DEBlog : On the Road with USGlass

Arch Angel, Arch Enemy?

2010-05-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

The news last week that Leon Silverstein had exited Arch Aluminum was met with a mixture of reactions ranging from shock to “I told you so.” Whether or not Silverstein will someday re-purchase Arch or own a competing entity in the future was the subject of much conjecture, none of which is worthy of discussion at this time.

What is worthy of our time is some educated conjecture about the immediate future of Arch. I spoke with a lot of people about the company’s new life without Silverstein. “What’s the most important thing Sun can do now?” I asked over and over again. And over and over again, the answers I received all clustered around the following themes:

1. Repair relationships—especially among industry creditors that took a haircut. Such reparations could help entice some of those suppliers that have stopped to begin selling product to Arch again.

2. Get certified—meaning get the certified fabricator designations that have been removed in recent months back, including in PPG and Guardian’s programs. (Note Trulite has remained on the PPG program throughout.) Such designations are extremely important to Arch’s future sales as they provide a source of new leads and possible sales.

3. Consolidate—close or combine locations that are not profitable. Concentrate on continued development in the solar arena.

4. Friends and family—Arch was a family-owned business until very recently. Some of its employees are friends with or family of the former owners. That doesn’t necessarily mean that these employees are any less talented than other Arch employees. Sun needs to embrace the employees it intends to have as part of its future.

5. Redefinition—the biggest question for Arch is how is it going to define itself going forward. Leon Silverstein was the “face” of Arch and defined its brand. Where does the company go without him and how does it define itself? Low-cost leader? Fastest shipper? Technical champion? Solar innovator? How Arch defines itself internally and to the outside world will help shape its future success.

Link Chick Links

Well, I told you we’d have some exciting news about Link Chick’s links and we do – she has gotten so prolific that we have created a page where you can go and peruse said links. Link Chick scours the web so you don’t have to. My favorite link last week was about Mayberry’s Thelma Lou (the actress Betty Lynn) moving from California to Mount Airy (the real life inspiration for Mayberry) and getting robbed there. You just can’t make that stuff up.

Anyway, we thought it would be nice for the industry to have a place it could go to see and read links that have nothing to do with glass every once in awhile, so when you need a rest from industry info, be sure to visit http://linkchick.usglassmag.com/.

For the Love of Our Craft

2010-04-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

For many years, I kept a little quote I had clipped from a magazine on my desk. It has long since become buried on said desk, but it's a quote I will never forget. It said:

"I love your magazine. I love the feel of it and the smell of it. I love to open it up. I love the feeling of surprise at how paper and art come together as I turn each page. I love how it is the same, yet different, each month. Like I said, I love your magazine. Oh yeah, and I even love to read it."

I thought of those nice comments when I saw the recent campaign launched by a group of consumer publishers to help put the changes in technology in perspective. It's called the "Power of Print" and you may have seen it in hundreds of magazines this month. It appears across a from a close-up of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps face as he hits the wall in a winning race. It says:

"We surf the Internet.

We swim in magazines.

The Internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping.
The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you.

The Internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive.

And both media are growing.
Barely noticed amidst the thunderous Internet clamor is the simple fact that magazine readership has risen over the past five years.

Even in the age of the Internet, even among the groups one would assume are most singularly hooked on digital media, the appeal of magazines is growing.
Think of it this way: during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.

What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn't necessarily displace an existng one. Just as movies didn't kill radio. Just as TV didn't kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a unique experience. And, as reader loyalty and growth demonstrate, magazines do.

Which is why people aren't giving up swimming, just because they also enjoy surfing."

It's a good reminder. There are some things that the Internet does better because of its speed of delivery, such as provide breaking news. But there are a lot of things magazines do better, like providing in-depth analysis coupled with expansive artwork.

What an example of the power of print? Look at the logo for the campaign above. Each letter is made from the logo of a different magazine. See how many you know. Got a bunch? E-mail me at deb@glass.com and I'll tell you if you are right. Even if you don't know all of them, you will know a few.

And I venture to say, if that same logo were made out of letters from the top ten websites in the world, you and I wouldn't know a single one ...

Clicking with the LinkChick(tm)

On to the links .... the latest from LinkChick(tm) who, by the way, has agreed to allow us to reveal her identity for the first time. See her photo below. We will have some exiciting news about LinkChick next week, but here are this week's links:

In ode to baseball season, check out these unique baseball contracts or perhaps this retiring member of the team ... Or if baseball is not your sport, how about this one, which combines sportsmanship and safety. . . And while the big game in that link wasn't alive, it is definately was signed, sealed and delivered in this one ...

Video of the Week

comes to us from our own video department here at Key Communications. VPs Tara Taffera and Holly Biller were covering a rally on the Capital against the new lead paint regulations. Check out the yellow bird flying in background behind Congressman Bishop.

TEXpo Rides Into the Sunset

2010-04-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

It was great to see Bob Lawrence at TEXpo last week, working with colleagues at the Craftsman booth. Bob said things were going great now and introduced me to his new partners from Cristacurva. Craftsman and Bob have been such a force in the Texas glass economy for so long that it was nice to see that things moving forward for the company.

Speaking of the Texas economy, guess what? It's not like other places. in fact, it's doing pretty well. Texas has not been hit by nearly the hardship that other areas of the country have. Cranes still dot the San Antonio landscape and new homes are being built. It was a nice change from what I've seen in other parts of the country. (For more of a TEXpo wrap up visit http://www.usgnn.com/.)

In addition to TEXpo, our USGlass magazine team was also on the road last week to the NFRC meeting in New Orleans. Editor Megan Headley offers a complete report of the NFRC meeting in the May issue of USGlass magazine.

And finally, Link Chick is back. We are so pleased to have the Chick a 'clickin.:

Link Chick(tm) Links:

Headache Central: This guy brings new meaning to the term "splitting headache" . . . and this guy had a headache of a different kind . . .

The Surprise in the Attic: While on his way to retreive an ice cream maker, this homeowner got the proverbial surprise in the attic ...

On the Energy front: Maybe the DOE can take a lesson from these Danish hoteliers . . .

Sports Video of the Week:
Speaking of headaches, how about the guys who run into him?

More next week.

BEC Packs a Powerful Punch

2010-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

At right: BEC chairperson Henry Taylor of Kawneer welcomes attendees to the BEC Sunday morning.

What was for the first few days faux French chic is now just French schtick as the Paris theme has begun to wear on me. I think it’s the fact that the hotel feels if you put a “le” in front of it, that makes it French. As I made my way to “Le center de convention”, I passed “Le Buffet”. No wonder the French hate us. Look what we’ve done to them.

