The Top 5 Industry Groups

So what industry groups really hold the power? Which trade groups are the ones that are truly there for their members? Which groups are in place to only further their agendas? Well below, we take a crack at the 2^nd Annual Top 5 Industry Groups a.k.a. The Power Poll. The difference this year, is I am only doing groups that were created for our industry and not oversight (so no NFRC or IECC on this one- saving that for a different post) So without further adieu….

#5 AAMA- Stunned huh? Yes I know I have taken my share of pot shots over the years at this group, but at the end of the day, they do work for their membership. In their defense, they have a goofy path to navigate in regards to their relationship with NFRC, so its hard to blame them for everything there. Bottom line is AAMA does work very hard for the commercial industry and really a heads up, if you are a commercial player and you are a member of WDMA and not AAMA, you really need to do some soul searching. It’s a shame that the AAMA/WDMA deal did not happen because it would of rid us of a group (WDMA) that has absolutely no conscience when it comes to commercial buildings. Regardless, AAMA deserves to be on the list no matter what the circumstance. (And considering I am not really well like there, I am sure that they are just thrilled with my endorsement!)

#4 National Glass Association (NGA)- If the AAMA one didn’t floor ya… then this one probably will. I struggled with this quite a bit because I have always been on the “window sticker and trade show” bandwagon. I guess I put them here based on overall potential. They have power by name, they have an audience and outlet and if they ever decide to really go for it, they could be strong. We saw some sparkles of that with the intense letter from NGA to NFRC a few meetings ago, but it really needs to be more consistent. Some of the issues that the membership wants covered take time and energy and just don’t go away with one flip of the pen. (NFRC, China as two) Still I have a feeling that folks like Rod Van Buskirk will not sit idly by going forward, as a focus seemingly is on the horizon. So for now, based on pure potential to represent their members and industry, #4 it is.

#3 Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC)- I write about Dr Tom Culp all the time and as the face and personality leading the charge for AEC, they really have a great guy. His task is huge since there are really people out there… seriously… who believe you can do a skyscraper in New York City using Vinyl. Yep. And sadly, there’s a bunch of people who actually ignore all of the things wrong with that concept and promote it. So Tom has his work cut out. But between him and the staff at AEC, they truly do take their members interest to heart. I have seen them work compromises on issues that looked impossible to bridge, and that is not an easy gig in the world of the trade org.

#2 IGMA- I gained a ton of respect for this group and their leader Margaret Webb over the past year. A few years ago I thought IGMA missed the boat in trying to slow the NFRC Titanic, but in reality, that boat was steaming on by no matter what anyone did. In the meantime I got to see first hand the pure fire and focus that IGMA has for its membership. They want to do right by the industry and not create scenarios to make money for themselves or for some testing agency. Their agenda is strong throughout and they have movers and shakers from all of top companies in our industry involved. Plus their Canadian roots are important since on many issues the Canadian way has proven to be better than what we do in the USA.

#1- Glass Association of North America (GANA)- Yes I know it’s a homer pick, but even taking myself out of it, this organization, when you study the facts is clearly deserving of this spot. They are the only group that is able to bring the true technical focus over so many different segments of our industry. They get tremendous and talented volunteers to work on programs that are meant for education of our industry. They are as easy to access as you can get. They have a great website that is a treasure trove of info and tons of manuals that are simply a must for anyone in this business. Plus they boast the best tech guy in the industry in Greg Carney. Membership fees are not in the stratosphere, they are affordable and clearly drawn. If they have a downfall its probably in the fact they try to be everything for everyone- a noble cause but impossible. But still I believe they try and do everything they can to meet their members needs- and at the end of the day isn’t that the goal?

Conclusion: There are a lot of companies that actually belong to all 5 of the above because all bring unique values. The key really going forward in our weird and wacky world is who will keep the overall best interests of the industry at the forefront? Who will step up and educate? Who will position their memberships to have the resources they need to survive in both a goofy and world economy? That’s what you want when you join a group like the above. I mean the shows and meetings at nice locales are great, but your trade groups are there for the reasons above. Everything else is gravy.

Elsewhere this week….

-- Last week I said I was depressed on gas going to $4- evidently in some places it has already. Ugh. Gee how about this idea, instead of wasting time, money and resources on what will be a loser law suit in this industry, why don’t we go after the Oil industry? Not like BP and the gang aren’t making record profits….

-- Just asking…. Is this another example of more companies competing with their customers? Tuesday PGT Windows announced a joint venture with glazier ASI of Indianapolis. And yes while the linked article states that it’s for the curtainwall ability, the fact remains that ASI is an installer and most likely PGT will be looking to sell this new arrangement to installers. The question really is- How can another installer be comfortable with this? ….especially if it’s the style of job ASI is famous for?

-- On USGNN there was a note on Rex Glass celebrating their 50^th year in business. Congrats guys! Good company and always well run… and very true that they are dedicated to their customers- and that is a huge reason why they have done so well and continue to do so.

-- It’s March Madness baby… and considering my basketball picks have been terrible (see note below) I am scared to death to make picks public… but what the heck… my final 4… UNC (because my friend “E” would kill me at the next meeting I see her at) Kansas, Texas (cause you have to love the great state of Texas!) and Duke. Then I have Duke beating Kansas in the final… why you ask? Because I hate Duke and that will be precisely the reason they win it all. And if they lose in the first round and all my brackets get destroyed, I’ll actually be happy.

-- I was in Vegas last week and it was slower than normal. Even with the World of Concrete Show happening. Recent articles out, including one in the Financial Times have said that it’s been a tough 1^st quarter there. Well at least I can say with my horrid basketball picks that I did my part in trying to stimulate the Vegas economy. Yeesh. (A special assist to the gangs at Louisville and UConn for helping this process along by laying eggs)

-- The highlite for me was seeing legendary professional Video Poker player Johnny Bigbucks. Yes it was a thrill to watch this guy dominate a machine during a huge Video Poker Tournament- where Johnny was going after the $20,000 first prize. Man oh man, I wish I woulda played more Nintendo as a kid. Anyway, I left before the tourney completed so not sure if he won, but after seeing Mike Eruzione in Fenruary and now Johnny B in March, nothing in April can top that.

Video of the week... to get you pumped for the NCAA Tournament... "One Shining Moment" from the year 2000 when the Mighty Spartans of Michigan State took home the title... (Note that the Sparty is Johnny Bigbucks favorite team)

Mistaken Identity and the Ambulance Chasers

The lawsuits are frivolous. Plain and simple. And now its somewhat personal, yet confusing since last week’s note of Perilstein Glass joining the suit… which followed with my (and my brother’s) e-mail box overflowing with curious questioners. To answer everyone- that is not us.. and its not our former company either. I believe it’s our cousins, but have not had any discussions for years with them and quite frankly did not realize they are in the industry anymore- oh well, you learn something new everyday. I know that some people believe that these are good- but I am telling you they are not and in the long run, our industry will hurt more all because a few lawyers chased this ambulance. Believe me, they are in for their money- a quick buck. And here’s hoping that primaries kick their behinds. Is everything rosy in this industry? No. But did we have happen here what happened in Europe? No way. And that’s the bottom line- these are just cut and paste adventures with some folks to front it- lawyers that hope to roll it into class action and maybe hit the jackpot. And this is exactly why lawyers get bad names- and good legal folks like Kim Mann and Rick Kalson stand out from their crowd.

Elsewhere..

