: The mad is there, business is fine, but we don't know what's going to go on behind it and what could affect things.

Heidi Ellsworth: And materials.

Onnie Diaz: So for us, I mean we're kind of like you. We're in a niche market, so there's not any one thing that we do. And that being said, what we're seeing in general is it's taking people longer to make decisions, which has been really interesting, really interesting. I mean, typically and it's not that they are even going with a little bit, it's just taking them longer to make decisions. So that has been a little bit of a challenge for laying out our business because we primarily do reroofing, do everything we can to stay away from new construction, but we do do some. Which in new construction helps you plan your business a little bit better because they're going to build this job in the summer, in the fall, blah, blah, blah.

But because we do so much reroofing, we're continuously just running right up to it to keep up. And so it's been a real challenge for us to see where the economy is going. We are seeing that people that have money are spending the money, but it's taking them longer to make those decisions. That's been probably the biggest thing that I've seen with the economy. And then some people with money are still not doing it. And I am getting on projects that should have had a roof on them 10 years ago and they're still well, and I'm like, this dude's got plenty of money. It's pretty obvious that he does. And they're just still not spending it.

Heidi Ellsworth: It kind of goes with the whole uncertainty. They're like, I'm waiting for that sign that everything's going to be okay.

Josh Martin: Fear of unknown is a real thing.

Onnie Diaz: It started when the roof leaked, that was the sign.

Heidi Ellsworth: Let's just go. Let's just get it done.

Onnie Diaz: Well, and it's frustrating and I'm sure for you guys here, because you have more good weather than you have bad, which is that way in Arizona. And so people will spend a fortune on landscaping and paint and stucco and all the things that make that building look beautiful, and they won't spend a dime on the roof.

Heidi Ellsworth: Which protects it all.

Onnie Diaz: Yeah. I mean that's really our tagline to so many places. That million dollar painting you've got and all this computer isn't worth a dime if your roof leaks. I mean, it's just not.

Heidi Ellsworth: Brad?

Brad Beldon: We're seeing something similar too, I mean the bi-cycle is double or triple what it used to be. Mainly we're on the reroofing side as well. Because we work nationally, we're seeing an uptick in Texas, Georgia and Florida, which I think you would expect. The number of projects bidding in Texas, we're not big on the new construction side. It's just crazy the amount of growth. But the reroofing side, you go through the elections every four years, it seems to be a little bit slower to get out of it. This time I think it was different because I still think half the country is not happy about what happened.

Heidi Ellsworth: So divided.

Brad Beldon: And so even though the election's over and he's in office, it doesn't mean that 50% of the people, 70 something million people are still unhappy. And I don't think they're really convinced they're ready to spend the money yet.

Onnie Diaz: I agree.

Brad Beldon: And I used to joke around the office when we lost a job. It's okay, it's backlogged for 10 years. Well, maybe it's not anymore. Maybe it's backlogging 15 years or 20 years, because they're not putting the roofs on like they used to. And then the institutional buyers are getting smarter and they're putting on more redundant 30-year systems. So you're really changing the marketplace. At least our marketplace has changed, just spec driven and by politically driven.

Heidi Ellsworth: I think that is a great comment, Brad, that I haven't... We will be hearing more about this on the Coffee Shop because you're right, they're putting on and we talk about it, we talk about it all the time, put on durable, more redundancy, more resiliency in the roofs. And you don't think about that actually changing.

Brad Beldon: Well, it changes the life cycle.

Heidi Ellsworth: The life cycle.

Brad Beldon: And so I have one client and he will not put on anything less than a 30-year three-ply APP. Don't even talk to him about anything else. You're really spending a lot of money. And his belief is, I cannot afford to be shut down from a hail stone. We're in a hail market in Texas. He's like, I don't care if it tears up the roof. I can't get water in the building and I am going to design a system that's virtually bulletproof and I'm going to pay more for it. And he builds that into his operating costs. But the chances that those buildings get hit by hail are pretty slim though, even over that lifespan. And I'm not going to touch that roof for 30 more years.

