Find Your Industry Path With NRCA ProCertification®

By Evelyn Witterholt

Learn more about the importance of NRCA ProCertification® for installing roof systems.

The National Roofing Contractors Association is a proponent of educating roofers. The association believes through education, roofers can increase professionalism by learning and applying valuable skills. One of the ways roofing workers can develop their careers and expand their expertise is through NRCA ProCertification.

On a recent podcast, Jared Ribble, NRCA’s director of ProCertification, discussed the importance of earning ProCertification and how, in some cases, it may be required. He describes the program as a “bar of professionalism” for roofers in the industry. Now the program is so revered, Jared says he is starting to see specifications requiring crew members to become ProCertified.

“There is specification language that consultants are downloading from NRCA's website. They're passing it around and using it as a boiler plate to start putting the need for, and sometimes the requirement for, certified installers and foremen on their jobs,” Jared says.

For example, Jared says he’s seeing specifications call for 20% of a crew to be ProCertified in a specific designation. If you had a crew of 10 people, you’d need at least two of them to be ProCertified. Not only is it good for contractors to get this certification assessment to earn jobs, but it also helps them complete jobs more effectively.

“You will have laborers on a job tearing off, moving products, even laying felts, but they might not be doing the intense, skill-specific details,” Jared says. “That's where the leaks happen. And that's really where the certification assessment is making sure installers know how to handle those high-level skills.”

Another benefit to being NRCA ProCertified is it can potentially bridge a gap between contractors and consultants. Any tension between the two can be dissipated easily with more quality workers assigned to certain jobs. A consultant will set the standard for a roofing crew, and with multiple ProCertified workers on that crew, the contractor meets that standard, and both parties are on the same page. “Any friction that was there starts to get sanded away because the bar has been set,” Jared says.

Learn more about NRCA in its RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.nrca.net.

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about why you should consider getting involved with NRCA ProCertification.

About Evelyn

Evelyn works as a writer for RoofersCoffeeShop, MetalCoffeeShop and AskARoofer. When she isn’t writing about roofing, she’s either at the gym lifting weights or curled up on the couch watching a movie.