-- USGNN is a very powerful…. And people read it…. And if you miss one word… one very important word on a press release… many will notice it…. At least I know there are people who have the same passions I do… except in other disciplines! And by the way… Heat Soaking is NOT a 100% option to eliminate breakage… but then again many of you knew that....

-- Stepping back the Heat Soak issue is an interesting one- that’s for sure. Jim Fairley started a thread over at the message boards on it and I can tell you that even though people may not comment in public, they are surely not shy in private. The debate will be how useful is it and will it be mainstream… and both of those questions do usually get people going.

-- Speaking of USGNN, normally every Thursday they link to this blog.. however last Thursday the link went to a new blog edited by USGlass Publisher Deb Levy…. The very coolly named “Deblog” made its debut with a fantastic piece on my favorite subject. If you missed it… click here.

-- I don’t have a ton to say on the NFRC meeting- I was not there and judging from the news reports, it does not look like a lot new happened. Congrats to Greg Carney and Marg Webb for taking a stand though and refusing to waste their valuable time making comments on ballots… especially since they have been usually ignored in the past. Bottom line is still the same.. unless NFRC has an epiphany and decides to try and create a cost effective, simple program, the CMA is still going down like the Titanic… Whoomp… Whoomp… Abandon Ship!
(The odds of NFRC and its profit gathering portion of the membership actually coming to their senses is about the same as the Pirates winning the World Series this year)

-- Gas is looking like it will be $4 this summer… man that is depressing…

From the links this week…

-- Yes even the Pope is into green… check this link out where the Vatican says “Recycle or else!”

-- But on the flip side… this article about a plane that flew from Chicago to London… with 5 passengers! Man every flight I am on anymore I think I have to either sit on someone’s lap. 5 passengers? The Pope should have a fit over this and really, in all seriousness, how can they let this happen?

-- This link on the cost of groceries going up… and I am sure someone in that industry is making snide comments on that too… gee thrilled about that late July trip to the supermarket that will cost $50 in gas and then through the roof for Milk and butter…

I'm not there because of the "Day Job"

This past weekend I had a bunch of e-mails asking me what my plans were for the NFRC meeting this week. Sadly, I had no plans since I was not attending. But obviously I’ll follow along via USGNN. Regardless it was nice that people who in the past could care less, actually now are tuned in and getting more curious. Will all of that make a difference? Probably not, but you do never know and quite frankly, like I have said before the proof will be in the pudding when the new programs come out and then swim or most likely sink….

Elsewhere…

-- I do wish I was at the meeting though so I could take part in the “homework assignment” that new NFRC chair Joe Hayden asked for. He asked for suggestions to make NFRC more successful. Um… wow… see how about this one… before imposing your will on an industry… maybe learn it and respect it? And while you’re at it, maybe you should sincerely try and create a system that truly adds value to the “stakeholder” and not profit to the NFRC elite… Damn… why did my day job have to interfere with my love of NFRC tormentation….

-- Yes.. “Tormentation”….. see what dealing with the NFRC does to someone?

-- Solutia emerged from bankruptcy this week…. And here’s hoping only good things for everyone involved there. Solutia has some of our industries best and brightest people and many of them had to do extra duty down the stretch to get the ducks in a row to emerge from the current situation. Now hopefully the can concentrate on the main stuff- selling and marketing material.

-- My friend Jim Fairley posted an interesting topic on the message boards about “Daylighting” and he also noted the lack of greening at the past BEC event. (More Vegas than the event itself) I agree- the level of waste in Vegas is still way beyond where it needs to be- then again IT IS a city of excess afterall. But it was comical to see a “renewable energy” show there and yet very little care or promotion on keeping it “green.” As for GANA, paper was limited by the sponsorship of the flash drives (a trend that is here for the long run) and more and more these conferences will have less and less paper… but then the next question is… what is worse… 700 laptops all running at the same time for 8 hours or 700 people with 25 pages of handouts? Hmmmmmmm

-- Is it the end of an era with CRL buying Somaca? Looks that way based on the USGNN news report from Tuesday. Consolidation's long arms reach in all segments and sectors....(Additional Note- I am amazed that CRL would defend something like this publicly one day before they dropped it on the workers... didn't they ever hear of "no comment"?)

From the links this week:

-- Communist China speeds up military growth… (click here) yep keep supporting them folks… and yes I know when or if war hits the things we use daily will also be affected, but I am talking industry only… of course…

-- VERY interesting article about the founder of the Weather Channel and his feeling that Global Warming is a FRAUD. And after shoveling for 99^th time this winter, I’d love to see some more evidence of global warming… please…. (and yes I know one has nothing to do with another…) Anyway a good read…

-- How bout this headline: Builders Adjusting Business Plans to Survive 2008. Huh you don’t say…. Depressing but interesting article none the less.

-- Last, this column about building green (residentially) and variables involved… I liked that he noted that cities like Seattle have had their “own” programs… hell afterall that’s the city where they certify everything from glass to microwave popcorn!

And back to normal... whatever that is...

Back to normal.. BEC is over… my NFRC rant off my chest… so now what do I talk about? Well there’s actually a lot of “housekeeping” type items to get through, because so much is going on and only so much time… So here goes…

Cleaning off the desk… first the old links…

-- Did you know the leader of Iran has a Blog? Here’s the story… and no I do not think he’s taken on the NFRC issue… yet….

-- This is an older link but the whole “Green” thing has led to a job boom…. And not just with test labs trying to cash in on the commercial glazing industry… (yes another shot). Green really is a cottage industry… click here for the story.

-- And yes people actually do click through these stories by the way, its funny my link on the “Global Cooling” actually got a lot of action.

-- This is probably my favorite old link that I needed to get on here… it’s about the city of Seattle wanting a ban on Microwave popcorn. You know it’s not a surprise since Seattle is the home of Uber-NFRC supporter John Hogan. (John being the best traveled city employee in the history of the world... man I'd love to work for the city for Seattle!)
Its going to be just a matter of time before they get John involved and all microwave popcorn must go through an NFRC approved IA and then physical testing and then the bags labeled…. and you "kettle" corn people.. don't try acting like your popcorn is different! Popcorn, like glass.. is the same whether its in a 100 foot house or 80 floor skyscraper! Seriously the folks in Seattle need to have their popcorn policed by a true 3rd party set up! C'mon Jim Benney and company get on this one! And if I ran this one before I am sorry, but its too hilarious not to show again.

OK enough on NFRC…

-- Well I have started to work on the annual From the Fabricator Power List and that should be coming your way in the next few weeks. The list has most of the same groups as 07 but a few new ones, so tune in.

-- Speaking of “power” GANA really flexed their muscle last week with simply a tremendous back to back effort of Glassweek and BEC. There simply is no comparison for the high quality of people who attended those events. The annual glass show may get more quantity, but nothing compares to the quality of the past week.

-- Major thanks do need to go out to the fine folks at GANA who really work their tails off to make the experience easy and enjoyable in Vegas.

-- I did get several e-mails asking why I did not re-cap more of BEC than I did. Good points on all, I did believe that the press did a good job of covering and there was not more I could add. That said, I think the presentations we had at BEC this year were super. Probably the biggest problem we run into is the fact that some presentations are extremely technical and others are the opposite, so there’s always that middle problem we have. I must commend guys like Joe Solinski and the pair from the Façade Group (Stanley Yee and Richard Green) because they had some heavy presentations but still were able to keep the group enthralled. Other speakers like Mike Burk of Edgetech went the more simplistic route… his use of a glass scraper will always be remembered. But all in all a great event, so instead of me re-capping, make plans to attend next year….

