Masonry Magazine June 1999 Page. 7
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Donald Larsen
President,
Mason Contractors
Association of
America
Having a masonry industry that is unified and focused on the future, committed to assisting in building a larger masonry industry for all of us to compete, is an admirable goal and one that has alluded us for decades. However, on April 7th and 8th, the masonry industry took a small step in the right direction of bringing the industry together in meaningful unified industry advocacy.
Representatives of the Mason Contractors Association of America, Brick Industry Association, Expanded Shale Clay Slate Institute, National Concrete Masonry Association, National Lime Association, Portland Cement Association and The Masonry Society met for two days to begin mapping out a long range strategy for the masonry industry. A strategy that has long been overdue in this industry. One in which, as an industry, we can finally begin to focus our resources and energies on effectively competing for a larger share of the construction market.
For too long, our industry has been reactionary to the actions of our competitors. Often times the actions and claims of our competitors went unchecked by the masonry industry until our competitors were well entrenched in our markets. Competitors, such as tilt-up, have run rampant making outrageous claims against our products with near total immunity from a response from our industry. In fact, even EIFS (Exterior Insulation Finishing
Masonry Industry
Council First Step In
Long Journey
Systems which is an Synthetic Stucco) began to make inroads into our markets until problems with their own products self-destructed their marketing efforts and consumer confidence in their system. Our industry lacked the cohesiveness necessary to effectively combat our competitors. Although, as an industry, we spend millions of dollars in promotion, we lack the focus of promoting masonry as a system versus our competitors. I believe this has prevented us from aggressively expanding our industry.
For several years, the MCAA has called for a formal industry council or board of directors, empowered to look to the future and charged with setting the future direction of our industry. A Masonry Industry Council that can direct resources to identify future construction competitors, trends, customer needs and an action plan to effectively meet the challenges of an uncertain future. The MCAA believes that the establishment of the Masonry Industry Council is what we have envisioned and that an active MIC is in the long-term best interest of our industry.
During the two day Masonry Industry Council strategic planning meeting, there were very open and frank discussions on what the future of construction will be like in 10 to 15 years, what construction customers think about masonry and what will be their expectations of us in the future. Most importantly, there was fruitful discussion of what the masonry industry must do to ensure that masonry will be the material of choice for construction customers in the future.
As a result of this strategic planning session, the initial framework is being set to formalize the Masonry Industry Council, its mission and objectives. We realize that it can take many months and numerous exhaustive meetings to bring the Masonry Industry Council to a fully effective force for masonry. However, as they say, the hardest step of a long journey is the first one. We applaud that first step and we thank all our industry partners helping us begin this long journey.
MASONRY
THE
SHOW
Las Vegas, Nevada
Feb 9-10, 2000
MASONRY-MAY/JUNE, 1999 7