Lindy Ryan Wins NRCA’s 2026 JA Piper Award

The first female chair of the National Roofing Contractors Association earns the industry’s highest honor at IRE 20206 in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS -- The National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) announced that Lindy Ryan received the 79^th annual J.A. Piper Award during its annual award ceremony on Wednesday at the 2026 International Roofing Expo.

Ryan, the former president of Tecta America Southeast, served as the first female chair of the NRCA executive board during a career that spanned three decades as a roofing contractor.

“Like many roofing contractors, she wasn’t looking for a career in the trades. It found her,” said Commercial Roofers Inc. President Dennis Conway while presenting the award as last year’s winner.

After graduating from the University of Central Florida with a degree in business, Ryan obtained her real estate license and later her broker's license. In 1997, she became a state-certified roofing contractor and took over operations of her family construction business. She excelled at roofing, and grew the company into regional force that Tecta America acquired in 2005. Ryan stayed on as president and regional managing president of Tecta America Southeast before stepping away from that role in 2014 to become the senior vice president of leadership development for all of Tecta America. She retired in 2022.

In 2015, after five years of demonstrating leadership, business savvy, and clear decision-making on multiple NRCA executive committees, she was the first woman elected association president.

“She shattered the glass ceiling,” Conway said. "It was her earned respect as a leader that garnered her the position, not because some felt it was time for the association to be inclusive. She knows and understands the business at a higher level than most.”

Ryan, a renowned world traveler, accepted the award via video message from Southeast Asia.

“My heart is there with you,” she said in the video. “The NRCA has been a huge part of my life for many years. The roofing industry is a fabulous industry and I’m so proud to be able to say that I was a roofer for many, many years. This means so much to me.”

The award is named after former NRCA President Joseph A. Piper, a roofing contractor from South Carolina who is credited with helping save the NRCA during the Great Depression. Established in 1947, the award was first presented in 1948, given in recognition of a roofing professional who devotes constant service to the NRCA and the roofing industry.

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Art Aisner is Editor-in-Chief of Roofing Contractor and Roofing Supply Pro. He spent the bulk of his career as a multi-media journalist for newspapers and television stations before joining the RC team in 2015. He is the driving force behind the publication’s content development, editorial strategy and other initiatives that serve growing audiences in the roofing space.