-- Was asked at BEC.. What are the hot products that aren’t the norm? (Basically not the Triple Silver low e’s etc) My answers were: The Sunscreen…. Seeing that pop up all over the place… Makes sense in the world of LEED that’s for sure… so either a sunscreen or frit design is a must really…. right behind it is Bomb Resistant material… so high quality companies like Arpal Defender and the others that produce this material are probably very busy. It’s a shame though that products to defend our lives are so popular… then again the old house alarm is still very much in vogue too, so I guess this makes sense.

-- As I wrote last week… love Baseball and training camp… cracked up when I saw Hunter Pence, the young star of the Astros will miss a week of training camp after he walked through his glass doorwall… I guess he needs those little stickers you see? Man that must’ve been one great clear patio doorwall… I bet we should keep mirrors out that guys house for the time being since he’ll probably walk into one of them too…

-- Did anyone watch the Oscars? Have you noticed that the Oscars, Emmy’s and Grammy’s all have had their lowest TV ratings ever this year? Think the real world is tired of Hollywood or is the ability to get things on the internet, quick and when you want, make watching TV not worth it anymore? For me, I did not see any of the nominated movies… though they did say look for Hannah Montana to be nominated for best song in next year’s event… so I have that going for me. But bottom line is if you haven’t seen the movies do you care?

-- In this miserable winter, there are some great books out…especially if you are a sports fan. If you like sports, and have not seen the website deadspin.com you probably should check it out. And now the editor of that site has a book called “God Save The Fan” out and it’s a tremendous read. If you don’t like sports then disregard…

Last for this post... A while back I wrote about the book “Bringing Down the House” and how much I loved it and how I thought it would make a great movie. Well at the time, I was told Kevin Spacey had taken it on as a project and sure enough, March 28^th, the movie version of the book is coming out. Thanks to Matt, here’s the trailer for looks to be an AWESOME flick called “21”….

Manifesto Quick Add

Yep I missed this in the rant below... why the NFRC actually matters? Because between states and future code changes, providing a full system calc with a "certification" will become the norm. California is already on this and surely not the first. Because of the need to reduce the energy consumption, there will be more of a push on this angle and as of this writing NFRC will be the only game in town... like it or not.

Also NFRC will be adding IG Certification to their wares... yep, why trust the current system that works so well when there's money to be made!

What's crazy is there are plenty of industries that WANT NFRC- like Dynamic glazing, Window Films, Garage Doors etc... all of the consumer style products... yet they waste time on us. ((And why do consumer style products want them? Because they have a track record of protecting people who NEED protecting. They should just stick with what they are good at))

The NFRC Manifesto

With the skyrocketing popularity of this blog, it’s become apparent through e-mails and conversations that many people have no idea why I harbor the feelings I do towards the NFRC. So in an attempt to lay those out… here goes… ((WARNING YOU NOW- THIS IS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.)))

I fell into this battle.. purely by accident… an accident that I bet the folks at NFRC probably wish never happened. Because as much as they play off to ignore me, by my articles and blogs, they’ve had to work harder to get their agenda through… (and yes they would say different, but starting with the long article I wrote for USGlass a few years ago, the attention paid to NFRC has been more than they expected or have ever gotten before.) Anyway, when I was sent to a meeting in Baltimore because my co-worker Cliff Monroe could not attend, I was stunned by the goings on. Here was a group that was looking to police the commercial industry with nary a clue of what is done in said industry. Seriously. They were working up rules and plans, but without knowing the difference between Solarban 60 and a Pepperoni Pizza. It made me ill. I asked around the room and many people told me to “deal with it” because the NFRC had succeeded on the residential side, they had the DOE in their back pockets and basically they could not be denied. In fact, some guys in the room, who had attended for years, were so beaten down, they said they felt the same way as me at the start but then realized how fruitless trying to fight was.

So when I left the meeting I started the research and was stunned. This was a group that had no idea what they were getting into on the commercial side because they had no commercial representation on their Board whatsoever. They decided to jump on the commercial world because as the minutes and notes show, “it was for the good of the NFRC” and it was an “untapped market” – SEE THAT still sticks in my craw. An NFRC Board Member made that comment and it ACTUALLY appeared in the minutes (the minutes have changed a bunch since those days- now they are a cleaned like Meryl Streep in Silkwood) UNTAPPED MARKET= MONEY FOR US!!!

So everytime that Marv Stover- then the Chair of NFRC would make some comment about mandates or Gary Curtis who has been seemingly a board member for life at NFRC would say “its in the codes” I could never… ever.. get past the above comments. Sorry guys, your intentions were always to take your seemingly successful program on the residential side and move it to the commercial. No one would stand in your way and bam, the IA’s, consultants, labs, and academia would have a new revenue flow from the clueless on the commercial side.

Now I have to stop and make a comment that must be clear…

As an industry, no one I know of is against the ability to rate whole systems. In fact everyone I know wants it. I WANT IT. It’s a great tool, it’s a great avenue for showing how our products can work and succeed in an environment that is begging for more energy efficiency. However what I have been against is the money… the complexity… and the way this thing has to pass with the blatant ignoring of the industry that it will affect.

Now back to the story… when the questions started to flow on why this program was needed, the NFRC started with the whole “Congress Mandated it” angle. Except they did not. Nope. Nada. Sorry. So when that was shot down, the next excuse was “its in the codes” and that too proved to be incorrect. I remember sitting in Chicago as Ken Nittler, former NFRC Board member feverishly went through his code book trying to prove that indeed the codes called for NFRC to police the commercial industry. Greg Carney from GANA shot him down all over the place. And a note, if Greg Carney was a pilot in a war, and the arguments that Greg has shot down were planes, Greg would be the most decorated soldier in the history of the world.

So the NFRC had to soldier on, and used their situation in California to try further their agenda. Ironically… or coincidentally… or conspiratorially on the same exact day that our industry had a great meeting with DOE, the NFRC announced that California had DEMANDED that the NFRC have a new commercial rating program in place asap. First off the timing was insane- same day? Plus big deal California asked for it… like Gary Curtis, the state of California has had a seemingly permanent spot on the BOD at NFRC for years. So it was a pretty shrewd move. See California had been (and still is) suffering with NFRC’s initial disastrous foray into the commercial realm with the site-built program. That program is so bad that no one uses it and that’s why California desperately wants another. Filled with loopholes and work arounds, it was and is a total joke. (Hmm, you’d think they’d want to avoid embarrassment the second time around eh?) Anyway, by California asking, this now gave NFRC a more legitimate impetus to enforce their will on the unwilling industry.

Still that’s flimsy and they know it, thus they work the code angle and have also tried to reach out to architects. In one very comical but should be infuriating attempt, the NFRC BOD approved 60K for Gary Curtis (Board member) to have his company “educate” architects on the new program… except at that time, there was really no settlement of the “new program” and no software and no plan… but hey, he’s a board member and he may know an architect or two, so lets give him the cash!!

See the money angle is part of what galls me here- if this program and membership were inexpensive and the program seamless I would be quiet. But its not- and so when the NFRC tosses around a no bid 60K gig like that like its Monopoly money, well that makes me nuts. Plus wouldn’t you think that GANA or IGMA would be better served to make that sort of presentation? Since you know they are nationally known organizations with tons of respect? Oh no, a private consultant who has sat on our board since the start of time is a MUCH BETTER choice! See and if GANA or IGMA was on board then it would be taken seriously too… nah too logical… and logic and NFRC do not make good bedfellows.