Anyway, Day Two of the Building Envelop Contractors (BEC) Conference packed a powerful punch. More than 400 people turned up at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning in Vegas to hear Vitro’s Hugo Lara’s keynote speech. And those same 400+ people were still there at 4:30 p.m. after only two short breaks and a working lunch. It was intense.

We will have extensive coverage on usgnn.com™ and in USGlass magazine in the coming weeks, but let me just give you the highlights. Except in this case, the highlights are more lowlights. Specifically (and with apologies to the French):

1. Le Attack: The glass industry is under attack from a whole variety of separate arenas: energy reduction advocates, government and regulatory agencies, code organizations and green advocates. Each presents separate challenges to the industry but all are communicating a “glass is an energy-hog” message that’s resonating. We, as an industry, have to fix this.

2. Le Noveau Products: The day of the highly-energy efficient alternative glass product has arrived. Presentations about the various types of new variable transmittance glasses dominated the discussion yesterday afternoon. “Doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, this is the future,” said one attendee.

3. Le Economie: All I will say is that three separate speakers, each using different data each said a variation of the following sentence. “We will not return to 2007 levels of non residential building activity until 2014.”

Despite its intensity, the day moved quickly and to me, the real story was the people. At most events, people are up and down and in and out the sessions. Not this one. Everyone who came, came to learn and soaked up as much of the sessions as they could. If I had to bet on the companies that were going to survive until 2014, it would be the guys in this room.

Bon Voyage from Le Vegas.

Bon Jour from Glass Week

2010-03-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

At right: GANA marketing chair Christine Shaffer of Viracon makes a point during the committee's meeting on Saturday morning.

Got out to Glass Week yesterday afternoon after a flight that actually went according to plan. The weather in Vegas was windy and cool yesterday but expected to be beautiful today through Tuesday. The annual golf tournament Monday afternoon will be a nice respite for all those who have toiled away inside for nearly a week in heavy committee meetings and work groups.

Glass Week is the all-encompassing name for a variety of events co-located during one seven day period. The Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA)’s annual conference just ended (see related coverage at http://www.usgnn.com/) and the Building Envelop Contractors (BEC) conference begins later today. Sandwiched in the middle is a full GANA seminar program that’s taking place right now.

If Glass Week were a TV show, this year it would be called “Survivor.” Though the recession has hit the glass and metal industry particularly hard, it and GANA are still here and attendance levels are comparable to last year. “It’s been a challenging year but we have made adjustments and gotten through it,” said GANA executive vice president Bill Yanek.

“Outgoing president Mike Ondrus [of Glasstech] has done an amazing job in a difficult year,” he said. “Like the rest of the industry, GANA had to adjust and he has helped us through a challenging year.” Yanek presented Ondrus with the GANA President’s Award during the association’s formal dinner last evening.

“My father had a saying,” said incoming president Tom Crawford of Donisi Mirror Company. “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. Well we, as an association, are stronger.” Crawford took over as president at last evening.

Among the newer, hotter topics at the conferences were the expanded efforts of the Fire-rated Glazing division, the new efforts to incorporate and service emerging technologies such as solar glazing and the integration of the Glazing Industry Code Committee (GICC) into the GANA structure.

GICC was formed nearly 20 years ago as antidote to the knock-down, drawn out fights different segments of the glass industry (i.e. temperers vs. laminators) traditionally had before the various code-setting bodies. The idea behind GICC was that it would become a place where the various segments of the industry could come to find consensus and compromise so the industry could instead go forward with a unified effort before the code groups. It had existed as a separate entity until recently and will now come under the auspices of GANA. Julie Schimmelpenningh is serving as temporary chair and the group has hired Thom Zaremba of Roetzel & Andress to serve as a code consultant to the committee.

As I write, GANA technical director Urmilla Sowell is updating the group about all the technical activities in which the association is involved. Urmilla reminds me why GANA is so important. It is all substance.
The events during Glass Week continue through Tuesday morning. The Paris Hotel in Vegas has been garnering good reviews as a venue. GANA marketing committee chair Christine Shaffer of Viracon reminded attendees of how well Las Vegas markets itself. “As you got off the plane, you saw posters for the various shows. At this hotel, you’ve been called “madam” or “monsieur”. It’s all part of marketing,” said Schaeffer who mentioned that the Paris Hotel markets itself as the “sexiest hotel in Vegas.”

The recession, alas, kept many spouses and significant others from attending this year, turning trip to the sexiest hotel in Vegas from an “oh la la” into a “no la la.”

Bon Jour from Glass Week

2010-03-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

At right: Christine Shaffer of Viracon leads the marketing committee at Glass Week 2010.

Got out to Glass Week yesterday afternoon after a flight that actually went according to plan. The weather in Vegas was windy and cool yesterday but expected to be beautiful today through Tuesday. The annual golf tournament Monday afternoon will be a nice respite for all those who have toiled away inside for nearly a week in heavy committee meetings and work groups.

Glass Week is the all-encompassing name for a variety of events co-located during one seven day period. The Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA)’s annual conference just ended (see related coverage at http://www.usgnn.com) and the Building Envelop Contractors (BEC) conference begins later today. Sandwiched in the middle is a full GANA seminar program that’s taking place right now.

If Glass Week were a TV show, this year it would be called “Survivor.” Though the recession has hit the glass and metal industry particularly hard, it and GANA are still here and attendance levels are comparable to last year. “It’s been a challenging year but we have made adjustments and gotten through it,” said GANA executive vice president Bill Yanek.

“Outgoing president Mike Ondrus [of PPG] has done an amazing job in a difficult year,” he said. “Like the rest of the industry, GANA had to adjust and he has helped us through a challenging year.” Yanek presented Ondrus with the GANA President’s Award during the association’s formal dinner last evening.

“My father had a saying,” said incoming president Tom Crawford of Donisi Mirror Company. “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. Well we, as an association, are stronger.” Crawford took over as president at last evening.

Among the newer, hotter topics at the conferences were the expanded efforts of the Fire-rated Glazing division, the new efforts to incorporate and service emerging technologies such as solar glazing and the integration of the Glazing Industry Code Committee (GICC) into the GANA structure.

GICC was formed nearly 20 years ago as antidote to the knock-down, drawn out fights different segments of the glass industry (i.e. temperers vs. laminators) traditionally had before the various code-setting bodies. The idea behind GICC was that it would become a place where the various segments of the industry could come to find consensus and compromise so the industry could instead go forward with a unified effort before the code groups. It had existed as a separate entity until recently and will now come under the auspices of GANA. Julie Schimmelpenningh is serving as temporary chair and the group has hired Thom Zaremba of Roetzel & Andress to serve as a code consultant to the committee.

