The three-year NRCA Future Executives Institute (FEI) is built on 10 core areas essential to small-business operations: leadership, management, strategic planning, human resources, financial management, sales and marketing, roofing industry issues, risk management, family relationships/succession and personal-development skills. Content addressing these areas will be presented throughout the three years. A number of these disciplines build on one another.
NRCA convention
Students enrolled in the institute will participate in a program during the International Roofing Expo and NRCA's annual convention. The program will address one or more of the core areas and provide time to share information about projects that participants have been working on since their institute meeting in the fall.
Projects and assignments
The institute is set with the expectation that each class will complete the three-year program together. Each fall, there will be a four- to five-day, face-to-face program, and during NRCA's annual convention, the class will reconvene for two more days. Participants will be responsible for completing a variety of challenging assignments before, during and after these sessions. Some will involve individual projects about each participant's company. Others will be team assignments with other class members. All are designed to help students gain new perspectives on their professional lives and businesses.
Three-year schedule
Year one
Family business: Introduction to family business
Finance: Financial accounting
Leadership/Human resources: Leadership workshop
Leadership/Human resources: Recruiting and hiring
Legal issues: Introduction to legal issues facing roofing contractors
Marketing: Marketing fundamentals
Team building, leadership and decision making: Leadership activities
Strategic planning: Introduction to strategic planning
Business relationships
Communication workshop
Presentation skills
Year two
Family business: Career development and succession planning
Leadership/Human resources: Culture
Leadership/Human resources: Motivation and retention
Legal issues: Analysis of construction contracts
Marketing: Using marketing strategy to build a business
Team building, leadership and decision making: Leadership activities
Strategic planning: Vision and culture
Risk management
Year three
Family business: Governance for family business complexities
Financial management
Leadership/Human resources: Conflict management and terminations
Legal issues: Select legal issues posing liability to roofing contractors
Marketing: Building strong brands
Team building, leadership and decision making: Leadership activities
Team building, leadership and decision making: Coaching
Presentation skills: Speak to persuade: when being informative is not enough