I should clarify that I have no issues with the staff of NFRC, but its Board Members that are truly in this to profit from the program. They are people that are strictly in business to profit from stuff like this and not anything else. And maybe if the board was set up to the way that the NFRC tries to tell people it is, then it would not be an issue, but at one time in the last 3 years, the Board and its Ex Officio’s featured 23 people with no connection to commercial… with 1 person with a slight commercial play. That’s it. And yet, I am supposed to feel confident that they are looking out for the good of the public? Which public- their kids and spouses? ((And now the Board is still extremely slanted though there’s now a couple commercial based folks on there- better but still awful really))

Through this the DOE has tried to say the right things but the NFRC summarily ignores them. Marc LaFrance has raged at them in public sessions, but when the time comes they pass on his assessments and implement what they care to do. The best examples of this are:

At that ill fated meeting with DOE (the same day as the California announcement) the folks at Viracon were gracious enough to offer NFRC an opportunity to have people at an upcoming membership meeting in Minnesota to tour their plant. This was a great offer since at the time, some of the brain surgeons at NFRC believed every IG unit on a commercial job should have an NFRC label- except when Don McCann from Viracon showed them a picture of one of their major monumental jobs and asked how they should label thousands upon thousands of units. So it was quite obvious that a tour would help educate. The DOE was all for it. They informed NFRC that it would a very good thing to do. And the NFRC…. Ignored it. You know it was more important to have a hoe-down in the ballroom than see one of the best commercial glass plants in the entire world.

And to this day, no effort has ever been shown by the BOD of NFRC to see a glass/aluminum operation, despite offers from everyone. Yep, lets police your industry, lets make oodles of cash from your industry, but learn about your industry… nah I think I’ll pass.

The 2^nd one was when the votes for allowing a manufacturer to be an ACE (and yes no one understands that outside of us who attend) was held and it was incredibly Unanimous that the manufacturer should be able to do their own calcs… you know HELP STREAMLINE the process. Plus the manufacturers offered to have a ton of un-neccesary oversight placed on them… yet despite the vote and despite everyone with half a brain seeing the logic… the NFRC wanted to “kick the tires” some and just could trust us evil people… or maybe they couldn’t take the precious possible business away from the labs and others who would stand to profit. So the consensus of the group was unanimous… and yet it was ignored.. blatantly.

Why? Well one board member in her election profile noted that 72% of her income comes from NFRC related activities. Hell why would in her right mind would she vote for the manufacturer do ANYTHING she could do? So many of the others follow the same tasks, and then you have the large residential guys who have been under NFRC rule for years who can not stand the thought of the commercial guys having a more simple system then them. I was told that point blank… if we have to go through it- so do you. So when you have a board made up of residential folks, special interests supported by said residential folks and then the rest being people being affected bottom line by the implementation of a program, there is no way the proper call will be made.

Next up is the fact that residential and commercial are starkly different. Yet even though that is known by most, even Rich Karney of he DOE noted that recently when he talked about energy star for commercial, the folks at NFRC ignore that too…. See they’ve never taken the time to learn commercial, so ignorance.. is… bliss…. It’s the Sergeant Shultz theory… “ I KNOW NOTHING!!”

On the money side, the NFRC loves to spend it… in fact on their 2006 tax return over 300K to their PR agency- Potomac. That’s twice as much as they spent 2 years before… gee why are they spending 150K more now? What messages are they trying to get out… 300K for PR? Man they must need lost of it eh? One of the projects that 300K buys you these days was the hilarious “case study” that Potomac did last summer with 3 code officials. They found 3 people from the tiniest possible towns and let the hilarity ensue. My recap is here on the blog, but in short, it was the biggest waste of funds around. So that money should be put to defraying the costs of these programs… nah lets pay our PR agency. That money could’ve been offered to a professional to start education of system ratings… nah let’s find a code official from “One stoplight town, Texas” and ask him about commercial buildings. With Potomac making 300K per year, I am in the wrong business. And part of that 300K was to watch me at the last NFRC meeting and see what I do…. Man I woulda saved them the time and gave them my itinerary! In addition that same tax return had WinBuild getting 115K. The owner of WinBuild is Bipin Shah who also used to work at NFRC and was one of the original architects of this commercial effort. 115k? seriously? So you have all of these volunteer task groups and people WHO KNOW the industry willing to help and you pay 115K to an ex-employee?

Add in the 200K spilt between the 2 law firms and man you have some serious cases out there…. My point is, maybe before thrusting an immature, possibly impossible program on the world, maybe those funds should be spent defraying some costs? Nah… why should they? As long as they can do whatever they want… they will.

NFRC is like the IRS- no competition. When an effort to get AAMA 507 to be approved as an equal in the codes came up, NFRC fought it like crazy. Why… “Because it will be confusing for the code official” and people could “game the system” without the trust of NFRC. Well that’s not true at all- the bottom line is they have a monopoly and they have a fledgling system that probably will fail. If they had competition, its failure would be guaranteed. So all the big guns came out and fought it and despite incredible efforts from many people, the NFRC’s push was too much. A very sad day indeed.

By the way, one other note on the Board…. Its funny, the NFRC tries to play off their “holier than though” set up. You know the whole “we’re a 501c3” and “looking out for the stakeholder” and so on. Yet, at one time one company controlled a handful a votes by having one person from said company on board, and then their lawyer holding a second spot and another spot held by an organization that received significant funding by said company. Now that arrangement has been put down, but still it was there… along with other great maneuvers like trying to sneak new people on the board when folks had to resign and so on.

I count a few people on the commercial side that are pro NFRC… I have no clue why they are, but they are. Some see it as a road to legitimacy because their products have terrible reputations in the market place and they believe an NFRC cert will miraculously help them. Some see it as a revenue stream. But they are truly the minority. Most though see the value in the whole system calc and most would work hard to develop the program to make it work- but not under the “our way is the highway” conditions of NFRC.

So here we are on the cusp on the now named CMA program (also known as the TITANIC) being enacted for 2009 in California. The software is supposedly ready but there’s still holes and costs and issues that are out there. The fact of the matter is if this program does not streamline, does not get seriously less expensive, does not get less complex, it will fail like the site built.

Folks I could go on and on…. But its been 5 pages already and if you made it this far- congrats. I write this so you can see some of my frustration and feel some of my passion. The worst part is no matter how hard we all work, our efforts will be minimized because this group somehow holds the keys. No matter how incredible to efforts of Greg Carney, Marg Webb and Tom Culp (to name 3) are, it does not matter. They all represent significant portions of the industry that will be affected. All have heard from a serious majority of their membership that they need to fight. (I believe Greg may have just 1 person that is FOR NFRC in its current form in the ENTIRE GANA organization!) Yet despite that, the DOE will do nothing to force NFRC to work with the consensus, and there’s no one else who can step in. So all we do is sit back and watch. There’s no reason to attend meetings anymore and quite frankly why should Greg, Marg and Tom even talk at the mic at the meetings. Their words are ignored. And even if NGA decides to actually attend a meeting, they’ll get to see in person that their opinion, like ours, does not matter one iota. No I think we should let them speed this nightmare ahead, allowing them to think that they know better (you know since they know our industry and products so well) and then watch it blow up all over the place.