As I write, GANA technical director Urmilla Sowell is updating the group about all the technical activities in which the association is involved. Urmilla reminds me why GANA is so important. It is all substance.

The events during Glass Week continue through Tuesday morning. The Paris Hotel in Vegas has been garnering good reviews as a venue. GANA marketing committee chair Christine Shaffer of Viracon reminded attendees of how well Las Vegas markets itself. “As you got off the plane, you saw posters for the various shows. At this hotel, you’ve been called “madam” or “monsieur”. It’s all part of marketing,” said Schaeffer who mentioned that the Paris Hotel markets itself as the “sexiest hotel in Vegas.”

The recession, alas, kept many spouses and significant others from attending this year, turning a trip to the sexiest hotel in Vegas from an “oh la la” into a “no la la.”

2010-03-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Time to Act
It will be no surprise to anyone who works in the contract glazing industry that there are almost no projects out there on which to bid. I can’t find any companies building backlog; most are just eating through it. The stimulus plan, which was supposed to help the construction trades, has done a good job for highway and bridge contractors, but little for the commercial construction industry. The HOME STAR program, which was supposed to help the construction industry, has helped door and window manufacturers and other residential-based suppliers, but done little for the commercial construction industry. And yes, there’s supposed to be more money coming for healthcare and school construction, but those projects aren’t even being drawn yet, let alone gone out for bid.

We could be facing a situation in which great companies have projects on the books for 2011 and 2012 but little confidence that they are going to be around long enough to produce them.

Evidently our elected officials have been hearing some of this because a BUILDING STAR Energy Efficiency Rebate Act of 2010 has been introduced in Congress. The good news that it is designed to provide rebates to commercial building owners that make their buildings more energy-efficient. The bill would cover about 30 percent of the cost of installing energy efficient products and/or related services in commercial and multifamily residential buildings this year. The Associated General Contractors of America estimates that that the $6 billion in funding for the Building STAR program would bring $18 -$24 billion in total spending. The program is designed to work quickly and includes simplified application procedures for building owners.

The bad news is that the bill crafters really don’t understand how glass is installed in commercial buildings. As currently written the bill references only “windows” and does not include storefronts or curtainwall. The Glass Association of North America (GANA) has been spearheading proposed corrections to the bill. It estimates that, as now written, the bill will exclude as much as 70% of the total glazing area in existing commercial buildings. Further it addresses only whole assembly replacement as opposed to the most common methods of commercial glazing including retrofits.

Please visit http://www.usgnn.com/newsGANA20100312.htm for more information about the bill. If corrected, it has the potential to advance energy efficient buildings and help provide stimulus for the commercial glass industry. And, if you are so included, please make sure the position paper produced jointly by GANA, AAMA, AEC and NGA gets to the your elected officials quickly. With some education, this bill could be a great law. Without it, it could be an opportunity lost.

About Dad, One Last Time

2010-01-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of sharing some stories about my Father with you, both in print and here on this blog. In fact, the two stories I wrote about his love of hockey ("Father Daughter Dance" and "Any Dream Will Do") remain among the most popular I've ever written. For the past few days, I have debated sharing this remembrance with you, because they are the words I wrote and read at his funeral last Friday. My father, Fred Kopf died suddenly while on a family vacation with us, 11 hours short of his 77th birthday and one day shy of his 53rd wedding anniversary. I decided to share it because a lot of people were kind enough to tell me it really captures who he was. Thank you for indulging me.

Words of Remembrance for Frederick Kopf (1933-2010)

Good morning. On behalf of my family, we thank you for being here today. It might have surprised my father that so many people cared about him because he was probably the least self-important person I know. He never sought to be the center of attention, and never expected anything to be about him. He was always the quiet force in the background. And, except for a weakness for really smart neckties, he had no vanity about himself.

So, in looking for how to describe who my father was and what his walk on earth meant to us, it became clear to me that there is only one way to do this right [puts on New York Rangers hat]. I hope Dad would have liked that.

What should I tell you about to explain my Dad? Should we talk about the things you might not know? Like how he majored in journalism in college and used to write beautiful stories before the press of married life and family led him to a more conventional career? Or about how he had the greatest sense of humor you could imagine? You might not have gotten to see it too much because he was so quiet, but I think it’s one of the most bountiful gifts he gave Patti, Freddie and me. Or how he was so electrically-challenged that every outdoor extension cord he ever used had tape all over it because he had cut through it in at least three places with the electric hedge clippers? And we won’t even talk about what happened when you put an unfamiliar TV remote in his hand?. Or how my sister says the only time we ever saw him cry (and they were tears of happiness) was when my brother was born?

Or, should I tell you how he was a deeply religious man whose faith came shining through his actions? Dad became Catholic right before he and Mom married so his family would be united in one faith. And the strong faith of both our parents was the other great gift we children and his grandchildren have received.

Or should I tell you about the time when I was twelve and he and I were home alone that he cut right through his hand (using those same dreaded hedge clippers, by the way) and he calmly told me to get in the car, and that he was going to drive to the hospital, but that if he happened to pass out, I should grab the wheel and aim for the curb and someone would probably show up to help us pretty quickly after that? Or how he recently told my mother he had four great days in his life—the days each of his children were born and their fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration that some of you were at three years ago? Or what delight he would always get in playing games with his great nieces and nephews or talking sports with his godsons? And how he treasured any time he had with his son and grandson? I can’t tell you how big a kick he had watching the NHL draft last summer with his grandson, Kevin—even if all the fanfare was about some Islander, of all things, named Tavares.

And we won’t even talk about things like the Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake, my Dad’s way to make anything better, or the infamous Cindy-Lou-Who bush or how sometimes he would just grab Mom and waltz her around the kitchen?

There are thousands of stories and a million examples of what made Dad Dad. He won everyone over without ever trying to. See, we have so many beautiful memories and examples that explain my father because he was solid. He was consistent. He had a set of rules, a strong faith, and he lived by them. And he was humble and without pretense.

I will give you just one story. When we were young, my Mom always made sure we had something different to do on the weekends, even if it was just taking a long ride out to the end of Long Island. This particular weekend, she and Dad decided to rent a tandem bike, a bicycle built for two, so we kids could ride around on it. Well, this was one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time things, because it was a bit of a challenge to get the bike home, but we did. Then Dad got on to test it out. Why he decided to ride a bicycle built for two by himself, you would have to ask him. I don’t even know how he did it, but he managed to go about five feet and then to crash down in front us and land flat on his back sprawled out on the pavement, with the force hitting right on the back of his head—and this happened in the days before people wore helmets. It was a hard whack and I could tell he was seeing stars. We kids were screaming “Daddy, daddy, are you all right?” as he was trying to remember things like his name and who the president was. I am not sure if he heard us, but I know he never answered us. He just got up, steadied himself, rubbed his head, and got back on the bicycle again. This time he rode a big circle in the road all by himself perfectly and came back and stopped in front of us and said, “Okay, get on, we only have a three-hour rental.”

