Local 96 apprentices shine at Roofers’ nationwide skills competition

June 5, 2025 by

Local 96 apprentice Jesus Lopez-Meraz celebrates a national championship with Roofers International Secretary Treasurer Mitch Terhaar (L) and President Jim Hadel. (submitted photo)

Jesus Lopez-Meraz has set a high bar for himself over the next few years.

The first-year apprentice with Roofers Local 96 won the Phase 1 division championship at the National Roofing Apprenticeship Competition last month. But he’s already set his sights on competing in the competition’s next two phases.

“I want to make it three times like the first one – first place,” Lopez-Meraz said. “I’ve got kids, so I have to show a good example.”

Apprentices from across the U.S. traveled to Minnesota for the event, hosted by Local 96 at its training center in Ham Lake from May 13 to 15. They competed in three divisions, or “phases,” for first-year apprentices, second-year apprentices and third- and fourth-year apprentices.

The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers launched the national competition last year. The international union’s three regions had long been organizing their own apprenticeship challenges, and the new event brings together their first-place winners in each phase.

Pictured are International Secretary-Treasurer Mitch Terhaar, Local 96 Apprenticeship Coordinator Andrew Richmond, Phase 3-4 runner-up Zachary Abfalter, Local 96 Business Manager Mark Conroy and International President Jim Hadel. (submitted photo)

Local 96, which represents workers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, advanced two apprentices to the national competition. Lopez-Meraz won Phase 1, and Zachary Abfalter was the runner-up in Phase 3-4.

Event organizers ran the apprentices through several rounds of evaluation. Written exams tested their knowledge of safety rules, math blueprint-reading and more. On the shop floor, judges watched as apprentices tackled industry-specific challenges designed to test their skills.

At one station, apprentices used blow torches to install a roofing product. At another, they used hand signals to guide a crane operator delivering materials to be installed. Other challenges tested their proficiency in below-ground waterproofing, tar roofing and shingle installation.

Andrew Richmond, Local 96’s apprenticeship coordinator, said the nationwide competition is especially challenging because building materials vary from region to region. Developers in Minnesota tend to install different roofing products than in, say, southern California.

But that doesn’t mean the competition is any less intense.

“It’s a big deal not only for the apprentices who compete, but also for the locals,” Richmond said. “It’s bragging rights to see who trains the best.”

The judges revealed their results at a banquet to close the event’s final day. Officers of the international union presented winners with trophies – and cash prizes, gift cards and new tool sets.

Lopez-Meraz said it felt “phenomenal” to hear his name called. Seeing two apprentices take home trophies from the competition, he added, is a credit to Local 96’s training program and its staff.

“They give us support when you have a question or need an answer, and they have a lot of patience to train each guy and answer each question,” Lopez-Meraz said. “Many of us are Latinos, so we are short on English, but they provide support to help figure out how to help you. I feel comfortable in the union.”

Richmond said Lopez-Meraz and Abfalter have bright futures ahead in the roofing industry. The Local 96 apprentice who placed second in the Phase 3-4 division last year landed an offer to become a foreman within days of the competition.

“This is opening doors for these young workers,” Richmond said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Minnesota apprentice wins Insulators union’s international skills contest

July 26, 2024 by

Pictured (L to R) are Tommy Haun, the union’s international training director; Local 34 Business Agent William Meyer; Jordan Haller, who hoisted a Stanley Cup replica at the awards banquet; and Local 34 Business Manager Albert Byers. (photo by William Brouillette)

If insulating were an Olympic event, Jordan Haller would be heading to Paris this summer.

The 22-year-old from East Bethel placed first in a skills competition open to 4,000 apprentices with the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, held June 23-27 in Orlando, Fla.

Haller is the third apprentice from Twin Cities-based Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34 to win the Master Apprentice Competition in 20 years.

“I think it says a lot about what our training program can do, about our instructors and the knowledge they have, the experience they have,” Haller said. “We’re putting a lot of time and effort and money into the apprentices, and when they’re coming out toward the end, they’re ready to go.”

Haller is finishing the fourth and final year of his apprenticeship with Local 34, and he will “turn out” as a journey-level worker later this summer. He entered the trade out of high school at the encouragement of his father, a former insulator apprentice who now owns a contracting firm, Insulation Midwest Inc.

John Hosley, who teaches fourth-year apprentices in the local, credited Haller’s work ethic and said the apprentice is “very mechanically inclined.”

“We’re not a very big trade, so it’s kind of nice that if you’re really good at it they acknowledge it with this competition,” Hosley said. “And then there’s the camaraderie that goes into it, the connections you make.”

Haller’s journey to Orlando began on the shop floor in Local 34’s training hall in St. Paul, where he competed with fellow fourth-year apprentices for the right to represent the local at the Midwest Conference competition in Omaha at the end of April. Haller won both competitions, advancing to the finals along with seven other regional champions from the U.S. and Canada.

In Orlando, the finalists took a written exam on Day 1, then spent the next three days in the shop, working to complete a project that would be judged by experts in mechanical insulation.

“They hand you a specification sheet of how this project needs to be insulated and finished, how it’s getting judged, what day it needs to be done and how everything needs to look,” Haller said.

(photos by William Brouillette)

The location of the competition changes each year, and contest planners tailor the final project to reflect the locale. In Orlando, of course, that could mean just one thing.

“Basically, it was two pipe risers with a big, large sweep that kind of represented the entrance to Disneyworld,” Haller said. “There were some other pipe systems to the side of that, and a large cake-looking thing in the middle, representing the 20th anniversary of the Master Apprentice Competition. And then there was a box with a big copper pipe that was insulated to represent a roller coaster, like the Tower of Terror.”

After receiving the specifications, Haller and the other finalists went to work.