Heidi Ellsworth: Which is why the growth of service domain is so important as we're going through that.

Brad Beldon: And we are definitely seeing that trend start to pick up. And I think that goes back to a change in culture that the preventive maintenance. We've always sold the concept, you put oil in your car every 3,000 miles. Well now it's like every 5,000 miles or whatever it is. I wish they would go back to 3,000 miles because it was easier to sell. But people are now starting to understand that you can extend the life of the roof. And we all make more money doing it. Everybody wins.

Onnie Diaz: Absolutely.

Brad Beldon: Right. The buyer wins, the roofing company wins and you build loyalty. And that relationship that you work so hard to build, when you do go to re-roof it, they're not shopping price because they already know you maybe two or three or 5% more. That's not a deal breaker. What they know is they trust you. And if your roof is leaking at two o'clock in the morning, I'm going to answer my phone and they know that.

Heidi Ellsworth: Right. And that's the key.

Brad Beldon: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's the key.

Onnie Diaz: Well, that's where the technology part has just that I do agree with. So our estimator I hired back in September, he was big into drones and I was kind of like, nah, go away. I used to have a boss way back when that he always said, you can never take the feel out of roofing. And so I've kind of ran with that forever. And so we started going out and he started flying his drones around and mine. So he's up there flying his bird over. And so now we're able to prevent that. And it's no longer out of sight, out of mind because you can go look at this picture. Your roof looks like crap, man. You need to do something.

Heidi Ellsworth: And you're servicing it. What are you seeing in the Midwest?

Laurie Moore: We're still seeing quite a lot of activity as far as needs for roofing right now. And it's all over the place. It's re-roofs, it's new construction, it's everything. And I think I thought that it would come down by now. It's like covid, the years post-covid were really high because of, well, what we thought was pent up demand. Well, where's it all coming from now? Or is our growth just growth because the increase in costs have made it seem like it's growth. You know what I'm saying?

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Laurie Moore: Is it just inflation growth? But it's dollar growth. So how many dollars do we have to expect to grow just to keep up? How many squares are we putting on? Is maybe a more accurate way to measure are we growing, or how many hours did we work or you know what I mean? It's kind of easy to be like, oh yeah, look at all the dollars we sold. We're still doing great. Are we? But for replacement and we want to be there for them during that, as well as all the way along the time when you needed to be there for repairs and maintenance.

Heidi Ellsworth: Back in the day it used to be called negotiated work, and that meant you had that service and maintenance unibility and how important or what you are hearing from your customers about do they care if it's recycled, do they care if you're recycling? Are there laws, regulations and things that are coming? So Josh, let's start with you. Is that affecting your, and if not, talk about a little bit about it.

Josh Martin: It's really not. In Colorado, they're a little bit more conscious. So we're doing a decent amount of solar, the GF solar, trying to get them into CertainTeed Solar in Ohio, they don't hear a ton about it. Now that we're part of this bigger entity, they have to do some sort of reporting on emissions and different kind of random things that I didn't know anything about. So the larger you get, I guess there's different rules that kind of play into the sustainability and the environment. It's above what I understand, but we don't see a lot of it. Now we haven't had to really plan for to do anything different. Colorado, you hear a little bit about it, but not in Ohio, hardly at all.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's interesting. This industry, again, private equity, they're bringing a lot of that in to say, hey, we have to look at our carbon footprint.

Josh Martin: They do.

Heidi Ellsworth: We need to be aware of what's going on. That's kind of a change.

Josh Martin: And I think that's going to push down to some degree. The reporting to me, I don't really understand it yet, but I'm sure to some capacity it'll come to us and then we'll have to figure it out.

Heidi Ellsworth: Onnie?