I mention this story because, in life, you meet a lot of people who tell you how to live. They tell to pick yourself up and get right back on there, but, as in everything my father did, he just showed you how to live by example.

So if I can leave you with one thing from my Dad, it would be his motto. It’s just three simple words, but he’s said them to us over and over again since the day we were old enough to understand them. Do Your Best. Do Your Best. You have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to ever apologize for, if you do your own best in any and everything you do. And, even if your best isn’t good enough, it doesn’t matter because you have done the best you could do.

My sister, brother and I would like thank you for coming today and for letting us share some more of our Father with you. We would also like to thank our Mom for being the amazing woman that she is and for all the loving, tenacious care she took of dad, giving him way more years with us than we would have otherwise had.

Frederick Martin Kopf Jr. was a wonderful, shining light who lived by example. If you could have seen him on his vacation last week, you would have seen him glowing in these last few days. It gives me comfort to think he was glowing because knew he was ready, in his heart, soul and body for his last trip to the best destination of all. Thank you.

Are We Going to Be Okay?

2009-12-30T07:59:00.000-08:00

Early in the day on September 11, 2001, in the midst of all the chaos, I talked to a family member who happens to be a structural engineer. “Tell me those buildings aren’t going to come down,” I said in a voice that was more filled with question than command. But a declaration was what I got in reply. “I can’t tell you that,” was the quiet answer I received about 10 minutes before the first one fell. I went looking for reassurance and found that, sometimes, the truth doesn’t give you any.

Although this is in no way a proper analogy, nor is it an attempt to trivialize the events of September 11 in any way, I did feel the need to go looking for answers after Arch Aluminum filed for bankruptcy late last month. Up to that point, even amid the rumors that had been swirling about for months, I’d felt that our industry was in the midst of some very, very tough times but that we would emerge from them okay. The Arch reorganization—that of a long-time, large, primary source fabricator—was a tsunamic event felt around our industry. It was unsettling. If Arch could file for bankruptcy, the thought process went, then was anyone safe? Would our industry come crashing down around us?

“Are we going to be okay?’ was the question I asked to a few very learned, most highly-respected leaders—the structural engineers, if you will—in our industry. I went again seeking reassurance, but this time I got it.

The new year is often a toast to hindsight mixed with expectation, followed by a chaser of predictions. So here are my predictions, based both on my observations and (hopefully) educated guesses, along with the opinions of those I value. Watch for:

1. Consolidation at the primary manufacturer level. I would not be surprised if we have one less primary manufacturer in existence by the middle of next year than we do as I write this. This consolidation will be the result of merger;

2. Increased influence among manufacturers. Along with such a consolidation will come an increased influence by certain primary manufacturers and fabricators over what companies make it in the business and which ones do not. Since the number of companies at these two levels are relatively small, they will have more control over which companies in financial difficulty are allowed to exist and which are not;

3. Operators under the “commodity” model will dwindle. The days of being able to sell volume are gone, at any level. Primary manufacturers and fabricators must differentiate themselves through value-added and specialized product in order to survive long-term;

4. Capacity will decrease. In addition to the effect of consolidation, lines are down due to refurbishment and low demand. The eventual effect will be reduced capacity and, as a result, increased prices. Some leading experts also said a glass shortage would not be out of the question. That sounds counterintuitive on the surface, but when you analyze it, it’s not;

5. A healthier industry in the long run. Survival of the fittest is cruel in nature or in business, but it leads to stronger, more vital players.

This has been a tough year for our industry. I am glad I got to spend it with you. I am very thankful for the people I get to work with—and work for. Even in tough times, the glass industry will survive. Are we going to be okay? Yes.

Happy New Year. It is an honor for us to work for you.

The Good 'Ole American Way

2009-12-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

What do glass block and accidental deaths of children have to do with it each other? A lot it turns out.

I began this morning by picking up a few consumer news items that might have implications for the industries we cover. The first was about the President's schedule for today. As I write this, President Obama has just finishing speaking at a nearby Home Depot about buying energy efficient building products. It's a pool feed so we are covering it as part of the pool, but it's still been interesting to see the President focus on energy efficient products. He even made an attempt at a joke at their expense, opining as to how press secretary Robert Gibbs might be able to find at Home Depot to plug leaks (not too many people in the audience got it though) .... anyway, it should be an interesting story for the readers of our USGlass, and DWM-SHELTER magazines.

The second story was one that has gotten a lot of consumer press this morning. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC of safety glazing fame) has issued a massive recall of blinds --50 million in fact -- because they constitute serious strangulation hazard for children and babies. The report on NBC's TODAY show showed the very serious danger.

"I know the blind thing is peripheral to DWM readers ..." I started to say when I walked in the office. "Yeah, I saw it too and I'm on it," DWM publisher Tara Taffera shot right back. "It might help some dealers or installers identify problems and alert homeowners, so I think we should cover it," Tara added. In fact, she'd already written a story about it.

About an hour later I checked my inbox and sure enough, it didn't take long for one glass block company to make a marketing opportunity out of it. I usually don't comment on such pieces, but this one just left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had to share. Only in the good 'ole USA could someone hear a baby strangulation story and attempt to make a marketing opportunity. Here's the first paragraph:

Obscure Acrylic Block Windows Eliminate Need for
Corded Window Treatments
Massive Window Blind Recall Has No Effect on Hy-Lite/U S Block Windows
PENSACOLA, FLA. – Following the announcement of a massive industry recall of corded window treatments, the experts at Hy-Lite/U S Block Windows are offering a no-cord alternative to potentially hazardous blinds.
“Homeowners add blinds and corded window treatments to their windows to obtain privacy and style,” says Roger Murphy, president of U S Block Windows. “Using acrylic block windows and interior shutters is the obvious choice for obtaining those same privacy results in the home, but with no risk to children of potential strangulation.
“The obscure nature of durable acrylic block windows --- both in fixed and operable styles --- means that homeowners can gain privacy without the use of corded window treatments or blinds. And, for those homes that already have clear glass windows, interior acrylic block shutters can be added to a window in just 20 minutes. Both products provide style to the home as well as a safe, secure product around children.”

Well the folks at Hylite get my dubious acheivement award for the week. Geez.

Date with a Hero

2009-11-11T11:57:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday was one of the most memorable days in my career as I got to spend a good portion of it with "Sully" -- Captain Chesley Sullenberger -- the U.S. Air pilot who, together with his crew, safety landed flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15th.

