Chairman's Message: Top-Shelf Leadership

Words: Dick Dentinger

When a business or association is doing well, there is always a temptation to relax and enjoy the ride. However, as anyone who has worked for an extended period in their career knows, there always seems to be some potentially knee-buckling challenge lurking. Having top-shelf leadership at a business makes certain we are on the lookout for opportunities and necessary re-tooling to ensure we remain relevant. Our association is about to begin our 75th year. Since our formation in 1950, through three-quarters of a century of stability, the MCAA has endured, adjusted, and progressed to become a reliable and impactful resource for all stakeholders in our industry. Recently, as we’ve begun preliminary preparations for how the MCAA will celebrate our 75th year, I had an interesting observation. Remarkably, through all seven and a half decades, we have had just three different people as the lead manager of our beloved MCAA: George Miller, from 1950 to 1992, Mike Adelizzi, from 1992 to 2007, and our current President, Jeff Buczkiewicz, who has had the reins since 2007.

George Miller was our executive director from day one. He oversaw this association when we held our first convention at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island, Michigan, in 1950 and continued for the rest of his career until retirement. I’m sure a few of our longtime active members recall how valuable George was to MCAA. In fact, our current Technical Committee Co-Chair, Jerry Painter, likely has plenty of colorful stories about George from when Jerry and his brother were so active in MCAA early in their careers. However, even I was fortunate to have known George a bit. When my father was involved with MCAA in the late 1970s and beyond, my parents often brought my siblings and me to the conventions. In my youth, I would see George at the events. Then, when I started working for my parents in the 1990s, while George was retired, he consulted me about a contractual issue our company was dealing with in Minnesota. Over several months, he tutored me through our challenge. It was like getting coaching tips from Vince Lombardi.

George Miller was devoted to the masonry industry and acted as if he was the right-hand man of every mason contractor member within his growing MCAA membership. He was approachable and statesmanlike and quite literally had no limits to his knowledge of the masonry industry. George Miller’s leadership of MCAA is part of the foundation upon which the MCAA has stood while we continue to grow.

Upon George’s retirement, the MCAA’s baton was passed along to his understudy, Mike Adelizzi. While Mike was executive director, the MCAA began a bullish period of growth. We held our own annual convention, World of Masonry, each winter. Las Vegas was always a good draw, but it became traditional to alternate to different cities every other year. Eventually, we stopped doing our own showcase and joined our show with the very large World of Concrete. We had some banner years of expansion and growth while also weathering some very difficult hurdles. In addition, during Mike’s period of leadership, the MCAA expanded support for mason contractors through our marketing, promotion, and legislative committee success as we began to evolve with the fast changes happening throughout society in the 1990s.

In 2007, the Jeff Buczkiewicz era began as he became president of the MCAA. Jeff had been working as Mike’s first lieutenant for several years in the 1990s. In fact, in my first run as a Membership Committee chair, Jeff was assigned to our committee. So, I worked with Jeff quite a bit once upon a time. But Jeff was then recruited by the Building Stone Institute and left MCAA for a while to become the executive director of that association for four years. Upon Mike’s departure, Jeff’s experience was a perfect fit for us, and he started this third period of leadership for MCAA.

Under Jeff’s guidance, MCAA has experienced a wide breadth of growth. The MCAA brand has taken root and dramatically spread its reach and influence. Our MASONRY magazine went from a struggling financial burden to a steady, useful publishing tool. During this period, the MCAA’s safety committee has leapfrogged our safety resources for contractor members. Our legislative committee has grown into a serious advocate counted on as a key ally throughout the construction industry. The technical committee has worked its way into securing voting memberships in all the construction industry groups who serve as watchdogs to the codes and standards impacting our masonry industry. And now we are seeing the value of his vision of our Masonry Alliance Program, as the MAP has taken off and will ensure increasing value to both our members and our vendor partners. There are, in fact, too many other initiatives he and his crew have underway to note in one update. But I must share with you all that having worked alongside Jeff throughout his entire service to MCAA, I have witnessed firsthand that Jeff has no pause in his game. He’s all in.

For sure, MCAA has been fortunate to have grown over seven and a half decades with only three different leaders at the helm. We are primed for whatever is around the corner thanks to the foundations of the past and because of Jeff and his valuable team, who are working for the benefit of our MCAA membership as we ramp up to start the next 75 years.

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