The Year in Review Part 2

Before I get to part 2 of the year in review…. Tuesday’s USGNN had a piece on a suit filed against four primary glass manufacturers. I read the entire piece and obviously I am not a lawyer, but my goodness if this is not an absolute ambulance chase, I do not what is. Trying to piggyback what happened in Europe with what’s happening here makes no sense and the examples did not scream out fixing to me. Hey our industry has its ills, and I know there’s plenty of people unhappy over this and that, but I gotta tell you, this effort does not pass muster and I really see it as frivolous. Plus how do you leave out ½ of the people that supply unless your just chasing what happened in Europe… the irony being the same people from Europe were listed in this suit, ignoring the guys that supply in the states only. Anyway, this screams of a Lionel Hutz… Simpsons episode. But that said I am not a lawyer, so who knows….

Elsewhere....

A quick congrats to Don Pyatt at Viracon for winning the USGlass award for CEO of the year. Don is a class act all the way around and very deserving of this award. USGlass and the voters really got it right on that pick.

Now on to Part 2 of the Year in Review on the Blog

July

-- ISO takes a jab at NFRC announces that they will have a program to rate systems and says it will take less then the 15 years NFRC has had. Comically we’ve never heard another word from ISO on this again.

-- NFRC has its PR agency, Potomac do one of the most comical case studies ever. Asking code officials about the proposed commercial program. In Potomac’s brilliance, 2 of the 3 people they interview come from towns that have one horse or less. Amazing what a 6 figure gig gets you these days eh?

-- Rumors start to heat up about the next big acquisition in our industry

August

-- All month the blog is all over the impending EFCO-Pella deal. Traffic is through the roof, and I hear from many EFCO employees that my blog keeps them updated on the process. By the 29^th, the deal is done. By the way, still to this day, there are people who this site by typing “Efco-Pella Sale” or something like that. Its unreal.

-- The Say NO To China pin is released and sent throughout the country. It will debut at the glass show. Of course the glass show’s official magazine mocks the pin, but it was there in force.

September

-- The Industry Superstar list is released and good, deserving people get much due credit.

-- Glassbuild takes place, it’s a mixed review of goods and bads, but plenty of our friends from China on hand to try and take pictures and look to reverse engineer.

-- Guardian’s Showerguard is featured on the TV Show “Designing Spaces”- notable because its great positive pub for the industry and for a good product, as well as the great looking gal who hosted the show- she surely captured a ton of attention.

October

-- Alecia Ward, never a fan of our industry, loses her bid to be re-elected to the NFRC Board in a huge upset. Tony Rygg keeps his seat but only because “Unopposed” could only muster 25% of the vote.

-- The debut of the Advanced Building Coalition with a meeting in Chicago. A tremendous concept of bringing all of the parties on every side of the energy issue together for meaningful and constructive discussions. Brilliant.

-- Jack Deyo of Mid Ohio Tempering announces his retirement. A tough departure for the industry, but good for him since he gets away from all these adventures and enjoys life.

-- The Blog turns 2… and the terrible two’s begin… nah, it would be hard to be worse than 1 was in the first 2 years….

November

-- The NFRC has its meeting in Arizona and the CMA is now forever known…in my mind for sure.. as the “Titanic”… abandon ship… whooomp… whooomp.

-- I get stalked at the meeting, probably by Potomac, (trying to earn the obscene amount of money they get for whatever they do) but to no avail. Keep trying guys.

-- The NGA jumps into the fray of the NFRC issue, really taking NFRC to task… now the next question is… will they keep at it?

-- Ohio State beats Michigan again… damn… but at least my pizza will arrive warm from whichever Buckeye is working at Hungry Howies tonight.

-- We say goodbye to an industry pioneer in Don Vild

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So that brings us to the present… I’ll probably have a few more posts until the end of the year, but I wanted to wish all that were reading now, a happy and healthy holiday season and 2008. The next year will be quite interesting… we’ll still be dealing with the communists, and the NFRC… but also watching the economy… will residential start to uptick? Will commercial falter? Who is next to be bought and sold? What else in the world can go “green” and basically anything that goes on in our industry we’ll cover here… so thank you again for reading and supporting!

The Video of the 2^nd half of the year (and maybe the year really) was Miss Teen USA showing that beauty sometimes does not come with brains. I love when the question is being asked… as soon as the person says “map” Miss South Carolina’s face falls… and then she answers amazingly…. Seriously it is the most incredible 48 second trainwreck.. ever.