Sully was the keynote speaker at the fifith annual International Auto Glass Safety Conference, sponsored by the Auto Glass Replacement Safety Standards Council (the AGRSS Council) for which I serve as a volunteer leader this year. After a private breakfast with AGRSS-registered companies, Sully kept a crowd of about 4,000 glued to their seats and riveted by his recollection of his flight that day.

There's a lot parallels between the auto glass industry and the aviation industry, including the quest to reduce costs and the resulting ways this affects safety. (You can see one such example in the Daily Show http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-13-2009/chesley-sullenberger. I was struck by them as I read Sully's book. (You can read my opening at the Conference here.)

All industries, especially the glass industry, are under pressure to reduce costs. AGRSS-registered companies pledge safety as their paramount concern. And they not only pledge to do the job right, they allow independent, third party validators to come into their shops and audit that committment.

The Captain understood this. "The AGRSS Council must have felt like a tea bag in an ocean when it started," he said. "I applaud your efforts."

He also understood the importance of safety. "I will be known in my life for this one event but, in reality, that event was one I had trained for and had to anticipate for many years."

Sully is the living definition of hero. But he is also a regular guy--a reluctant celebrity who has had fame foisted upon him by one extraordinary action. It was an honor to meet him.

GlassBuild Days Two and Three

2009-10-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Day two was noticibly stronger than the first day. It seemed that many people came in the for the show on Wednesday and spent the better part of Thursday there. Reaction among exhibitors was more mixed than usual. I took an informal straw poll while walking the aisles and here are the results. When asked how the show was going for them:

About 40 percent said it was a good show, and that they were very pleased;

About 40 percent said that it had exceeded their expectations. Most were quick to add, however, that their expectations had been nil given the economy;

About ten percent said it was not good at all for them;

and the other ten percent said that it was really too soon to tell. With trade shows, the proof is in orders that come in from it.

As for traffic, it's difficult for our booth staff to adequately assess as, try as we might, our booth somehow always end up in the hinterlands of the show (three rows from the end this year), but our editorial staff reported brisk traffic most of Thursday in certain areas of the show. So I don't think we'd be the best judge of traffic because we didn't have much ourselves.

What Thursday gave our industry was .... hope. There was still some business to be done out there. And there was more than one occasion when customer and exhibitor embraced in a joyous "we are both still here" hug that let you know that was just what both of them were thinking.

Reviews of the seminars were mixed with high marks given to the Energy Session and the Solar Panel with a great video into by Russ Ebeid. Judging by that video he'll be joining the 60 Mintues team any day now. Our ediorial staff will be covering the important ones in more in depth in future issues.

Day three was painfully quiet with very little activity, leading some of the familiar comments I've heard over the years to resurface ... GBA should be a two day show ... GBA should be every other year. Ending shows on Friday is always tough because everyone wants to get out of town and it did seem a much lighter traffic day than the last day of the show in 2008, which was on a Thursday.

It's Show Time

2009-09-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

The first thing I noticed about Atlanta today was that the weather was beautiful. I was expecting to see canoes in the streets and water half way up the streetlights. But that, according to the cab driver, was last week not this week. He showed me some pretty high-high water marks in downtown while mentioning that the rain was 150 year rain. The city did a good job of clean up because you can't even tell there was flooding. At behind all that bad weather came the beautiful day we had today.
Tomorrow starts the glass show. Some people think of New Year's day as the beginning of the year; for others, it's September when school starts. For me, for the last 28 years at least, this show has always represented a new beginning .... more tomorrow.

Our Condolences

2009-09-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it wasn’t the flu, but I got hit with a pretty nasty cold earlier this week. So I found myself calling in sick for three days, something I have not done before. Problem was, it was such a wicked cold that it was hard to function even from home.

This is how I have come to find myself in the office on the most beautiful of Saturdays, catching up on what I should have been doing all week … so please forgive me for being a day or two late in talking about John De Gorter, who died on Wednesday in North Carolina at the age of 81.

John De Gorter’s roots were in the glass industry. His father, Daniel was one of the largest importers of glass and glass products in the United States. After his death, John expertly predicted that increased need for fabrication equipment in this country as a result of improved and float production in this country. John felt that glass fabricating equipment would be in greater demand in the future. So in 1969, De Gorter Inc. began devoting its efforts to the sale and service of glass processing equipment.

Long before it was commonplace for foreign machinery companies to have representation in the United States, John De Gorter saw the need and filled it. The list of machinery his company has sold into the United States is too long to include and he was known worldwide.

On my first trip to glasstec in 1984, I was excited to try and meet with as many equipment and machinery manufacturers as I could. In every single meeting, when it became apparent I was from the United States, the very next question, every time was either “Do you know De Gorter?” or “Can you introduce me to De Gorter?”

Condolences to his wife of 58 years, Denise, and their children Dan, Deborah and Peter.

More info is available here.

Taking Up the Pen Again

2009-09-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

When I was an eight-year-old second-grader at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary elementary school on Long Island, N.Y., I decided our school needed what I called a newspaper, but what was really a monthly magazine. I thought we needed it because we didn’t have it. Oh sure, we got tons of great-smelling blue mimeographed sheets to read and bring home at night, but we didn’t have anyplace where we students could express ourselves. I had this vision that kids from each grade would submit stories and artwork and we’d give the “newspaper” out once a month to all the students in every class once a month.

So I went to my teacher, Sister Rosario, who patiently listened to my request and then sent it to the principal, Sister Sheila. A few days later they said, “Okay, you put it together and we will copy and distribute it.” They even told every teacher to allow me to come to their class and talk about the newspaper and how kids could send materials and pictures in. I thought the students should name it too, so I came up with this contest idea for the name. Anyone who wanted to could submit a name for our newspaper and the students would vote on it. They’d see the winning name when the first issue came out.

The response surprised me—the first issue was about 40 pages long (there’s still a copy somewhere up in my parent’s attic) and it was filled with stories, poems and pictures from every grade. The winning name, The Monthly Blab, was my least favorite of the choices but it had won fair and square. I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I gave the final pages to Sister Sheila with a big drawing of the school penned by a fourth-grade artist, and right below it in big block letters the winning title, The Monthly Blab.

It seemed like it took forever to get the newspaper printed because, at that age, I was unfamiliar in some of the ways Catholic schools work. I did not realize that the ever-resourceful sisters had talked a local printer into printing the Blab at no charge—but the agreement was that he would “fit it in whenever he had time.” Finally, after March had turned into April, one day, I heard the shrill sound of the intercom intrude into our classroom and a booming voice called me to the office. Now, at my school, being called to the office usually meant either you were in big trouble or someone in your family had died, so I actually found myself hoping I was in trouble.

