Day Two: Student Competition, Interviews and More!

Day two proved to be just as amazing as day one at IRE 2023!

Editor's note: The following is a transcript of a conversation the Coffee Shop crew had after day two of the International Roofing Expo 2023. 

Karen Edwards: Hey, this is Karen and we just wrapped up day two of the International Roofing Expo. This is the end of day two at IRE and what an amazing day it was. We are going to share with you what some of our highlights of the day were. And I don't even know where to start because it was an amazing show. There were so many people here. We had amazing conversations on our soundstage. So I am gonna go around the table as we debrief and I'm going to start with Heidi Ellsworth and ask you to share what you were most excited for about day two.

Heidi Ellsworth: I was so excited about the Roofing Alliance Student Competition. I love watching the students I love them presenting and at the end of the day, having Clemson win was so exciting because Karen and I have both presented at Clemson. And all the schools did a great job. We thought they were great but it was just really fun to see that team and see Dhaval as their professor, but you know I have to say probably one of my favorite things, every day of this week, but today was the interviews. We interviewed all these teams, so we got to talk to all the student teams, or most of them. And then I got to interview people like Joel and David from BiTec who are just so fun. And the DaVinci folks it was just great to hear all the wonderful things that are happening in the industry, the innovation, the technology, everything that's happening. It's pretty impressive and I liked that part. So, great day. Great day looking forward for day three.

Lauren White: James and I wandered around the trade show floor again interviewing people and just saying hi to people, which was great. Everybody was very receptive to you know, doing our TikTok and social media videos and interviews that we can put on the site, which was cool, because this is the first time we've done this in such a big capacity, I think. 

And the Student Competition was really fun. Got to see all of the teams, I didn't finish Bradley University's presentation unfortunately, but I got to at least see them start which was very cool and talk to almost all the teams. I shuttled them back and forth between the Roofing Alliance booth and our soundstage to interview and they're all just wonderful people and very well spoken and very mature for undergraduate students and it's just fun to see them and interact with them because a lot of the roofing industry is older and seeing younger people around the floor is really fun and hearing their excitement about roofing along with me because I didn't think roofing could be exciting and here we are. So yeah, that was really fun and very excited for Clemson. All of the students were very deserving of an award. But Clemson did a great job. And Duvall is great and yeah, that was our day.

Heidi Ellsworth: Can I add one thing on that? And the presenter, the young man from Colorado who won presenter, Dylan Smithwick. He was phenomenal.

Tim Ellsworth: And I think what impressed me about this show is we were very busy in the booth. But I had numerous people or companies come up and say, ‘We love what RoofersCoffeeShop is doing for the industry. And this is not one, two, three or four. This was over a dozen. I mean, and so that, to me, means we're making an impact. And people are noticing RoofersCoffeeShop. So that's what I take away from this this day, and or these last two days. And I love the fact that I've run out of swag. I do have some stuff for tomorrow. And so come by 9309 and, and say hi to us, and we'll get you fitted up. Thank you.

Karen Edwards: I do want to ask? Well, before I ask I will recap that we had many interviews at the booth today. That were amazing and I hope people just watch them on YouTube. It's so fun and it's so interesting. So I had Dave Chapman from Estimating Edge, he was so nervous and he was like, you made it so easy. I was so comfortable. And that's what it is. That's why you should watch these videos because it's just an easy, comfortable, casual conversation. 

But I don't want to exit the conversation right now without talking about our very own Megan performing as Ellsworth at the SRS Extreme Tailgate at three o'clock and I wasn't there. Heidi and Tim were there, now they're the parents. But I understand there was some YouTube Live video on our YouTube channel. But if you want to get a taste of it, you should go out there and check. So Heidi told me about the crowd at the SRS tailgate and what that was like What was so awesome. 

Heidi Ellsworth: There were a number of people who came just to see Megan, I mean, like the word spread, and we were in there and people kept coming. And they would say we're here to see me. We're here to see me and so it was it was like people from the conference just kept on showing up and all of our friends, I mean they're all friends but like customers, National Women in Roofing and roofing influencers I mean, everybody was there and they were there to support Megan and look they love her music and we heard some great things about it. And you know, I can't say enough for SRS Distribution. Everyone has supported everything so much. I've been amazed, there's just a lot of support out there in the industry and what they're doing and bringing music, bringing influencers, bringing speakers, sponsoring, teaching. Really fabulous. So it was great. I got to see Dan Tinker. He was there listening to Megan and that was pretty dang cool. Yeah.

Karen Edwards: I will wrap us up. I want to mention that you went to the book signing and Lauren and did for The House That She Built. I did see the book. Yeah, I saw the little inscribed note. That was totally awesome. So tomorrow is the last day of the show. Yeah, there's some educational sessions in the morning. We will be doing one with RT3. Oh, I wish we could share the recording that I had. If you want to see it, but it's going to be amazing. With our future workforce panels. It's at 9:30 Thursday morning, and it's just going to be fabulous. Yes. So I encourage everyone to go, we're gonna be running around like crazy tomorrow. As you know, so usually the last day of a trade show is kind of slow and kind of boring. And I don't think tomorrow is gonna be, it's been so busy here. 

Tim Ellsworth: There may be flying chickens!

Heidi Ellsworth: The soundstage is full all day long. People signed up to come be interviewed on soundstage until the very last until breakdown

Karen Edwards: We have a podcaster Patrick Carr, who sought us out, waited like 15 minutes to meet us and invited us to be on his podcast tomorrow but our schedules are so busy so we worked it out that I'm going to be able to be over there. Heidi has a meeting I understand that we're going to talk about everything we're doing national and everything. I did not know who he was. Yeah. So he found us because he keeps seeing our stuff pop up on social and he thanked us for everything we're doing to help him know about what's going on in the industry. So then people if you're not following along, follow along, you will get a wealth of information. And I don't know if that podcast is live tomorrow. I don't know how much information I'm just gonna show up and talk and I'm really good at that. So hopefully you guys listen we'll promote it.

Love you all. Bye.

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