How global connection makes the entire roofing industry stronger

By Emma Peterson.

The launch of RoofersCoffeeShop.global creates a dedicated place for roofers around the world to share ideas, innovations and experiences with each other.

In a special first episode of the Global Roofing Road Trips® podcast, Heidi J. Ellsworth sits down with Gary Howes of The Durable Slate Company to discuss how RoofersCoffeeShop.global, the newest microsite from The Coffee Shops®, fits into the modern roofing industry. The goal of this new microsite is to bring together roofing professionals, ideas and innovations from around the world to create new opportunities for roofers everywhere. This mission is something that Gary is very aligned with.

Gary is the president of the Durable Slate Company and has had a front row seat to their growth over the last four decades. The key to that growth? Connection with roofers and professionals around the world. He explained, “We were working on expanding, it was around 1996, when John Chan and I went to the Dach und Holtz conference in Germany. And this was pre-internet age, so being in that room with roofers from around the world and getting to share ideas truly was game changing.” He went on, “We learned a lot, whether it was the tools that they had developed that we did not have available to us in the US or the vocational training they were offering to the young folk, got inspired and when we got back, we shaped our company based on that experience.”

Fast-forward to today and the Durable Slate Company is now a well-known name in the historic renovation world around the world. Gary gave some examples of some of the work they’ve done, sharing, “Many of those aspirations we walked away from that conference with are now realities. We became an international company, we we have a project in Sarajevo, Bosnia and we were just awarded a nether slate roofing project for the US ambassador of NATO in Brussels, Belgium.”

And now, RooferCoffeeShop.global hopes to help inspire and support modern contractors in the same way that attending that Dach und Holtz conference helped Gary and John.

Make sure to check out RoofersCoffeeShop.global to start engaging with the worldwide roofing community! And if you want to learn more about the value of that type of global connection, Listen to the whole podcast with Gary or Watch the recorded conversation on YouTube.