Sister Sheila was waiting for me with Pete, the janitor, who had a pretty good-sized dolly upon which were piled three big cardboard boxes. “Here’s your newspaper,” she said with a slight smile. “You can hand it out in all the classrooms tomorrow. Make sure you give Sister Rosario one, too,” was all she added.

I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. As soon as we got in the hall, I asked Pete to open the box and hand me one. And there it was, all 40 pages, printed in front of me with the great illustration of the school and below it the words The Monthly … no, wait, where were the words? The spot where the words The Monthly Blab had sat was now blank. Instead, on top, in the finest cursive penmanship you could imagine (that I recognized as Sr. Rosario’s) it said Our School Newspaper. Our School Newspaper? Our School Newspaper? A very cool name had been replaced without my knowledge—and with a very lame one at that.I thought there was a mistake, so when I got back to my classroom, I told Sister Rosario. Now here you should know that most of us in the class figured that, conservatively, Sister Rosario was about 117 years old. She was also about 3-foot 11, but she had the aim of Tom Seaver with an eraser, so I mean it when I say we were looking eye-to-eye and I was trying not to be intimidated.

“Sister, there’s a mistake,” I said holding it up and pointing at the blank space. “It was supposed to say The Monthly Blab right here and it doesn’t.”

“Oh, that’s not a mistake,” she shot back pleasantly. “I changed it. That wasn’t a good name for a newspaper.”

“But Sister, all the kids voted …” I protested.

“Oh well, too late now,” she said with a unique combination of authority and finality.

I was eight years old and I’d learned an important lesson. I’d just been edited.

I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you what I did, but I will anyway. Working out of Pete’s broom closet, I was able to spend the whole next day delivering the newspapers to all the classes. But before I would visit each class, I would make a stop in the girl’s bathroom and, in my best penmanship, write the words The Monthly Blab in magic marker on each one. I did this for all copies—all 841 copies—except, I’d somehow forget to do it on the copies I gave to the teachers. An ingenious plan, I was sure.

The first Blab got a number of great compliments and I started to plan the next edition. It wasn’t too long after that that the good sisters told me there was not enough time or money to do another issue of the Blab, so I shouldn’t even bother to work on it. This was how I came to understand the phrase “winning the battle but losing the war” at a young age.

To my knowledge, there never was another school newspaper at QMHR, which, sadly, is no longer a school but a community center.

So why am I telling you this? Because I tried an experiment this summer. It’s been 40 years since I first started writing for The Monthly Blab. I decided this year to take the summer off from writing. That’s why I haven’t in ink since May. Oh, I was still editing, researching, etc., but I just took a break from writing. I had this crazy idea to stop for a summer and see how it felt. Instead of feeling a sense of freedom, I felt loss. I missed writing terribly, and I’m back. I will keep a tender hope that you are glad; I know I am.

Icy Tears

2009-05-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

The closing of the Pittsburgh Glass Works plant in Hawkesbury, Ontario, brought to mind a special memory. See the links below for more information.

Father-Daughter Dance
Any Dream Will Do

Spring Ahead

2009-03-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

“The harshest winter finds in us an invincible Spring.” -Albert Camus

When I began to write this article on Monday, the outer suburbs of the Washington, D.C., area had just been hit with its first major snow in more than three years. We got ten inches at our offices here in Stafford, Va. Now, as I put the finishing touches on it on Saturday morning, I am being enticed outside by the promise of a 72-degree temperature, bright sun and absolutely no snow left on the ground—it’s all melted. In its place are tons of industrious birds, including at least two robins with bright red chests thumping, all digging into the waterlogged earth in search of breakfast. Might it really be Spring?

Spring was on my mind early last October when I read part one of Brigid O’Leary’s excellent article about the glass in the new sports stadiums opening this year. “Why don’t we save it for Spring?” suggested editor Megan Headley. “We can use it in March and it will come out right before the start of the baseball season. It would be a great cover story.”Now there’s a saying among editors (sort of akin to the “sometimes-you’re-the-windshield-sometimes-you’re-the-bug” one) that says “great pictures or great photos, you never get both.” In this case, we had a great article, but we had no photos. So any story, let alone a cover story, was going to be a challenge.

With that in mind, Megan went to work on the both the Yankees and the Mets to let us get some great glass photos of their new digs. Now let me say that getting permission to photograph an as-yet unopened major league baseball stadium turned out to be the most difficult photo shoot we’ve ever attempted. Despite repeated tries, the Yankees just said flat out “no.” Thanks to the good graces and great shots by the glass teams working there, we were able to bring you the interiors any way. You'll see some exterior shots next month.

After many months of negotiations, the New York Mets came through and, once Megan got the word that we could do so, we knew just who we wanted to take the pictures.The photos of the new Citi Field in this issue were taken by award-winning New York photographer Fred Kopf. “I had an escort with me at all times but there were certain areas I was not allowed to visit like the players’ locker rooms,” he said, “but I got a good cross section of all the major glass work. They told me that the Mets were allowing only two photographers in to shoot prior to opening day—a Sports Illustrated photographer was permitted to take one picture and USGlass magazine, which did a full shoot.”

I knew Fred would come through for us. In addition to being a professional shutterbug, he is also my younger and only brother and is used to the danger that difficult situations bring. Most days, he serves as a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. He is FDNY through and through. “It was a great kick to do the shoot and the Mets organization was first-class,” he said. The article also served as a point of discussion in my family. Growing up in New York, the boys (my father and Fred) were always more partial to the Yankees. But my mother grew up in Queens watching Shea Stadium being built and passed her admiration of the Mets on to her daughters, so the shoot also served to prove the ladies right: Mets rule.

I am headed home this week to New York, which is also the home Glass Expo Northeast '09. We will be out at the Hyatt Regency Long Island Wind Watch Hotel &; Golf Club. The event runs Wednesday and Thursday and I hope to see you there.
Here’s wishing you an invincible Spring. —Deb

P.S.: Take a look at this New Yorker article for another take on baseball's new abobe in the big apple.

It's Always Something

2009-02-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

It’s Always Something …

It’s tough when you’ve been there at the beginning and now you are there at the end.

I’m spending most of this week at the National Auto Glass Conference in Orlando, Florida. A long time ago (20 years) in a different lifetime, I was involved in the creation of this event. I take a bit of pride in that. Twenty years ago, the auto glass industry was an active and vibrant one. Insurance company influence was limited to a phone call or two from the local agent. Networks were just beginning to pop up around the country. Groups such as AGRSS, IGA and NWRA had yet to form. No one knew what the Internet was.

This Conference has been held in many different cities and venues over the years, visiting Memphis, Tampa, Marco Island, Fl, Tuscon (four times), Phoenix and Minneapolis among others. It’s hosted a great variety of speakers from within and outside the industry. It didn’t have a trade show for the first decade, then it did, then it didn’t again for the last two years. At its height, the conference attracted more than 1,000 retailers.

