Masonry Magazine December 2001 Page. 6
President's Message
A Strong Association Is Needed More Than Ever In Tough Times
Many of you reading this article are not members of the Mason Contractors Association of America, and personally that has baffled me for years. Perhaps you didn't think that you needed to join because you had more work than you knew what to do with. Maybe you didn't join because you didn't feel the impact of changing building codes? Or maybe you didn't join because many of you were small contractors so you probably never saw an OSHA inspector? Maybe because the MCAA was a national association and you felt that supporting the local association was all that was needed? Or maybe we didn't do a good enough job of asking you to join MCAA? For whatever reason, most of you have remained a non-member silent majority.
But almost overnight things have changed. Work is rapidly slowing down and all of a sudden there's a reluctance to start projects. We are becoming hungry for work and our competitors, such as tilt-up, are nipping at our heels trying to expand their business by taking away masonry markets. Codes are becoming more restrictive. OSHA is implementing regulations faster than we can understand, let alone adhere to them. Suddenly we feel alone with wolves at the door.
Living through tough economic times is not new to most of us. We remember all too well the early seventies, early eighties and early nineties. And having lived through all of the cycles that construction goes through, most of us knew that living again through tough times was inevitable. And now here we are again facing recessionary times. The difference is this time, we have a national association and a Board of Directors of fellow mason contractors that have prepared for such inevitability.
One of MCAA's five long term strategic goals is to maintain, develop and expand masonry market share through increasing and strengthening strategic alliances, by increasing the number of architects exposed to the benefits of masonry and enhancing buyer awareness of the advantages of masonry.
At our midyear meeting we slid our focus from manpower development to marketing and we revitalized our legislative committee with emphasis on governmental affairs.
Based on numerous planning sessions that the MCAA and our Board conducted, we determined several critical areas on which our future marketing programs will be based. Some of the critical factors include our industry facing more innovative building systems that are less labor intensive. Second, an increased use of design build. Third, we believe that construction owners will begin taking a more active role in product selection. Fourth, foreign technology impacting U.S. construction will continue to have an impact on our markets. Fifth, customers will be able to gather information faster and comparison shop easier over the internet. And sixth, government intervention will place greater demands and higher costs on our systems. These factors will have a significant impact on the availability of masonry work for all of us to enjoy.
In the last year and a half, your MCAA has spent a great deal of time determining what the future will hold and how the association can impact future success for all of us. We have established many programs targeted toward educating our customers and making it easy for them to design with masonry. For example, our Architects' Masonry Symposium has had success in exposing architects to the many design benefits of using our products and educating them with how to better design with masonry. The rapport we have established with many of these architects will undoubtedly pay dividends to our industry during these tough times. Most recently, through our urging, the Masonry Industry Council approved funding of a fourth edition of the Masonry Designers Guide published by the Masonry Society with the condition that the book be available to engineers, architects and engineering students on the internet for free. What better way to impact future masonry sales than to put the tools they need to design masonry within their hands?
Never before has there been a greater need for a strong national association to help fight our battles for us. Never before has it been so important to join a national association that we can all rally behind to represent our interests.
For the cost of employing a mason for a day or two, you can get whole year's worth of member benefits. We should all feel an obligation to put something back into the industry we extract our living from. Be a contributor. It is time to do your part!
I urge you to join us in the fight for a stronger industry. Join the MCAA today by calling us at 1-800-536-2225. Your small contribution in membership dues will pay heavy dividends for the future of the masonry industry!
Richard M. Johnston, President MCAA