I do hate that strategy because I don’t need anymore headaches then I already have. I love this industry. Been in it for 15+ years with roots from my great grandfather spurring back to 1898. I am friends with many and just get sick of the thought of the crap that they’ll and we’ll have to deal with because this group wanted to hit an “untapped market.”

Thanks for hearing me out. As I have said many times, this blog is therapy for me, and my therapists are the thousands of you who take the time to read it each week. And by the way, if you want a less conspiratorial, crazed opinion of NFRC and its effect on you then call Greg, Marg or Tom and they, with level head will surely give you the details.. with a lot less color I am sure.

The BEC Wrap and More

Another fantastic (in my opinion or “IMO” as the young people say) BEC is now in the books. The obvious highlight was US Olympic Hockey Captain Mike Eruzione. I knew I’d enjoy it, because I am a big time sports fan, but I was worried that maybe he would not connect with the rest of the crowd. Well as I usually am… I was very wrong… the guy was unreal! The message that Eruzione delivered was super, he was able to mix the classic story of the team’s success with the underlying tone of good solid business practices. Afterwards a throng of people lined up to get pictures with Eruzione and have items signed by him. Seemingly everyone had a story and a connection with him and he was as personable as can be, despite not feeling great and being pressed for time. The meeting was already going great at that point, but he truly was the ultimate finisher.

Other BEC thoughts…

-- The receptions on Sunday and Monday were the most well attended I have experienced. At times on Sunday night you could not get around the room without seeing someone you knew or wanted to know. The networking aspect there was simply off the charts.

-- Events like this are great because I get to see people I normally don’t run into. Whether it’s the Glass Pundit herself, Kris Vockler of ICD, old friend Mike Gainey of Azon, or the king of West Virginia Joe Staffileno of ACH, it’s a great chance to re-connect. Best part for me was the amount of people who mentioned that they read this blog. I truly appreciate that. Funny moment was when Stanley Yee of The Façade Group (and one of the excellent presenters during Monday) told me he reads this blog but “he doesn’t always agree with everything I say” I responded that I was thrilled he read and I sometimes don’t even agree with everything I say!!

-- Shep Hyken, who did a tremendous job kicking off the event, is really one of our countries under-rated speakers. The guy is so personable, and his ability to mix magic, humor and message should earn him at least a cable talk show… then again, TV would probably ruin him. Still if I had to pick one presenter to have at a sales meeting, it would be Shep.

-- Last a thanks to Rick Kalson and Dave White, lawyers from Thorp Reed, who presented once again this year. Good guys who truly wanted to educate and inform our crowd. We’ve had professionals in the past that mailed it in, but these two surely did not and in fact I was blown away that they took the questions and queries from their day 1 speech and worked on replies and answers for day 2. That is top notch and truly appreciated.

-- I’ll probably have more BEC thoughts, but for now I am pretty fried… plus I am already trying to think of movies and themes for next years Top 10 list…

Elsewhere…

-- The Architectural Billing Index went down… badly… in January… the real effect there is 9 to 12 months away… now I think we need to see how February hashes out before major concern comes in for the prospects in 2009. We know everyone is busy for 08… and jobs that are drawn in mid 08 will go in 09… the worry has to be the lenders getting more skittish and stopping work in its tracks. We’ll watch it…

-- As you may have seen on USGNN yesterday… the good guys lost again in efforts to give people a fair choice in realm of system ratings. Yes the NFRC led by residential manufacturers and special interests (who all get paid and sponsored by certain residential suppliers) were able to successfully oppose the opportunity that would allow AAMA 507 to be an option. I’ll possibly go into this more next post… but it’s amazing that once again the commercial industry WHICH IS SO DRAMATICALLY different than the residential industry can not get its voice successfully heard because the residential folks and special interests hold the cards. Obviously this issue will go on and on… and truthfully when the NFRC CMA sinks like the Titanic because of cost, complexity and leadtimes then maybe people will listen. By the way, Jessica Ferris of NFRC was at BEC and I was legitimately happy she attended. I think she saw a professional industry and people who are focused on taking care of their customers. (and not out to scam them) Also NFRC Board Member Kerry Haglund attended for the 2^nd year in a row, and that too is greatly appreciated. Her appearance shows that she wants to learn what we do, and her input on items during our technical meetings were extremely beneficial. ((And yes when I say “learn what we do” I have many reasons for that, but still the fact that DOE asked NFRC to take Viracon up on the offer of a tour and Open House at their Minnesota facility 2 years ago and that request was ignored, proves that the NFRC BOD has no desire to see what we do. Because when they do, they’ll realize how bad their program really is- because we are PROFESSIONALS dealing with PROFESSIONALS… with contracts… and specifications… and not with John Q Homeowner about to be ripped off by some fly by night window company. But alas we can’t be trusted, even with so much oversight it would choke you.))

-- Enough of that… gives me a headache and quite frankly not worth it. Then again that’s why I am what I am.

-- Vegas note- congrats to Viracon for kicking butt on the CityCenter project. As an American who is pretty Anti Communist China, seeing great American product, next to horrible looking stuff from the far east makes me proud as hell.

-- Lightening the mood…. Baseball spring training is here… and once again this year I’ll be too busy to do my dream… someday… probably when I retire, I want to spend a few weeks in March going to all of the Spring Training sites in Florida… But also the best part of Spring Training is that possibly this horrible winter is almost over! If I have to snow blow one more time, that will be too much.

-- The Hollywood writers strike is over but it went too long to have 24 show up in 2008… now 24 will return in January of 2009…. Man I miss Jack Bauer. Also I was impressed by how many people went to the Friday Night Lights petition site from this blog last week. Guess I am not alone in appreciation for a fantastic TV show.

More from the economy side

I got tons of e-mails and response to last week’s post on the economic condition of our industry. Probably the most interesting one was this one below that was left on the site. It really does hit the target pretty well:

Max,
I think you hit it right, the major curtain wall contractors are very busy. The projects in their line of sight are awarded based upon design intent and not full blown multiple bidding wars. The shortage in 2008 is not glass and metal, its capable glazing contractors and engineering. Old school general contractors will pay dearly for this as they have lost touch with the marketplace. Suppliers will be challenged to assist small contractors that have been pulled upstream to tackle these high $$ projects. It will be a very interesting 2008.
The smaller project market has plenty of capacity and thus lower margins everywhere. The hurdle for all of us is to keep our heads on straight and not bite on the "this is the last best project" and "I have to have this one" mentality.

BAM! It’s a great take that also plays off the angle of people leaving their home markets in search of work. And that’s whether you’re a glazier or fabricator. No matter what anyone says, the small project market or the “everyday” stuff is getting tighter. That will truly force people into scenarios that they are not comfortable or capable. I’ll be curious to see what the flavor on this is at BEC.

Elsewhere…

-- Ah BEC is just about here… and so is Glassweek. For folks that do not know, Glassweek is a tremendous technical event. Years ago it used to be the network event, but quite frankly that mantra has been passed to BEC. Glassweek now is where the work really gets done. The amazing technical brains of our industry are there and they all work to the betterment of what we do. It truly is a sight and all of us should be appreciative to the volunteers who spend countless hours on these efforts.

-- As for BEC, the numbers for this year are astounding. And the people expected to attend seriously look like the “Who’s who” of our industry. If you are missing this one, your missing a dandy. Obviously you’ll get full reports from USGlass editor Megan Headley and the USGNN crew as well as some possible blogs from me…

-- Hey anyone up for “Global Cooling?” After spending the first part of the week in miserable Michigan… I believe in it… and so does this article… which is now taking the opposite track of the whole Global Warming trend…. Can you imagine if we go to a reverse of the LEED program? Now that would be a fun one to spec for.

