From the BEC Conference in Louisville
The BEC Conference in Louisville started with a welcome reception, as usual, and with a full agenda of sessions and networking events. I did not attend all the seminars, but the ones I did attend were all time well spent. The crowd seemed to be a little smaller than last year, but everyone seemed optimistic for the year ahead.
Task Groups
Like many industry organizations, there are numerous interesting committees to volunteer for, all of which appreciate the cooperation and participation of attendees. It’s easy to complain about everyday issues with energy or building codes, but the glass industry has great leaders who volunteer their time and resources to make life easier for us all, with manuals and reference tools.
One task group at BEC piqued my interest. It revolved around the classification of interior demountable wall systems under the master spec Division 10. The group is working to bring interior office systems into Division 8. A lot of this interior work is going to carpenters, cutting out the glaziers.
Seminars
The best part of the conference was the seminars. I learned how to maximize profits in pre-construction and more about industry insights, advocacy and technical advancements. This included a new Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) generator tool for measuring embodied carbon, energy code trends and school security standards. It’s hard for all of us to keep up with local, state and federal codes. EPDs are not going away and are becoming more prevalent as more architects add them to specifications.
Guardian Industry Award Dinner
The first day of BEC ended on a high note with the annual Guardian Glass North America’s Commercial Project Awards celebration. 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 Guardian also announced the expansion of some of its triple-silver products, keeping ahead of energy codes. The event also showed how bird glass is now specified in a lot more projects.
Stay Educated, My Friends
Education and remaining current on industry standards will save you money and time. I always recommend attending any industry event that you can and selecting vendors that will support you with current information that affects products and business.
I will be presenting an AIA learning seminar on glass handrails at the upcoming Glass Expo Northeast™ at the end of the month, March 25 and 26, in Uniondale, New York. For those of you in the area, don’t miss the chance to visit with vendors and attend the great education agenda Key Media & Research has put together.