Chairman's Message: Everything, Everywhere...and All At Once

Words: Dick Dentinger

Once upon a time, long ago, when I was selling radio advertising, there was always an emphasis on the importance of keeping our ad copy efficient, attention-grabbing, and hopefully loaded with staying power. Advertisers know customers are busy and ad budgets are wasted if you aren’t holding their attention with an interesting and thoughtful tease for whatever you are peddling in your ad. Ever since, I’ve always respected and remained interested in how people communicate their messages. Every day, we all need to communicate and sell in both our personal and professional lives. We’re constantly selling our ideas, our suggestions, viewpoints, or our positions in a dispute. So, it’s always a treat to recognize when someone has executed their message in a clever turn of phrase.

Following a long couple of flights during a recent trip, I tried to reward myself with a movie on the flight home. Due to all the distractions, it can be tough to completely enjoy a movie on a flight. I decided to watch the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. It won a pile of Academy Awards in 2023, including Best Picture. I know the critics raved about the film, but it was too busy and complex to really appreciate the heavy message the creators were trying to communicate while I was on a crowded and turbulent plane. The movie attempted to present heavy commentary on the struggle to find meaning in life. It likely does, but I’ll have to watch it again at home to absorb the message. Nonetheless, I was struck by the title Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. To me, the tease was the chaos and struggle the title projects. I like the contemplation it causes, and I find it a useful expression when recognizing all sorts of tough spots we find ourselves in as we go through our busy days and weeks. Not necessarily in a struggle to find meaning in life, for goodness' sake, but in the effort to reach our goals.

Whatever part each of us plays as stakeholders in the masonry industry, we constantly wear multiple hats, fight on multiple fronts, and attempt to shore things up so we can overcome obstacles. When it’s a particularly tough day, it can feel like everything is happening, everywhere, and all at once. We need to bid many jobs to be awarded a few jobs. Simultaneously, we manage our active projects. We also are faced with tackling pressing administrative hurdles. While this is going on, we sometimes have surprises to shuffle in our personal lives. With all these things steamrolling towards us, we have no choice but to keep after all fronts we face. We all do this every day. It can feel like a roller-coaster. Most days are less dramatic and feel more like we’re watching a sitcom on a crowded plane rather than a complex, heavy subject film.

My travels and meetings representing MCAA this year have been focused on networking and strategizing with other industry associations and local and regional stakeholders in our industry, some of which were the CMHA (Concrete and Masonry Hardscapes Association), the BIA (Brick Industry Association), the Canadian mason contractor groups, National Labor Union leaders, as well as similar regional groups. What I have witnessed is that each of these stakeholders has the same hot-button topics they’re dialed in on to improve our position in the marketplace. The topics that always dominate discussions are these: replenishing our aging workforce, marketing masonry directly to the design community to compete with other products, influencing governing agencies which impact our industry, and, finally, working to make certain we don’t do all of this so independently that we are less efficient in our results.

Each of those focus points is just as important as the others. However, my observation is that each of our stakeholder groups, whether local, regional, or national, often has one of these topics as the most urgent priority on their agenda. It’s natural to do this. There is an urge to put all our energy onto one pressing matter. But we can’t let that effort make us drop the ball on the other needs. It’s not an option. We must simultaneously maintain our efforts on all the other efforts in front of us. Well, we should at least try to do so. Often it becomes a bit of a Cirque Du Soleil act to pull it off while we put a pressing fire out. But if we don’t continue efforts on all fronts, we’ll lose ground in the overall game.

This struggle to control the chaos of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is our challenge as stakeholders trying to help our industry. All the hot-button challenges that are on our plate are equally important. We must replace our aging workforce, so we need to market our trade to high schoolers, counselors, parents, and even middle schoolers to make sure a career in masonry is top of mind. But there is no need to do so if we aren’t simultaneously marketing masonry to the design community while other products are trying to steal our market share. Or, if we aren’t also protecting our interests regarding how our trade is regulated by government agencies. So, we must focus on everything, everywhere, all at once when protecting our market share. And we must do so as efficiently as possible, which is why we continue to network and strategize with our masonry industry partners. Together, local, regional, and national stakeholders are stronger and more efficient at finessing the difficult task of controlling the challenges when it feels like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is occurring.
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