-- Baseball is right around the corner and this week, some interesting pieces on the new stadium for the New York Yankees were out. A good one with pics and detail is RIGHT HERE. And I gotta say I have a feeling the IG in that stadium is gonna look mighty fine…

-- Congrats to the gang at ACH… also known as Ford.. or Visteon Glass… according to THIS newspaper article, (and be sure to read the comments- wild stuff )the union accepted the contract which means, ACH will get sold and become a new stand alone company. The main hope here is that the people at ACH that are there now, will still be there when the new folks take over, since some of the industries finest people work there and losing them would be a disaster to the new company and would probably hurt our industry if they did not end up somewhere else within.

-- Do you watch Friday Night Lights on NBC? Chances are if you do, you love it. And if you enjoy it, then you probably have to fight to keep it on the air, since amazingly not many people watch the show. Man, great TV, and it goes basically un-noticed. Makes no sense… Anyway, the blog BEST WEEK EVER is trying to do their part with petitions and so on. So if you like, you may as well join in, you never know what could happen… CLICK HERE to sign on.

The video of the week is in honor of the keynote speaker at BEC… Mike Eruzione. Captain America scores the goal, the Miracle on Ice is made and man, you can NEVER get tired of seeing stuff like this. Can you imagine being there during this? Wow! Seriously, its 57 seconds of pure chills!

Which way is the wind blowing?

For months now I have hammered the notion that economy is shaky… in shambles… a mess… but is it really? Lately I am getting conflicting signals, hearing that people are swamped and backlogs for 08 are solid. In fact even on the USGNN message board, people have noted that they’re busy and all is well. So what is it? Good or Bad? My take is that it’s both and it depends on your mix, your market, and your strategy going forward. Obviously if you are in residential it is ugly… though even a handful of those guys are holding their own… but the majority are not. If you are just a laminated supplier, then your probably feeling pain since there’s more laminated capacity than there are orders. If you are a commercial player that deals in larger projects, you are one of the lucky ones.. whether its glazier or supplier, that business is still solid and points to be that way for a while. Bottom line though is all of the major economic factors are still trending downward… the nervousness of the Fed is not a good sign, and quite frankly we’re due for a downer sort of cycle.

Elsewhere….

-- How do you know times are tough? When glaziers and suppliers leave their home markets and go thousands of miles away to do jobs. Seeing that all over… and some of the glaziers are very good friends of mine and they are doing what needs to be done to keep busy… but I do worry that is a scary slope to be on. As for the supply side, it’s never easy to do work from far, far away… but lately lots of people are trying and good luck to them cause its an adventure….

-- I have to admit the Hannah Montana movie was actually good. Yes it really was. Disney is brilliant and that girl is extremely talented…. My goodness any street cred I had in this industry just disappeared with the above lines….

-- The ambulance chase continues as I hear more and more people being pressed by lawyers to file suit against the primary manufacturers. I got a copy of an e-mail making the rounds trying to bait folks into jumping into the fray. It really is amazing… I wonder if these ambulance chasers really realize that they folks in North America are not going to take this lying down… that they won’t get cash because they think this is just like Europe… And like I said last week it’s a huge waste of resources that will eventually costs us a lot more than people realize.

-- The New York Times is reporting that thanks to inflation the communist Chinese now have to increase prices of their export material… So could the days of people buying glass and aluminum for the lowest prices imaginable will be ending??? Not likely since most Chinese companies are desperate to get material here and will and HAVE given it away basically… so even if they raise prices 20% they’ll probably be 20% low still… the thing that will slow the tide is the quality issue… poor quality, bad service, and Nickel Sulfide (they have it in bunches compared to microscopic amounts in Western style floats) will be among the factors… and so will the fact that you have no legal rights or remedies when you buy from them… so as always.. Buyer beware…

-- Great Super Bowl and congrats to the Giants… Also props to the many folks who pulled off bets on the G-Men… a glazier I know in Vegas made a small fortune on the G-Men and I hope that he’ll be in a treating mood come BEC….

-- Speaking of BEC… just a few weeks away… and the anticipation is really over the top. Man what a great event that will be!

-- And speaking of GANA… please all… Take the time to do this survey for the Decorative division…. That division has great leadership and vision and they want to be the best possible group they can be. CLICK HERE for the survey… it won’t take a ton of time and you will be doing your part to help out.

Once again its time for Lionel Hutz

Beware; I am in a pretty bitter mood for some reason today, so some of the posts have that flavor. Anyway, the sirens are buzzing… and that means its ambulance chasing lawyer time! I really get amazed with our legal system in this country- whether it’s the criminal side or the business side. Logic and proof sometimes don’t have a chance. The latest “chase” was in Tuesday’s USGNN on the lawsuit filed on the energy surcharge. Now I have to say I have issues with the surcharge, but even so I gotta say these actions are just wasteful exercises. This suit is based on the same flimsy evidence that the last one was… both based on something that happened in Europe, that folks (lawyers with dollar sign eyes) assume (and quite frankly hope) must be happening here too. That’s where the lack of logic comes in. Its like these guys just cut and pasted a suit together, found a plaintiff and SHAZAM, they’re in business. Yeesh. Bottom line is as an industry we have much more serious battles ahead, not to mention a shaky economy, so events like this just take resources away and eyes off the real issues that will affect ALL of us for years to come.

Elsewhere…

-- Our condolences go out to Tom Crawford of Donisi Mirror on the passing of his father, Roger. Tom is also a Board member at GANA and very good one at that. Our thoughts are with him and his family at this tough time.

-- Saw an interesting blurb on the IGMA meetings… it seems that Keystone Certifications terminated their agreement with IGMA to provide admin services for the certification process because they want to do their own…. And of course their own will probably be with NFRC (Shocked!)… and the head of Keystone and a huge decision maker inside NFRC are the same person… ah forget it.. not worth the keystrokes….once again it’s the classic self-fulfilling prophecy… or is that profit-cy?

-- Kudos to the gang at Vesuvius for their ad in the latest USGlass Magazine recognizing the efforts of Stan Smith upon his retirement and welcoming Bill Yanek to the fold. Very classy move and one that was probably the brainchild of Ren Bartoe of Vesuvius- one of the best industry guys around.

--This past week I got a call from a loyal reader asking why I don’t delve outside the industry more… I guess he can only handle so much Chinese NFRC debate eh…. Well… here’s some… I am going this weekend with my daughter to see the Hannah Montana Concert movie… she came to Detroit twice for live concerts and I failed twice to get tickets, so the movie will have to suffice. Anyway, I’ll have the extra duty ear plugs in. And I know I am not alone because everyone I speak with who has a daughter between 6-13 all live and die for Hannah Montana. The girl is a dynamo and here’s hoping that she stays good and doesn’t become another Britney.

-- And while on the celebrity stuff… can you believe that magazines pay millions of dollars for semi-celebrity baby pictures? Evidently, as this link will tell you, Nicole Richie is getting a million dollars for new babies pic… my goodness what is wrong with this world?

-- The Super Bowl is this weekend and it’s time to make the call… First off I just want a good game… that would be great. A game where the game is actually better than the commercials would be super. As for the game itself, I just can not see the Patriots losing. They have too many weapons and quite frankly they carry themselves with cool business-like savvy. End of the day Tom Brady will come through… gimpy ankle or not and the Pats will win 31-20.