But the best thing about the Auto Glass Conference has never been the seminars or the show; it’s always been the people you see there. Twenty years ago, it provided a way for the industry (which had always played second fiddle to the architectural glass industry) to converge around common issues at one location.

It’s always something.

Over the years, the conference has also been part of a number of watershed moments. The modern auto glass era was born at the 1991 Conference in Phoenix when network founder Joe Kellman admonished the group that they would have to “work a full day instead of half” to make a living. When he said that the industry had been ripping off insurance companies for years, you could hear an audible gasp and see a physical reaction in the room. I have always wondered if that speech was aimed more as an admonishment of the glass industry or a sales pitch to the insurance industry.

The event has also been square in the middle of tragedy as deaths by two attendees occurred—sadly, one of a heart attack and another a drowning. The conference has had to duck hurricane Isidore at Marco Island in 2002 and Ivan in Tampa in 2004. Two years ago, there was a bomb scare and, just today, a fire alarm emptied the hotel in the mid-afternoon.

It’s always something.

And, of course, the Auto Glass Conference had been scheduled for September 12-14, 2001 in Minneapolis—a conference that never happened in the wake of September 11 the day before. I’ll never forget that I was already in Minneapolis sitting in an AGRSS Council meeting when we got the first word of the plane crashes. I ended up driving all the way home to Virginia later than week.

Times change, industries change and economies tank. During last year’s conference, organizers announced that the 2009 Conference will be the last in its current form and so it will be. So I raise a glass to an end and a beginning.

It’s always something.

Punched Out

2009-02-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Well it’s been about 15 years since I made a mistake like the one I did in my story on Russ Ebeid’s great and prophetic speech at the BEC Conference. Thankfully, a number of our alert readers let me know about it. Not since I said Waiting for Godot was written by Eugene Ionesco (it wasn’t) have I been so embarrassed by a wrong word or two.

Let me start by saying that I don’t know much about prize-fighting. Never even saw a bout, and I wouldn’t know a heavyweight from waterweight, or is that welter weight? No weight--I mean wait--water weight I’m familiar with.

Anyway, the general rule in journalism is to write what you know and, if you don’t know it, look it up. So while I searched my brain for a phrase that would convey the depth of power that Mr. Ebeid’s words had delivered to the audience (because his speech had some knock-you-down stunning information in it) I came up with gut-punched, but somehow confused it with sucker-punched. And I didn’t look it up to check.

I feel especially bad because I admire Russ Ebeid as much as a person could, so to somehow suggest that he was involved in sucker-punching anything or anybody is horrifiying. The article has been corrected and the offending word striken.

The readers who contacted me were very kind, saying that they knew I meant gut-punch but had written the wrong thing. Even Earnest Thompson of Guardian itself was pleasant. “That’s okay,” he said, “maybe you had just been listening to too much Puscifer lately,”

I appreciate that, and I sure hope the big guy himself will forgive me. See, I already messed up this week. I knew he had just had a birthday and had promised him a cake. So I had brought some birthday candles with me and was going to run over when they served dessert at the Glass Week dinner and pop them in his cake. But, alas, they gave us a poached pear. I spent the better part of dessert wondering if one could put candles in the whipped cream and not ignite a fire. I erred on the side of caution. No candles.

So Mr. Ebeid, if perhaps you see you way clear to read this, I owe you more than a birthday cake now. You name it. Any punishment and I’ll take it. You want me to hit a punching bag (or myself) with Everready gloves for an hour? You got it. Want me to learn all the names of every prize-fighting champion in the world? I’m on it. I will even—gulp—watch all four Rocky movies (including even the third one) in a row. But I will never, ever again confuse a sucker-punch with a gut-punch again. My apologies.

BEC Day Two

2009-02-17T18:51:00.000-08:00

Today I am headed back to the East Coast from Vegas as the BEC is ending. Yup. I’m on the plane and my laptop battery doesn’t seem to want to hold a charge so this will be a short one. The low battery light is already on.

Monday—the first full day of the Building Envelop Contractor’s Conference (BEC) actually brought me hope. Russ Ebeid’s thought provoking presentation gave everyone in the room quite a bit to think about (see related story for more) and Bill Yanek detailed the excellent work he is leading for GANA in the energy arena. Bill is right that the glass industry has a target on its back. As deadly as a silent killer like carbon monoxide seeping into your lungs at night, the possibility of federally-mandated greenhouse gas emission control could choke, debilitate and ultimately kill our entire industry.

It was interesting that Bill mentioned the industry’s old “friends” at ASHRAE are developing regulations that are possibly anti-glass. This will sound familiar to anyone who has been around awhile. Shades of 90.1P—you know the let’s-get-rid-of-the-glass-so-we-can-keep-installing-inefficient-HVAC-systems regulations promulgated by ASHRAE 20 or so years ago.
This industry needs to come and stay together on this issue.

With so much bad news in the economy, it was nice to have a good news day. The BEC top ten list is always a hit and gave the crowd some deep chuckles ….I caught too with John Dwyer of Syracuse Glass. His company is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year …. Also talked with Craig Carson who recently patented a neat new product (more in the future pages of USGlass) that is working well in Colorado…saw Bob Lang of Billco, the busiest, hardest working retired guy in the industry…day two, though a long one, was a good.

Glass Week Ends; BEC Starts

2009-02-17T04:34:00.000-08:00

Report from Sunday, February 15

The question “how are you doing?” has taken on new meaning here as GANA’s Glass Week ends and the BEC Conference begins. Where people used to respond with updates on their lives or their health, people instinctively now feel they are being asked about the health of their company in light of the economy.

A question of “how are you doing?” invariably leads to a response of “we are hanging in there,” “we are holding on and hoping it turns” or a variation thereof. The biggest discussions center around the economy of course.

The lead industry story is about the changing ownership –and face-- of the primary glass manufacturers. With two of the manufacturers believed to be in play and another two under significant economic distress, it will be interesting to see how this year turns out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see changes in ownership yet again among some of the primaries.

One of the nicest parts of Glass Week/BEC is getting to catch up with people in the industry…and there was a lot of catching up to do. Both Russ Ebeid of Guardian and GANA’s executive vice president Bill Yanek were in the process of celebrating birthdays...”All you have to do is say you were out with Ren Bartoe last night and everyone will understand how you feel,” said ICD’s Kris Vockler at the beginning of her report on the decorative glass division, “and I was out with Ren Bartoe, what more can I say?” Arch’s Max Peristein was attempting to be in two places at the same as outgoing BEC chairperson as incoming chairperson Henry Taylor raced back from Switzerland to Las Vegas. Valerie Block of DuPont glowed as she talked about missing the newest addition to her family—her first grandchild, a boy.