Onnie Diaz: I agree. I mean it hasn't affected our business at all. And every once in a while somebody will bring it up and we may see something on a university level. It's usually if you're doing a roof for a university, they tend to be a little more conscious about it. But then when you start, it's not cheap to do it. And so you start talking about recycling poly ISO or trying to recycle modified or single ply, it's an added cost. And so as soon as you start talking about those costs, it just goes out the door. Nobody really is willing to spend that.

And I think that that would be a great thing to see if the manufacturers could find an easier, more economical way. I mean, you think about if you're in a coating business, which we are, all those buckets, just a one and done use to just go right straight into the landfill or even the 55 gallon barrel drums and it's a lot of money. If you discard those drums in the right way, it's a lot of money. And to build those costs in, I've got a lot of friends in this business and you go by their yards and they've got acres filled with drums from coating, because they can't afford to get rid of them. So I think if some of the manufacturers could find better ways to sustain some of those products, that would be good. Single ply up and find a way to use it.

Heidi Ellsworth: The landfill costs and some landfills are saying, no, we're not going to take anymore. And so it's crazy. Brad, what are you seeing because you're across the country?

Brad Beldon: We're not seeing it anywhere.

Heidi Ellsworth: Nothing.

Brad Beldon: And mainly in Texas, it's just not happening. It goes back to cost at the end of the day. And even the recycling in the communities is not as prevalent as it was even two, three years ago. The inline recycling that most of our communities around the country have, they're not using it anymore. And so, I mean, I think it's almost gotten cost prohibitive. But once you tell them it's going to cost you another $200,000 or whatever to recycle that. Okay, we'll let the next guy be responsible for that boat. Let's put the roof on now.

Onnie Diaz: Absolutely.

Brad Beldon: And it's not that they're brushing it aside, it's they're making an economic decision based on what they have to do or don't have to do. And it's not important to a lot of people.

Heidi Ellsworth: And we don't have any place where it's cost-effective to make it work.

Brad Beldon: There's just nothing around here that's to recycle. And it's just, I don't know how far we'd have to drive it to recycle it. It's not even shingles. I mean, I don't know if there's a recycling plant.

Laurie Moore: Nails.

Heidi Ellsworth: Nails.

Josh Martin: Well, I feel like they've sort of debunked recycling. There's all these different, you know what I mean?

Laurie Moore: It's a great idea. But in reality-

Onnie Diaz: It is a great idea.

Laurie Moore: ... It just doesn't seem very feasible or worthwhile right now. It's kind of a big picture thing. It's like don't we have a better place to spend our time and money? Not that we don't care about the effects of what we do, but it's like there just doesn't seem to be a great way to do this in this area right now.

Heidi Ellsworth: So until somebody comes up with those solutions that make sense.

Laurie Moore: It's not available.

Heidi Ellsworth: Or being forced.

Laurie Moore: It's not available. It's not feasible. I mean, like you were saying, you're going to spend a bunch of money driving stuff somewhere and gas and other resources, just-

Brad Beldon: Carbon footprint just driving it.

Laurie Moore: It just became a bigger footprint just because you're trying to recycle it.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Laurie Moore: You know what I mean?

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Onnie Diaz: It would have to be mandated, in my opinion, from the government down that says, hey you, Mr. roofing manufacturer, you are going to do this. You bottle manufacturer, are going to do this.

Laurie Moore: And if it's recyclable, will it be durable?

Onnie Diaz: Well, and that's just it because they're going to write a spec that's going to-

Laurie Moore: Is it going to disintegrate?

Brad Beldon: We had a client say I want to recycle-

Josh Martin: We are not asking for a government mandate for that.

Brad Beldon: We had a client ask us to recycle the insulation. It's cost prohibitive. He said, put it in the parking lot and put a sign, take it and use it. I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, that's recycling. That's reusing the product.

Laurie Moore: What'd you say?

Brad Beldon: He asked us to take it off the roof and stack it in the parking lot with a sign says, free insulation.

Laurie Moore: That's a great idea.

Brad Beldon: Two or three days it was all gone.

Heidi Ellsworth: It was all gone. There you go. [inaudible 00:50:42].

