On July 23, a dinner was held at the Westin Hotel in Virginia Beach, Va., to celebrate roofing professionals who have successfully completed the Virginia Association of Roofing Professionals Thermoplastics ProCertification Test Prep Class and passed the performance exam to become NRCA ProCertified Thermoplastic Systems Installers.
Fourteen candidates from six southeastern Virginia roofing companies completed 40 hours of classroom and hands-on instruction held at Tidewater Community College’s Skilled Trades Academy. The curriculum was developed using NRCA’s ProCertification® Job Task Analysis and qualifications for thermoplastic system installers. Upon completion of the class, candidates were scheduled for their online exam; once they passed the online exam, they took the hands-on portion of the exam.
Training and certification used funding from the Federal Perkins Act and granted through the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Hampton Roads Workforce Council.
VARP next will be accepting applications for the Asphalt Shingle Procertification Test Prep Class, which will be held in fall 2021 at Tidewater Community College’s Skilled Trades Academy. Online testing and hands-on exams will be scheduled and held at this facility. Test prep classes are made possible by the support of the contractor members of VARP and NRCA; donations of materials and supplies from local distributors and manufacturers; and funding secured because of association lobbying efforts at national, state and local levels.
“This program has been several years in the making, and we are learning and changing as we go,” said Sherri Miles, vice president of NRCA member J.D. Miles & Sons Inc., Chesapeake, Va., one of the six companies involved. “It readies the guys and gals who have put their time in honing their craft on the roof to navigate a computer test and make sure their skills from the roof translate to a mockup model for the hands-on portion. Upon completion, each one of my employees was ecstatic and proud, and I was proud and happy for them.”
