Donavan Morgan: The Roof Gallery Summit: Black History Month Event - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Donovan Morgan from Roofs by Don and the Roof Gallery. You can Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Donovan Morgan: (Singing).

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with rooferscoffeeshop.com. I'm Megan Ellsworth and we have Roofs By Don here with us. We're going to be talking about Black History Month and shingle every day.

Donovan Morgan: Every shingle day. So what's up guys? How are you doing?

Megan Ellsworth: Good. We're going to get started, and Alex, why don't you kick us off?

Alex Tolle: All right. Well, I'm Alex Tolle. I'm the art club coordinator here at Roofers Coffee Shop. Don, please introduce yourself and tell us about your companies.

Donovan Morgan: Yes, yes. So my name is Donovan Morgan, AK Roofs by Don. I'm based out of here out of Atlanta, Georgia, Marietta to be exact. And we have part owner of Roofs by Don. So that's one of the quickest growing companies, hopefully where we're going to be national soon. And then also I'm owner of the Roof Gallery, which is the first roof museum.

Alex Tolle: That is so awesome.

Megan Ellsworth: That is so cool that you started the Roof Gallery.

Donovan Morgan: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: So how did the idea for the Roof Gallery come about? What inspired that?

Donovan Morgan: Yeah. I feel like when anybody who is the best in their field, usually in sports or music, they're in the Hall of Fame or in a museum. So I felt like with the roofing industry, if I wanted to be the best, then I needed to be in the same thing in a Hall of Fame or museum. And when I looked around, we didn't have one, so we had to make one. So that's how the Roof Museum was formed, the Roof Gallery.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that.

Donovan Morgan: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: So, you guys are hosting a summit for the Roof Gallery.

Donovan Morgan: Yes.

Megan Ellsworth: And it's a Black History Month event. So can you tell us a little bit about it?

Donovan Morgan: Yeah, yeah. So this is actually going to be the second one that we're doing, so the second annual one. And it's basically just to empower the community and we see how they have Latinos in roofing and they have other different organizations. And when it comes to necessarily black people in the roofing, that's something that's not really as big or as big of a spotlight put on. So even myself, I know as far as a salesperson, when I started, I didn't really see that much representation, even that many owners. And then once I became an influencer doing the social media, it was still hard to find. So once I finally found some people, I felt like having a conference in the summit is able to bring everyone together, everyone to see different representation, not just as salespeople, but as owners, as on the distribution side or if they're working with manufacturers and basically just different parts in the roofing industry.

Megan Ellsworth: That's amazing. It's so great that you're doing this. I think it's just so important.

Donovan Morgan: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: And you're doing great work.

Donovan Morgan: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Alex Tolle: What specific topics or themes related to black history and culture will be explored during the summit?

Donovan Morgan: Yeah, that's a great question. So the first thing first is because I feel like this is the beginning of even representing a Black History Month in the roofing industry. The first thing is to kind of start creating black history. So having the roof gallery and being the first roof museum, I feel like that's the start of celebrating black history, having stuff to represent. And we also have Earn Your Leisure, so that's a big group. They have something called Invest Best. That was in Atlanta not too long ago as well. We're going to have one of the founders that's going to be out here speaking. They speak with financial literacy. So we feel like that's something that's big in the roofing industry in general, where we have a lot of contractors or 1099 contractors, or salespeople who start making money and they start making a lot of money, but they don't know what to do with it. So they end up losing it or not managing correctly. So with teaching financial literacy, I feel like that's something that's big.

Also, we're going to have our second round of ladder safety. So the first one was Ladders and [inaudible 00:04:50]. We're going to have a round two with that where we're going to be teaching ladder safety and giving OSHA certifications. And then also just with the networking, empowering, showing the different black people in the industry. Again, we're going to have the Shop Brian from Move Hustlers, he's going to be one of the speakers as well. And you're going to see once we are getting closer towards the date, we're going to be adding on some more speakers.

Alex Tolle: That's awesome.

Megan Ellsworth: That is amazing. Oh my gosh. The financial literacy. I think that is so key, especially if you, maybe this is your first job out of high school, they just don't teach that in schools at all. And so I think that's so important. Yeah.

Donovan Morgan: I think just as far as being in it and doing it and being a salesperson to being an owner, things like that, that's just one of the main keys. As far as one thing is to make the money, but then also to keep it, right? And figure out how to make the money work for you.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. You want your money to work for you. So true. So you mentioned a lot of your speakers. Do you have a keynote speaker that will be happening at the summit?

Donovan Morgan: Yeah, so definitely we have one, like I said, one of the founders of Earn Your Leisure, EYL. They're one of the [inaudible 00:06:09] investment groups in the United States. We have some, I have a surprise celebrity speaker as well, but got to keep it a surprise. But once we get a little bit closer towards the date, we might let the cat out of the bag. But we're trying to make it something that's a little bit different than the regular conferences. But at the same time, you're able to get your golden nuggets and get a lot of good things back from them.

Megan Ellsworth: Ooh, celebrity speaker.

Alex Tolle: I can't wait to see who that guest speaker is going to be.\

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, me too.

Donovan Morgan: I might let you guys know after this.

Megan Ellsworth: Yes.

Alex Tolle: In what ways do you hope that this event will contribute to the celebration and understanding of black history?