Laurie Moore: It's a great idea.

Brad Beldon: That makes sense though, right?

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Brad Beldon: Maybe it's on ranches or whatever, but I mean it actually went somewhere where somebody didn't put in the landfill, which ultimately is what you're trying to accomplish, right? If you put a green and a blue trash can right there, I guarantee half the people would still throw a plastic bottle in the green.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Onnie Diaz: Well, and I think what you said is absolutely right and it didn't dawn on me, do you just said that we just completed a project up at Grand Canyon Junction. We took all the ISO off the roof and it was just stacked waiting for the next dumpster to come in, and people just started coming up and going, hey, can we have that? Sure. But out that area was a lot of ranches, rather rural community and we ended up throwing hardly any of the leftover ISO away.

Brad Beldon: But that ultimately solves a problem.

Onnie Diaz: And it was gone. It did. I mean, when you-

Josh Martin: Well, the whole thing is confusing too though. If you go to a Chipotle, there's like four buckets. The fourth goes in this one, the fifth... What am I doing? So they make it very confusing to do it and execute it anyways. If you can't throw your Chipotle away, what are you going to do with a roof?

Heidi Ellsworth: We got to make it. Okay. I love that.

Brad Beldon: That's good.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, so we are right towards the end of this. You have all been amazing. I would love just to real quick round-robin of some advice you would have for contractors and manufacturers, whoever, pick who you want, but some advice going into 2025 that you would share, that you're looking at to help with your business and where you're going. I know it wasn't on the questions, and I know I'm throwing this out there, but Laurie, any advice?

Laurie Moore: Work on your relationships with your employees and your customers. Look for training opportunities to train everyone to their highest level in your company or outside your company, wherever that is. Letting people know that you care about them is also really good for people's mental health. That can be very simple and takes a minute. And if you want to know how you're doing, you can count the smiles on people's faces as you walk around your company. You can see it. It does make a difference.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love that. I love that. Brad?

Brad Beldon: So our focus is to train them. Well, train them to be our competition and treat them well enough to where they won't leave. And in 79 years, we have 78 people who've had over 20 years of service and of those 78, 36 have over 30 years of service. So I think the fact that we treat them well enough, we retain them.

Josh Martin: That's awesome.

Heidi Ellsworth: That makes sense.

Onnie Diaz: Well, I couldn't agree more. I mean, we have to treat our people great. Part of it is, and one of the questions you had too was just to talk about sub crews. That is a challenge with some of our people because they do want to leave and go have their own sub crews. But on the flip side of that, if we're taking care of them, they'll stay around. If they do leave, if we've trained them, if we've treated them right, the odds are that they're going to do the same thing. And then even if they start their own business, they become our competitor, at least we know what we've trained and we know that they're putting the roof on right or at least have a better chance of them putting it on right.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's a great way of thinking about it. Josh?

Josh Martin: I think it goes back to what you guys were talking about, about professionalism. So what I tell our people is, if you were the most professional and they tell you they're most professional and we lose, I'll live with that. So that idea of professionalism and making sure we are the most professional. When you do that, going to win more often than not. But if they choose a cheaper guy, but you were still the most professional, that's fine. Take that guy.

Brad Beldon: I'm going to buy Josh a tie.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Josh Martin: I'll wear it.

Outro: I don't know. He has the fashion experience here, so I wanted to say thank you. Thank you to you all for your wisdom. Your thoughts. It's just taking your time out an hour during, again, with manufacturers, distributors and consultants. Same time we're going to ask the same questions and see what kind of conversation. All I know is this has been an amazing conversation with leaders in our industry, so stay tuned. Also, be sure to check out all of our Coffee Conversations on Roofer's Coffee Shop and all the Coffee Shops, to see what's happening, watching the trends because we have a lot going on and we're going to keep it coming your way. Stay tuned. We have a lot more interviews coming up the rest of the day and all week. Thank you for being here, and we'll see you next time on Coffee Conversation.