“My approach was to create game plans for each day and set goals and reach those goals no matter what,” Haller said. “Making sure you can get it done is job No. 1, but while you’re doing that, take these skills you’ve learned over the last four years and apply them in that moment – and just attack it.”

The pressure was intense, Haller added.

“There were a lot of points throughout the three days of the shop competition where I felt like I was behind as far as the workload,” he said. “I felt like I was doing a good job, but there were moments where I felt like I needed to get going, otherwise I’m not going to finish.”

Indeed, Haller said he worked right up until time was called on Day 4 of the competition.

From there, it was a waiting game as judges inspected the apprentices’ projects before an awards banquet the following night.

“That’s the big moment,” Haller said. “They called each of us up one by one, and then announced the winner. It was probably one of the biggest moments of my life. My heart was pounding out of my neck.”

Haller said he felt both relief and excitement upon hearing his name. After shaking the other competitors’ hands – “all great guys, all top notch too,” he said – organizers presented Haller with the trophy, a replica of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup.

He also received a cash prize and a smaller cup that will go on display in Local 34’s trophy case. All eight finalists received scholarships to pursue training as an apprenticeship instructor at the international union’s facility in Maryland, too.

Sharing his skills and expertise with up-and-coming insulators is something Haller said he would like to pursue as a way of giving back to the union that gave him an opportunity to challenge himself at the highest level.

“I’m thankful for all the instructors I had, my union officers, everybody involved with the local side – and also on the contractor side, especially my dad, my boss and the journeymen out in the field, who I’ve worked with for many days,” Haller said. “I’m thankful for every experience that I’ve had throughout my whole apprenticeship.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Minnesotan named North America’s top tile apprentice

October 27, 2015 by
Brandon Peterson (R) and his instructor Sam Greenwood in BAC Local 1's New Hope training center.

Brandon Peterson (R) and his instructor Sam Greenwood in BAC Local 1’s New Hope training center.

The trophy on display in Local 1’s New Hope training center may be small, but the accomplishment behind it – Brandon Peterson’s first-place finish in the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers’ International Apprentice Contest – is as grand as they come.

Peterson, a 33-year-old apprentice tile setter from Ham Lake, advanced from local and regional tiling competitions to the international contest, held Sept. 10-11 at the International Masonry Institute (IMI) in Bowie, Md. There, he placed first, staking claim to the title of North America’s top tiling apprentice.

“It was kind of surreal,” Peterson said.

The IMI hosts the apprenticeship contest just once every four years. It’s timed to coincide with the BAC’s international convention, which draws union officers and delegates from across North America, as well as members of Congress and other dignitaries.

While delegates conducted business, 80 top apprentices got to work, competing in the BAC’s crafts, which include bricklaying, plastering, tilesetting, stone and marble masonry, terrazzo and mosaic work and PCC, or pointing, caulking and cleaning.

“Eighty apprentices competed in eight different craft categories,” BAC Local 1 President Michael J. Cook said. “The competition was intense. There were hundreds of spectators… But Brandon held his cool and kept his head down to complete his project in superior fashion.”

Brandon Peterson competes in the BAC IMI International Apprentice Contest's tiling category. Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Brandon Peterson competes in the BAC IMI International Apprentice Contest’s tiling category. Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

 

‘Are you kidding me?’

For Peterson, the competition consisted of a 40-question written exam and a common project, which apprentices had less than five hours to complete using a limited quantity of tile and other supplies.

Officials distributed specs for the project to apprentices the night before the competition. It involved mudding a shower floor, setting a curb and tiling two of the shower walls with a decorative, pyramid-like mosaic – and it looked unlike any job Peterson had tackled in his training or his work for Minneapolis-based CD Tile & Stone.

“Looking at it the night before, I was like, are you kidding me?” he said. “But once you sit down, it’s just like going to work.”

As the tiling apprentices tackled their assignment, six judges paced the aisles between their work spaces, watching, conferring with each other and jotting down notes. To Sam Greenwood, Local 1’s tile and terrazzo training coordinator, the apprentices looked like “caged animals,” set apart from the crowd and highly scrutinized.

“It was a little intimidating,” Peterson acknowledged. “The judges don’t talk to you. If you did something right or wrong, you don’t know. You just keep going.”

Greenwood attributed Peterson’s success to the apprentice’s meticulous approach.

“There were people who probably did as good a job as Brandon in setting the tile, but they missed something – missed a detail, missed something little,” Greenwood said. “That’s what separated Brandon. He literally followed [the instructions] just perfectly, and they judge every step.”

Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Motivation to learn

After finishing their work, Peterson and other apprentices had to wait to find out who won until the BAC’s banquet later that night. A celebration of the union’s 150th anniversary, the event drew more than 1,000 people, who watched as BAC international officers, including President James Boland, called Peterson up to the stage to accept his award.

Peterson is the first apprentice from Local 1 to place in the international competition. In fact, he and two others who competed in Bowie – tiling apprentice Jeremy Joa and PCC apprentice Mike Barthel – were the first from Local 1 to advance beyond  regional competition.

Their accomplishments, Peterson said, reflect Local 1’s commitment to training and quality.

“People hire union because of the training we get,” Peterson said. “It’s not possible without guys like Sam or Robby (Luukkonen), my instructor – people you can look up to and who want to teach you. With guys like this, a training program and a company that’s willing to support it like CD Tile & Stone – you put those three things together and great things happen.”

Greenwood expects more great things from Local 1 apprentices when international competition resumes in four years, now that Peterson’s trophy is on display in the training center.

“It’s a tangible thing people can look at,” Greenwood said. “Knowing they’re going to be able to compete at some point gives these guys the motivation to learn and to be the best they can be.”

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