Donovan Morgan: I think really just as far as just bringing awareness. Like I said, when I started the roofing industry, I didn't really find a lot of salespeople or people in the roofing industry that looked like myself. And it's always good to just have some kind of representations to be like okay, I can do this too. So for instance, like me right now, once I became an owner, I started finding some other owners too, and we all empower each other. If they see me doing something on social media, they reach out. How do you do that? And we're able to help each other out. But I mean also just as far as in the manufacturing side, hopefully this will spark someone to want to be a manufacturer, a shingle manufacturer. I don't see a black shingle manufacturer or somewhere on the distribution side to say, "Hey, you know what? I want to be a major distributor." So I feel like this is the beginning of showing the representations in the industry and each different department, and then from there, enhancing each other and helping each other grow.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, so true. That's great. So kind of going off of that, can you share any personal experiences related to creating this summit, being a black person in the roofing industry that have had a profound impact on you?

Donovan Morgan: I think, so growing up, as far as for my influences, I usually look up to moguls. And I like music, so I looked up to Jay-Z, Diddy, 50 Cent, things like that. And one thing that Jay-Z said was, "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man." And I feel like [inaudible 00:08:34] closest one of the things that stuck with me and is about being a business and treating it as such, so that way we can all grow and be bigger.
Megan Ellsworth: Well said. That's beautiful. Amazing.

Donovan Morgan: Yep, yep.

Alex Tolle: Can you highlight some of the partnerships or collaborations that have been instrumental in making this event a reality?

Donovan Morgan: Of course, of course. So some of my partners, like you can see, the Roofers Coffee Shop, and any other roofing office or things like that, it would just be a kitchen. But because this is the Roof Gallery, the first roof museum, this is the Roofers Coffee Shop. We also have IKO, which is, they've been monumental in as far as just our journey period, but they're also big when it comes to Black History Month as far as support and things like that. And then we definitely have some other partners that we're going to be mentioning soon that are going to be adding on once we get close towards the date, we still are a little bit early, but at least we're getting the ball rolling so that way we can make sure we have success when it comes to February.
Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. So what can attendees of this event expect? What's kind of the outline of the day look like?

Donovan Morgan: Yeah, so they can expect excellence. This is for everyone. So this is not something just for exclusively just for black people. So our first event that we had last February, we had about 80 people that came, but it was good, because it was all diverse, separate, different black people in the industry. But it was mostly black people, which is a great thing. But at the same time, we know there's a lot of other contractors as well. So we might've had a record-breaking number of black people that showed up, but we need everyone to show up as well. And it is something that is just supposed to be diverse, enhancing the community. So something where everyone can network. And something that's big too is in, when I was looking for my first Black History month and I was looking for different people that I could highlight in different companies, there wasn't a lot of black people working in any other companies really. So I kind of felt like I was one of the few that actually had a majority of black people that was working. So some people didn't even have one person. So maybe coming towards the event we can kind of help with diversity and inclusion as well. And that way we can help add some swag to your company.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Alex Tolle: I love how you guys are bringing so many different people together. This is great.

Donovan Morgan: Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Alex Tolle: So how can people who are interested in participating or attending the event get involved and stay informed about updates and announcements?

Donovan Morgan: Great question. So you can find me on all social media platforms, Roofs by Don, or you can find the Roof Gallery on all social media platforms as well. And then that way all of our events pop up. We have some cool things that we do for the communities as well. We're about to have a Christmas event coming up where we give some toys and we usually do them with a Home Depot Kids workshop and you'll be able to see cool things like that. But definitely for the Roof Gallery summit it's going to be happening February 1st. That's a Thursday. So make sure that you guys start getting tickets from now. We're going to have some hotel information, because we do have a lot of people that usually come from out of state, so we're going to have hotel information and recommendations and things like that as well, so we can make it as easy as possible and make sure it's a success.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. That's great. I love that you have people coming from out of state. That's wonderful to hear.
Donovan Morgan: Yeah, I mean, we've done so far since we started in January and we are doing events, really to be honest, most people, like 50% of our attendees, they usually come from out of state. So from Canada, from California, from Texas, from North and South Carolina, from Florida. They've been coming in and we welcome you all.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much for chatting with us today. Is there anything else you want the people out there to know about the summit, the Roof Gallery in general?

Donovan Morgan: I just want them to know that the Roof Gallery is a different experience. Is an interactive experience, we have virtual reality. We have different tests, tug tests, jug test. We sponsor the Atlanta Hawks, so we have a little basketball thing as well. And of course we got the water, sparking your still. I'm going to get some myself right now. And of course we have it with the Roofer's Coffee Shop, so I'm going to get some water right now.

Megan Ellsworth: Man, this is like a commercial for us.

Donovan Morgan: [inaudible 00:13:27]. Make sure that you guys come. We have a lot of fun things. And again, the roofgallery.com, Roofs by Don, or roofsbydon.com, if you want to get your roof replaced or repaired, I got you covered. And that's it.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Amazing. Well thank you so much, Don, for being on and chatting with us, and I really look forward to the summit and I hope everyone out there listening goes and signs up and attends. Doesn't matter where you live, there's hotels you can go stay at. Obviously there's planes you can fly on.

Donovan Morgan: Exactly.

Megan Ellsworth: Get on those planes and trains and automobiles and get to the summit this February.

Donovan Morgan: So, there's a lot of conferences, and have you heard that there's some conferences that's closing, but there's some conferences that's starting up that's having the birth. So make sure it come to the new ones as well.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly. Thank you all for listening. This has been Roofing Road trips with rooferscoffeeshop.com. Make sure to subscribe and follow for all updates, and we'll be seeing you next time.

Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.