Head of the class

• Photo courtesy of the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, Indian Head Park, Ill.
• Photo courtesy of the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, Indian Head Park, Ill.
• Photo courtesy of the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, Indian Head Park, Ill.
• Photo courtesy of the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, Indian Head Park, Ill.
• Photo courtesy of the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, Indian Head Park, Ill.

From the outside, the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility in Indian Head Park, Ill., seems like a typical office building. As you walk through the front door, you enter an office reception area that looks like most others.

But appearances can be deceiving. After walking through a few more doors, you enter a world of roofing. You are taken in by enormous simulated roofing shops with roof system mock-ups, mock-ups for installing roof drains, areas for heat-welding and much more.

The training facility, which opened in May 2000, houses one of the best hands-on roofing apprenticeship and training programs in the United States. A part of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers Local 11, the facility is used for apprentice and journeyman training.

"The union had been saying for years it wanted to develop a facility," says Martin Headtke, apprentice coordinator at the training facility. "We had been running classes in VFW and American Legion halls, hotel meeting rooms and restaurants—not exactly good places for hands-on training, especially when we couldn't even bring in torches, kettles and other equipment. We had property to develop, but the cost of building a brand-new building was more extravagant than we thought. Union trustees found an old lumber yard with two buildings and bought it."

The vision

Headtke has been involved with the facility since its conception. He came to the Indian Head Park facility as a full-time instructor from Local 11 in Westchester, Ill., and became coordinator of the Indian Head Park facility in October 2002. He saw the 19,200-square-foot (1784-m²) front building and 12,000-square-foot (1115-m²) back building before their transformations, as well as the careful thought put into how the buildings would be renovated to achieve the union's goals. He worked there as an instructor during the seven months of the front building's rehabilitation and a coordinator during the four months of the back building's rehabilitation.

"When renovating the two buildings, the union wanted to make sure it had enough office space, a meeting place for trustees and enough classrooms," he says.

"The union also had to consider the type of training that would be done," he continues. "We have a shop area, sufficient electricity for heat guns, room for roofing materials, good ventilation for solvents and glues, and hoods for the heat-welding areas. The back building holds hands-on built-up roofing (BUR) and torch-applied mock-ups, stores extra materials and has a new classroom in it. Everything is brand-new."

The facility was built with local union money earned through an apprenticeship fund. The apprenticeship fund is part of the roofing workers' benefits package; 33 cents per hour of a roofing worker's wages is earmarked for the center. This amount is negotiated with the Chicago Roofing Contractors Association. Because of the local support, the training is offered to Local 11 workers free of charge and to Local 11 contractors who want to use the facility to hold their training sessions.

Apprentices pay union dues, but their dues do not go toward training at the center.

"We pick up the fees for everything, including the facility, instructors, materials, handouts and tools," Headtke says.

The training program

The program brings in 100 to 200 new apprentices per year and trains anywhere from 300 to 400 apprentices per year. All applicants need to be employed with a roofing company before receiving mandatory training. Applicants are placed on a waiting list and must fulfill requirements such as having high-school diplomas, general equivalency diplomas or six months of employment with a roofing company; being responsible for their transportation; and passing a physical exam and drug-screen test, among other things. The center has different waiting lists that cover the Chicagoland area. The list for more populated places, such as Chicago, currently has about 225 people on it, and those workers could have a wait of six months to a year before getting into the training program. Workers on the other lists could wait less than six months.

The apprenticeship program is a four-year program consisting of classroom training, as well as hands-on classes. Classes run concurrently, with students in Phase One, Phase Two, Phase Three and Phase Four taking classes at the same time; classes do not intermingle. The facility also offers 35 classes per year for journeymen, and the union recommends they take some of those classes, but the classes are not mandatory.

"Each phase usually coincides with the year and experience of the apprentice, so in the first year, a worker usually is in Phase One and so on," Headtke says. "However, if a more experienced worker comes in, he still is required to take the safety training."

The program focuses on the following: shingle tear-off and application, BUR tear-off and application, heat-welding, EPDM, and torching and modified bitumen. The program begins with workers receiving classroom instruction about safety and general roofing applications; the second year, they spend half their time in the classroom and half with hands-on experience; and the third year and fourth year, workers gain exclusively hands-on experience.

In the hands-on classes, apprentices apply shingles and tear them off; work around chimneys and dormers and install roof drains; and learn how to hot-air weld, install EPDM membranes, work with BUR materials, and torch apply and mop apply modified bitumen membranes. In fact, it was the apprentices who installed the roof systems on the facility's buildings.

The bulk of the teaching is done on weekends and some weekdays during the winter with classes mostly held from October to May.

"The program is not held during summer because we don't want to take people away from work during a construction-heavy time," Headtke says. "However, we will conduct classes during the summer months if necessary."

Besides the hands-on shop areas, the facility has two smaller classrooms that hold about 35 people, and one big classroom that holds about 80 people. A new classroom recently has been added off the shop room in the back building.

Classes are four hours to eight hours long and mostly taught by the facility staff—Headtke and instructor Gary Menzel, who have qualifications such as Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Certified Roofing Torch Applicator training. However, when classes are in full force, the facility employs part-time instructors.

"We bring in people who are on the job, such as foremen," Headtke says. "I try to find their specialized skills and ask them to teach specific hands-on classes that cater to their strengths. During winter, we have about 17 part-time instructors."

The extra mile

The program also offers classes to students who do not speak English. The staff encourages these applicants to learn English for the benefit of themselves and the roofing industry.

"It is necessary to speak and understand English for safety reasons," Headtke says. "If workers have a hard time with English, we offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes 13 weeks each year."

Each year, about 25-30 people go through ESL training. The facility brings in community college instructors on weekends and also brings in a bilingual roofing worker to help the non-English-speaking workers. Most of the non-English-speaking workers have been Spanish-speaking; however, the center would bring in a bilingual instructor for other languages if necessary, Headtke says.

The facility is not open only to potential apprentices; sometimes, the staff caters to manufacturers. In fact, manufacturers such as GAF Materials Corp., Wayne, N.J., and Firestone Building Products Co., Carmel, Ind., who donate materials to the center, sometimes are offered space for classes or other activities at the training center.

"If they have a new product, the center lets them come in and show it to companies," Headtke says. "We encourage it. We're pretty much open to anything as long as it benefits the union, workers and contractors."

Striving for excellence

As coordinator of the training facility, Headtke has noticed some aspects of training the roofing industry seems to lack.

"There is plenty of safety training, but it sometimes isn't implemented on an actual site," he says. "Sometimes, it just isn't enforced or applied. OSHA says it is a contractor's responsibility to send his workers to OSHA training or safety training. They may need to check on jobs more often or have a safety director at each site. OSHA looks for proof that a written disciplinary report was filed when a worker disregards safety.

"Also, we need more apprentices getting the opportunity in the workplace to do what they do here," he continues. "If they don't use it on the job site, they can lose it. They need to be able to apply what they learn, which can be hard because contractors often need to get a job done quickly. When I was a foreman, the sooner a worker learned how to do something, the sooner he didn't need to be babysat, and he was happier."

The presence of training centers is growing across the United States, and Headtke sees the potential for more training opportunities.

"An important aspect of training excellence is keeping things level," Headtke says. "It should be roofing workers teaching roofing workers."

But above all, the most significant training tool, already used by the Chicagoland Roofers Joint Apprenticeship and Training Facility, is the hands-on experience.

"Hands-on training is the most important thing," Headtke says. "Everyone is realizing that if an apprentice actually does the work, instead of reading about it, he can learn it much better."

Krista Reisdorf is associate editor of Professional Roofing magazine.