The Building Envelope Contractors (BEC) Conference in Las Vegas started with a welcome reception on Sunday and ramped up with a full agenda on Monday.
I did not attend all the seminars, but the ones I did attend were all time well spent. They had a great crowd, and everyone seemed optimistic for the year ahead.
Like many industry organizations, there were many interesting committees to volunteer for. We are lucky to have many of the attendees oblige. While it’s easy to complain about everyday issues with energy or building codes, I am glad the glass industry seems to have many leaders who volunteer their time and resources to make life easier for us all with manuals and reference tools.
The best part of BEC was the seminars. In one, I learned about how safety influences your business. The seminar was hosted by Jeff Wolfla from Boyd, Shackleford, Barnett & Dixon. Wolfla laid out the pillars of safety: vision, the plan and culture and how they affect everything from insurance costs to a competitive edge in the bidding process. A second law firm presented the best way to avoid contract clauses and other legal pitfalls.
My favorite seminar was on new codes and standards that impact our industry. It’s hard for all of us to keep up with local, state and federal codes. For instance, I recently read an article about a glass company that replaced 60 heavy glass doors in a healthcare facility in California because the panic door operators did not meet the newly adopted Americans with Disabilities Act code, which stated that the panics needed to operate with five pounds of pressure instead of the old 15-pound code.
The article’s author said this code was just being enforced in California on hospitals and healthcare facilities. For this reason, the glass industry needs organizations and publications that can help keep us all up to date.
By the way, Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) are not going away and will become more prevalent as more architects add them to their specifications. Monday ended on a high note when I attended the annual Guardian Glass Commercial Project Awards dinner. Not only was it a great networking event displaying some of the industry’s best building projects and award-winning glass fabricators and installers, but the company also announced its new computer program that can quickly produce an EPD for you based on its glass selection charts.
As you might already know, education and staying current on industry standards will save you money and time. I always recommend attending any industry event you can and selecting vendors to help you with current information affecting their products and your business.