Last I know I have been lacking for videos but thanks to Dan, I present a great one on the world of outsourcing. It really is a comical must-watch!

((( I had it embedded here but it started right with the blog- probably not best for people at work... so CLICK THIS and you'll be taken to it. Good stuff!)))

A "Nickel" for your thoughts?

When USGNN linked the story about the Des Moines Library last Thursday I had a feeling that a new discussion issue would be right in front of us. The original story was from the local paper and did not have the details that we as industry look for or care about. Soon after the details began to trickle out and it brought back an old industry bugaboo… Nickel Sulfide Inclusions. The whole Nickel Sulfide thing was a hot topic back in the 80’s and early 90’s but it faded away because glass made domestically was improved to contain virtually no Nickel Sulfide. Thus any breakage that may have occurred was linked to something else on the job. It’s back now, and on this job, because the glass was made overseas. (And keep in mind, Glass from communist China has it because they ignore the sophisticated advances that the others in the world have made) So while it seemed to catch everyone’s eye and the call for unnecessary heat soaks rang out, the answer is simple… buy glass made in North America and Nickel Sulfide is a problem you probably WON’T have. Just another reason to support the home fires….

Elsewhere…

-- The comical part of the Des Moines Library job is that the glass was from Germany and it was very expensive. The taxpayers in that town are furious and they have every right to be. That EXACT look could’ve been reproduced using several domestic methods at a fraction of the cost and with no Nickel Sulfide included. (Not sure on the performance goals, but I can pretty much guarantee that could’ve been handled domestically too)

-- It is a real shame. This may be the first time I can remember that someone went overseas and paid more…

-- Plus the job is a LEED one… I guess they didn’t get the local manufacturing credits eh?

-- CONGRATULATIONS to USGlass Magazine for taking a plum sponsorship at the BEC event in Las Vegas next month. With every heavy hitter in the industry there, that sponsorship will continue to prove USGlass to be the industry voice. Furthermore, by being a sponsor USGlass is SUPPORTING the industries efforts and all of us should be thankful. And that sentiment goes for all of the companies who are sponsoring that event… It is money well spent and will be thoroughly appreciated.

-- Speaking of Vegas… saw this week that one of the new Hotel and Casino projects going up in Vegas is in some trouble… The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino is now facing foreclosure… due to open in late 2009, I guess we will see if they can get it cleaned up and back on track. That is one of 4 major projects happening right now there and you have to ask yourself, when will enough be too much? Eventually someone is going to “build it” and no one will “come”

-- A wild week so far on Wall Street… despite the up and down nature most of industry related stocks are hanging in OK… possibly the rate cut makes investors think that building will keep going on the commercial side, and maybe they are thinking the worst is over on the residential side… it bears watching….

-- On the flip side though, with the economy getting tighter, rumors do run rampant… most of the ones I get are about the possible closings of companies in our industry…. If any of the e-mails I get come true, it will be shocking and sad that some of these places are going by the wayside. Then again, there’s segments in our industry that are very fat… and in lean times, unfortunately not everyone can make it. Should be interesting to see what pans out and not… since the rumor of a companies demise has always been a popular one in our industry BUT its accuracy level is about the same as Brett Favre’s was on late Sunday night…

-- Last, I am looking forward to the Super Bowl… I’ll have my pick in this space next week. Remember I pretty much nailed last years game- even with the score listed! So we’ll see if I was a one year wonder or not…..

The Reaction to the List

I can tell you lists are great for Blog traffic… Last week’s “What to look for in 2008” was one of the most read posts since the whole Pella/EFCO deal last fall. In all of that traffic were plenty of e-mail with thoughts, opinions and omissions. Some of the best are down below, and THANK YOU to all that checked in!!

By the way the success of the “list” means my competition will probably start doing them anytime now. Then again I am used to that.

3 Great items that really could’ve made the list…

1. Jobsite Security- HUGE issue for the glazing community because of the on going desire to steal materials… especially copper and aluminum. No matter how safe or how hard you try, the bad guys are seemingly winning. And this issue is not just for jobsites, I got this link a while back- and meant to post- talking about a Louisville glass company getting their materials stolen…. However when you see the amount the company says was stolen, you have to wonder how long this could be going one, because that’s a lot of money. Regardless, this is a MAJOR issue and because of a struggling economy, along with desperate people, it will be a pain for glaziers going forward.

2. Blast Resistant Glazing- How I missed this I do not know. This is everywhere and expect it to grow and grow. Problem is that communication and understanding of specifications is VERY murky right now. That problem really leaves the glazing community in a major lerch. LUCKILY for all of you, the BEC has a great presentation scheduled on this. Yes another, reason to come to the BIGGEST and BEST glass gathering of the year.

3. Decorative- Dang I was a space cadet huh? My apologies to Kris Vockler, Scott Surma and all of the fine deco folks I work with either at GANA or in the industry. Decorative glass continues to be a solid growth item and more and more mainstream folks are getting it. To me this will be just like glass guys buying metal folks…. Sooner or later you’ll have people NOT in Deco buying operations to get in it.

I had several others come through that I debated off line and again I appreciate it.

Elsewhere…..

-- Quick rant after reading a trade magazine… there was an ad in there that promoted a company’s ability from “Coast to Coast” yet said company has no operation west of Kentucky…. So I guess they meant East Coast to the Gulf Coast maybe? Or could it be the “Coast” of the Allegheny to the "Coast" of the Hocking? Anyway, I love to pick….

-- I was in attendance at the ABC meeting in Dallas a week ago… once again tremendous stuff. I was late due to flight nightmares but I did get there in time to be a part of the discussion surrounding competition for my pals at the NFRC. It was a spirited debate, but as always, you can count on Greg Carney at GANA to make the right points and he did again. Basically the NFRC is hoping to convince the code orgs that they should keep their unbelievable monopoly. Here is hoping that logic prevails. Anyway, can anyone tell me why the NFRC is above competition? Its stunning and worse yet, the people who think that a 1 system approach is good for the marketplace or the public is delusional.

-- By the way GANA did extend the deadline of BEC and that’s good considering how many late arrivals there’s been. Major props to Carol Land at GANA- she is the one handling all of this and she has been spectacular. Between the late adds and all of the changes everyone has had to make and times that by 700, well it’s a miracle Carol hasn’t hidden under her desk. She deserves major thanks because come 4 weeks from now, no one will realize how her efforts made registration and check in so smooth. (To sign up CLICK HERE)

-- I have talked in the past that a bad part of LEED is that people will use products just to get the “point” and not care about the overall effect of the building, process etc. Well I saw it happen in real time this week and it was ugly. The architect’s originally specified product came in just a tiny bit short in performance. So short that it was probably a statistical tie. But because of LEED fear, the architect chose a new product that “met it” and in turn spent 50k more. Hey as the manufacturer and I am sure the glazier would agree, that’s fine by us, but really will that owner realize what is happening to him? My fear is things like this will sour people and the green movement could take on a negative turn. Then again in the rush to be more green then the next guy, said owner probably would pay 100k just to show off his certification….

