If you do not take the time to educate and inform yourself, you may end up working for someone else who has.

A Challenge

"Training" has been the battle cry of many successful roofing contractors for years. This generally refers to the training of helpers to become roofers, and roofers to become foremen, and foremen to become superintendents or project managers, and so on.

How about continuing education for you? Those of you engaged in the rigors of running a roof-contracting business know how very difficult it is to slow down long enough to study the next great thing. If you do not take the time to educate and inform yourself, you may end up working for someone else who has. After all, you own the place and are in charge. If it is not your job to keep an eye on the future, whose job is it?

A Call for Help

Hopefully you view this publication as one way of keeping up with trends and as a tool for continuing education. Every month our contributors put forward the kind of business, safety and technical information for roofing contractors seeking to install a better roof while operating a safer and more profitable enterprise. Our features on products keep you abreast of the latest materials, labor saving equipment and accessories.

Our publisher and editors regularly attend industry events, visit job sites, meet with contractors, and tour roofing manufacturing facilities in order to stay tuned to the needs of the roofing contractors. But as a roofing contractor, you should know that Roofing Contractor is your publication, not ours. We need to hear from you to know what issues are most important to you. To this end we also do some surveying, but we most value the e-mail, letter, note or phone call from you to let us know what you would like to see in the pages of Roofing Contractor.

On the left side of this page you will see a listing of our staff with contact information. At the end of each article in this magazine you will find contact information on the contributor. We are all anxious to hear your thoughts and ideas for topics to be explored in this publication.

An Invitation

Speaking of continuing education, please take a moment to consider joining us in Myrtle Beach next month for the Best of Success Conference. This event is designed to give roofing contractors a great opportunity for continuing education.

In addition to some great speakers and seminars covering hot industry topics, you will have the opportunity to introduce issues that are important to your roofing business. We will have experts from a broad cross-section of the industry prepared to tackle your problems and offer real-world, real-time solutions. We look forward to meeting you there.

For more information about the Best of Success seminar, please visit www.roofingcontractor.com/BestofSuccess. But do it today-the time to register will soon pass.