Show Review

Busy industry week for those on the east coast of North America.  Both the Top Glass event in suburban Toronto and the Mid Atlantic Glass Expo in Maryland had full houses and strong events that attracted a great range of glass professionals.  I was lucky enough to be in Maryland and experience what the fine folks at the Mid Atlantic Glass Association put together.  Good large layout that made it easy to work the room and network.  Great representation of industry companies overall and a pretty positive attitude towards the market though the event happened before the latest ABI came out (more on that below).  Of course for me the networking possibilities are the driver and I got to meet some new people and re-connect with others.   In the new category, was great to visit with Joe Sennese of Vitro Architectural Glass.  Good guy for sure and he was working their stand with my old friend Nathan McKenna who gets congratulations on his latest promotion inside the walls at Vitro! Kudos Nathan!  Also new but too quick and not enough time to talk was Trevor Elliott of Kawneer,  I wanted to spend more time with Trevor but he was the MAN in demand being the outgoing President of the  MGA and all.  Hopefully next show we can catch up more, but glad I put a face with the name. 

Meanwhile it was an awesome trip down memory lane for me at the Trulite booth.  I got to see three people that I worked with closely in various times of my professional career but really had not seen any of them once I started Sole Source years ago.  Debbie Lamer and I go very far back and it just was incredible to see she is the same awesome, focused force she was back in the day.  I worked with her when we were both young pups in the business and I look and feel like I am 70 years old and she looks 24.  April Oakley and I worked together at Arch and she was one of my favorite customer service reps ever and she was also one of the first people to ever read this blog way back in 2005.  I loved catching up with her and the fact her skills and talents are being perfectly utilized by Trulite was a daymaker. Last but not least I worked with Ken Passmore when I was at Vitro and he has not changed a bit- still smart, sharp and just an all around solid guy.  It was a great thrill for me to see and visit with these three…  So of course I am now very fired up about the next two events on my calendar… The Texas Glass Association Conference May 17 in Waco and of course GlassBuild America in September.  Can’t wait to see people and keep the networking and education going.  This week just helped keep those fires burning!

Elsewhere….

--  Speaking of GlassBuild… get ready REGISTRATION opens this week!  Keep an eye out for notification of the open and get registered.  Even bigger… go get your hotel rooms locked down, Atlanta will be busy so get in the hotel blocks sooner than later.  This show will be off the charts… you will not want to miss it.

--  Some sad news though this week on the people side.  John Lang passed away.  John was a fantastic sales professional in our world for years and I worked with him when he was at Arch in Kansas City.  Funny guy- great sense of humor and timing.  He retired from the industry a few years back and traveled the world and enjoyed himself.  I am so sorry to see him go, my thoughts, prayers and condolences to John’s family and friends.

--  Back to the industry world, I teased above the Architectural Billings Index (ABI) hit a big roadblock this month… the ABI posted its lowest score in 7 years at 47.8** 

So a few things to look at… first we knew that the crazy January score of 55.3 was a bit of an outlier and so the lower scores are corrections for sure.  The labor shortage as we all know already is very real and now the analysts pointed to that as a reason the index was underwater.   On the good side, work and future activity is still pointing to a strong year and economic experts are waving off any thought of a recession at this juncture.  We’ll keep monitoring it all though and see if we get a bounce back. 

**Note- ABI has changed formulas so the 47.1 posted in 2012 may not be an exact match to this month’s low score, but there’s no conversion chart to use otherwise.

--  On the flip side other metrics were up in March so, again we have a lot of data at play here so it all bears watching closely.  I think those scarred by the recession happen to be more keenly interested in every data point.  (I am one of those for sure)

--  Last this week…  you may have seen this… plans for a big floatable city that is big time sustainable…

LINKS of the WEEK

The college admission scandal continues to enthrall me.  I love the argument now that the celebs didn’t realize they were doing anything wrong…. No way… horrendous excuses abound.

Just click to read the headline.. then move on.  Wild.

Sorry this guy is not as good as El Pres when it comes to Pizza Reviews.  Get the one bite app…

VIDEO of the WEEK

With GlassBuild registration about to open… time to look back at last years event… check it out!