-- By the way, LEED is getting more competition... (see even the might USGBC has competition!) Its called Social Economic Environmental Design Network but they are using the acronym SEED...(I guess SEEDN, just isn't as cute eh) Anyway the story about SEED (and they lovingly call themselves "SEEDlings") is HERE. I say the more the merrier... see competition is good.. monopoly bad. Building owners will have another option if they want to be "green"

-- Last, I have been remiss on the football side… but here’s hoping for a New England-Green Bay Super Bowl… that game would be one surely worth watching… instead the way it has been of late… a game played in between all of the new commercials….

2008- The top things to look for....

It’s time to look at what the Top 10 subjects/issues/happenings/goings on for our industry in 2008. Some are new and some are the old favorites, but all will be in your life during the 12 months. Anyway you slice it, we’ll have to be on our toes going forward because it looks to be a bumpy ride.

10. Size does matter- Darn it, I always hoped it didn’t… but anyway… on projects and on individual pieces, look for the sizes and jobs to get bigger and bigger. The medium to small projects are the ones drying up and the large jobs are coming in with lots of quantities and huge sizes that will challenge everyone in the chain.

9. Health Care- This will always be an issue, and it will probably continue to get worse. It’s major frustration for companies of all sizes. Did you know that some companies have decided to NOT even offer it- some in our industry never have- which is stunning to me on how anyone would work there.

8. NFRC- Not number 1 and that may surprise people. I am so convinced that the Titantic, AKA the CMA (which is the rating/certification program that will be willingly forced upon us) will fail, that I am not that worried. But I will follow, monitor and surely have fun with the process because having a monopoly like that should not be given a free and easy pass.

7. High profile departures and changes- I see this year to more active then normal in people leaving or retiring. For instance we know Stan Smith of GANA is retiring and he will be missed (though the deft maneuvering of GANA hiring a solid guy like Bill Yanek surely softens the blow) and there may be others. In fact, I just heard a pretty heavy hitter on the metal side just left his company and I am sure more of that will be coming down the pike as weaker companies cut back and stronger ones try to snap up talent.

6. New Products- 08 should see some the growth of the newer glass products (one example, Guardian’s smooth Crystal Grey series) as well as metal options (the Sunshade trend is hitting for folks like Kawneer and EFCO and others) and of course the new technology from the dynamic glazing side (Sage) and photovotalics… or however you spell it.

5. Ford/Visteon/ACH- The glass company that most know as Visteon will officially have new owners and a new name in 08 (yes another name) and hopefully stability. Will they come out with new products to make a splash? And more importantly, will the new owner recognize some of the awesome talent they have there and keep it on board?

4. China- It’s not going away. Getting somewhat less popular thanks to how many people are getting burned but I still get at least 2 e-mails a day from companies in China that have “found” my company and want to do business with us. Just remember, they are the fox and doing business with them gives them easy access to the henhouse. No one can say I did not warn you.

3. Residential and the BOTTOM- Sometime in 08, the residential side will hit the bottom. The markets right now are sick, in fact USA Today had THIS depressing article on the worst yearly start to the stock market- ever. Obviously that’s not good news for either residential or commercial, but the bloodbaths will continue on the res side and its not going to be pretty.

2. Consolidations- We had 3 major buys in 2007 and I can see at least 3 more in 2008. Glass and Metal will marry more. I believe that Kawneer and YKK will do something as well as I can see Marvin and Jeld Wen trying to follow Pella’s lead. All will be very interesting to watch.

1. GREEN- No doubt, 2007 was a banner year for green building and it will get only bigger and more prominent in 2008. This is a movement that is really affecting everyone in every walk of life. In fact states with old failing economies like Michigan are pinning their hopes on revival through the whole “green” process. They want to be the leaders in green and “green technology”- should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

So there you have it… the top 10 things to look for in the new year….

What an end to 07!

Wow… I thought the last 2 weeks of the year were supposed to be the slow, boring time for news… well obviously not… at least not in 2007 speak… the obvious big news was that Apogee purchased Tubelite. It caught me off guard… I guess this was a case of being a victim of my own success. When OC bought Vistawall and EFCO went to Pella, I was getting tips and leads like crazy… well this one I got nothing… amazing. I knew Tubelite was for sale… as mentioned here before, every major aluminum manufacturer with the exception of Arch has been for sale or sold in the last 2 years. But even with that out there, it still caught me off guard.

My analysis: This is the type of consolidation you will see more of… now Apogee has joined OC in following the Arch model of having both metal and glass together. And because of that, more is coming, but in reverse… I think you will now see metal folks buying glass fabricators… and some of those rumors are already out there… and hopefully I’ll be on them better than I was on this one. The big piece will be how the whole synergy will work between Harmon/Tubelite/Viracon… it looks easy on paper but sometimes in reality it is tougher…Regardless it continues to show the changing face of an industry and this is really only the beginning….

Elsewhere…

-- Not sure if you saw the Motley Fool write up on Apogee on a USGNN last week. It’s right HERE. An interesting read because of the fact our industry was in the spotlight of a major main line site. Sure its not good pub, but it was still publicity and we don’t really get much at all industry wise and it was interesting to read a true outside take.

-- How depressing is the housing news? The housing slump is its worst in 12 years and today Standard and Poor’s predicted that the residential bottom probably won’t hit til October 08. Yikes… this is going to be a very ugly year on that side of the ball. Meanwhile commercially, I think everyone is confident and hopeful, but it is still a very scary slope we are on…

-- Speaking of scary… Oil hit $100 a barrel today. Insane.

-- Another item that may have flown under the radar was the info on PPG’s Auto Glass deal going off the tracks. That news, in case you missed it, is HERE. If that deal falls through its back to square one for PPG on the auto side and if they were entertaining thoughts of selling the flat side, it probably would not even commence until the auto gets gone.

-- The NFRC quietly announced their new board structure in December… Marcia Falke, who in this space takes a ton of heat because of being the Chair is still on the board but no longer chair. Instead, in what is a cunning PR move, (and surely unintentional, since “cunning” and “NFRC” do not go together when we talk PR) two actual manufacturers take the top 2 spots. Joe Hayden from Pella and Steve Strawn from Jeld Wen are now atop the board… and while both are good people who have spent tons of time on the NFRC beat, the reason its cunning PR, is now NFRC can try to deflect its obvious self interest bent by moving a person who made 72% of her income from NFRC down and putting guys up from companies who do other things to make money for their company... instead of creating systems within NFRC to do so. Remember, these people take an oath to put the interests of NFRC ahead of their own… but when those interests are the same and a good NFRC moves equal money in the pocket of board members companies, then does that matter? Sadly its all window dressing… this group will still go full speed ahead with the Titanic CMA and not care about the massive iceberg they will hit…

-- I did mention that Randy Johnson passed away during a post during the holidays. Its still a tough one to grab onto.. Randy was truly a character and very well liked player in the markets he sold into. A memorial service for Randy is scheduled for next week and I believe the fine folks at USGlass will have more on this as it comes close. Until then condolences must go to Randy’s wife Joyce and his family.

-- Last, yet another reminder about BEC… spots are filling but there is availability, so make your plans now. This year really is the best program yet- please check it out at www.glasswebsite.com. If you are a glazier, fabricator or manufacturer, you are truly missing out if you do not attend…

-- I got some great pictures of folks in Communist China applying their trade... here is the first one... gotta love the welders mask... yep no OSHA in sight there... then again they do not respect human rights... so worrying about proper safety equipment? nahhhhh.

Yep... I can only imagine what they are wearing inside the glass plants....

*** LATE ADD***

A simply hilarious story about China and the Olympics from the sportsblog Deadspin... CLICK HERE its worth the read!