Rollings manages great expectations for PMC/SMACCA

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Lauri Rollings spends her days trying to lure people to the dark side.

“We’re the man, the bad guy,” joked Rollings, executive director Plumbing Mechanical Sheet Metal Contractors Alliance, which includes the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association of Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin and the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ Association of Milwaukee.

“We’re the management component. We represent the management side of the labor equation,” Rollings said.

And, like many in the industry, she spends a good share of her time trying to figure out how to pull people into the industry.

“Attracting young people into the construction industry generally is my biggest challenge,” Rollings said. “And I’m not just talking about attracting people into the trades aspect, but also the management side, running a construction company.”

It’s a confounding problem, given the pay, benefits and sudden boom in local construction. But it’s a challenge she’s embraced since joining PMC/SMACCA nearly 3-½ years ago — a job that has required her to draw from her past professional lives, first as a newspaper reporter and later as an attorney.

It’s a journey that started nearly 20 years ago, when Rollings first set foot in the Belvedere Daily Republican in Belvedere, Ill.

She made news editor just one week after joining the paper — a dirty trick from a publisher who banned the previous news editor from telling her that he was leaving — but decided one year of 60- to 80-hour work weeks for low pay was enough.

By the fall of 1998, Rollings was enrolled at Stanford Law School and on her way to a career in commercial litigation.

“One of my first cases was a construction litigation case,” recalled Rollings, who defended a roofing shingle manufacturer in a nationwide class action suit.

“That gave me a taste of the construction industry, which I liked immediately because it’s tangible. You can take a field trip and see what it’s about. You can touch and feel the materials, which I like because I’m a hands-on person.”

Rollings actually spent about three months with PMC/SMACCA as an associate director before taking a job as in-house counsel at Johnson Controls. A year later, she became a senior staff attorney with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

But, Rollings said, “After about a decade practicing law, I was becoming sort of disenchanted with it. It’s a very conflict-filled job, especially the litigation components of it. Even the transactional work, you’re always kinds of dealing with someone who’s pissed off. Your motives are being questioned by the other side. You have an opponent whose job it is to destroy you, destroy your case. I wanted to do something where I was building something.”

An MMSD engineer suggested PMC/SMACCA.

“I had no idea what a steamfitter or a sheet metal worker was before starting this job,” Rollings said. “I understood how construction works, but I had no idea about the day-to-day, who builds this stuff and who services it after it’s built. It’s been so eye-opening.”

And, even though she’s not in the field, Rollings said she gets to feel the satisfaction of that work. It’s part of what she emphasizes when she recruits newcomers.

“At the end of every day they can say, ‘Hey, I laid that pipe today. I installed the air conditioning unit today. I serviced that thing that was broken, and now it’s working. You don’t get that in a lot of office jobs; certainly not every day, and maybe never.”

The Daily Reporter: What surprises you most about your work?
Lauri Rollings: How fun it can be. I’m not saying that it’s always fun or even fun most of the time, but there are times when it’s really enjoyable. Some of the obvious times are when I’m hosting a big networking event and seeing people make connections with each other. But it’s also fun to learn about what my contractors do and take field trips to their construction sites and their shops and see firsthand what they do all day and what they produce and how it benefits the world around us.

TDR: What would you change about the construction industry?
Rollings: I would improve the way we market ourselves to potential employees. And I think the way I would start doing that is to approach young people and explain to them what a great career path it is and that college isn’t the only answer.

TDR: What other jobs did you consider trying?
Rollings: Doctor and stand-up comedian. Maybe I will someday.

TDR: What job would you not like to do?
Rollings: Data entry.

TDR: What device could you not live without?
Rollings: My smartphone.

TDR: What is the most useful thing you’ve learned since starting your job?
Rollings: How to actually achieve a compromise that works for both parties.

TDR: What do you wish you’d learned sooner?
Rollings: How financial statements work. That’s a big part of my job. Running any business you have to have some financial acumen. And I don’t have any background in accounting, so that’s something I’ve had to learn on the job. But it’s been a great experience learning.

TDR: What would your colleagues be surprised to find out about you?
Rollings: My classmates at Stanford Law School voted me ‘Class Jackass.’ They awarded me a pinwheel hat with the words ‘Class Jackass’ emblazoned on the front. I’m actually more proud of that than I am of my law degree.