Glass Week: for Young and Old

2009-02-14T16:42:00.000-08:00

Between the holidays and the weather, I haven’t had too much road time lately. All that changed earlier this week as I made my way westward to the Glass Association of North America (GANA)’s Glass Week and Building Envelop Conference (BEC).

I spent a minute on the plane contemplating the chaos that is always Las Vegas and anticipating an even more frenetic pace as hundreds of thousands of loving couples made their way to Vegas for Valentine’s Day. The location of the GANA meeting—the Palms Hotel—has been featured on the 2005 reality show “Party at the Palms” as a pretty well known a place for the “in” crowd in Vegas.

As the cab approached the hotel and the marquee came into view, I cranked my neck to see who was headlining here over the weekend. My heart sunk when the sign came into focus. “This Weekend,” it shouted, “Puscifer!”

Puscifer?

Who or what is a Puscifer? I’m guessing by the devilish looks of the billboard that it rhymes with Lucifer. (Note reader: I was going to link to Puscifer’s site here so you could hear the “music” and figure out who, or what, it was but the content wouldn’t have made the family hour, if you know what I mean.)

Anyway, seeing Puscifer on the billboard was definitely a watershed moment for me because, up to this point, even if I didn’t listen to them, I’d always had a working knowledge of who the group was. Thus my lack of awareness of Puscifer –whether a he, she or a group of either or both—reminded me that I was probably way too old for this hotel. With a deep sigh I paid the cab drive and went in.

Then, two pleasant surprises. First, the Palms is actually a lovely hotel and it hasn’t made me feel too old for it at all. The rooms are nicely appointed and, more importantly, it’s not gargantuan. It’s still big, but it doesn’t overwhelm; you don’t have to put your jogging shoes on to get to get from the sleeping rooms to the meeting rooms. And the staff has been exceedingly helpful.

Second, (nice surprise for me, not so nice for Vegas): Rather than Valentine’s Day, it looks more like Thanksgiving or Christmas here. The downturn Max mentioned in his blog last month has not abated. Vegas, evidentally, continues to feel the effects of the economy as much as anywhere. Vegas is actually empty.

Of course, the important part of this week is not the hotel or the city, it’s the substance of the meetings as GANA is the substance and the conscience of the glass industry. To learn more about what’s going on please visit http://www.usgnn.com/. Be sure to stop by our video reports there as well and don't forget to visit Max Perilstein's blog. for up-to-the minute meeting flavor. I’ll be back with periodic, more substantive reports over the next few day.

In the meantime, I'm really getting into this place and so has our crew. Some of our editors even volunteered to work late tonight and stop by the Playboy Club so they could see the etchings of the bunnies on the glass railings up there. What a dedicated group.

The First Valentine

2009-02-14T16:11:00.000-08:00

When we were growing up, my sister (who is two years younger) and I (who was about four) engaged in a fixed ritual nearly every week night. We knew that at exactly 5:50 p.m. we should start walking up the block and, a few minutes later, my father would appear like magic. We could see him in the distance as he came around the corner walking the last leg of his 15 minute stroll from Long Island Railroad station.

The minute we saw him, Patti and I would break out in the fastest run we could shouting “Daddy, Daddy” until we literally careened into him, jumping and smothering him in hugs and kisses. Now my Dad didn’t like us running too much, and he liked us shouting even less, but somehow he never complained about this custom.

Valentine’s Days were especially exciting because he would come around the corner with a big chocolate heart for my Mother and smaller ones for each of us. I remember being so excited about this (and not really because of the candy although that was good) because somehow I knew that a box of chocolate was a grown-up gift and that I—all of four or six or even fifteen—was getting one. “I’m the luckiest guy today,” he would always say, “ because I have three valentines.”

My Dad never missed bringing us a heart each year, never listening when we were in our teens and told him we wouldn’t eat the chocolate, not stopping even after we told him it was old-fashioned, even after we’d moved on to cities and spouses and families of our own, nor after he’d retired and didn’t walk home from work any more. On Valentine's Day he always had that little something for his three valentines.

So for all Dads out there, including my own, who gave their hearts to their daughters all those years ago, know that others may come and go but, on Valentine’s Day, we all harken back to the guy who really was—and still is--our first love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Deb

Still A Happy New Year

2009-01-23T07:04:00.001-08:00

These are very tough times for the glass industry. Not a day goes by when our e-news service, USGNN.com™, doesn’t include at least one plant closing or company lay-off. Lack of access to credit and capital, along with greatly reduced demand, has led to the most difficult economic environment I have seen in my 27 years of covering the glass industry—even worse than the infamous 1991.

There are a few things that make what we are going through even more challenging than it was 17 years ago. In 1991, there was little work, but never did we see the wide-scale cancellation or postponement of work already in progress or contracted that we now see. Some major fabricators have gone from having so much work that they required long lead times for delivery to having so little work that they’ve closed plants and laid-off workers. This situation is particularly egregious because we know that those same companies passed up other jobs, or saw customers move elsewhere, due to their long lead times. In short, the work they passed on went elsewhere, now their jobs have cancelled and it’s too late to get the other work back.

Things aren’t faring much better for contract glaziers. As Tom Niepokoj, vice president of sales for Harmon Inc., says in our forecast article in the January USGlass: “Our backlog is solid through the end of the third quarter of calendar year 2009. The fourth quarter and beyond is where we’re scratching our heads …” That about sums it up as many of them struggle to get through this downturn.

Our country is different than it was in 1991. The cable news networks blare gloom-and-doom on a 24-hour basis, consumers reduce their spending, banks don’t lend and no one can or wants to buy anything.

The biggest difference between then and now is that we have lost our faith in ourselves. Compare Roosevelt’s message of the 1930s “that we have nothing to fear but fear itself ” to today’s message, from both sides of the aisle, that financial Armageddon is but one moment away.

Yet, despite all the economic hardship, I remain confident in the glass industry. We will come through and survive this very difficult time. Why? Not so much because of who we are but because of what we make. Our industry is not going away. When buildings are erected and houses are built again, they still will be full of glass. We are not losing our industry to new materials or technology, like the travel agents did during the last decade. Glass is here to stay. The people who make it, enhance it and install it have to make sure they are too. This is the time for cost containment and good credit and collection policies. Both are essential to weathering the storm.

So happy New Year. Please remember that in the grand scheme of things our most important “possessions” are not really things at all—they are the God we worship, the people we love, the health we have and the education and memories we carry with us. Now without those, we’d really have nothing at all.

Why AGRSS Matters: Part I

2008-11-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

The following took place on Friday, October 3, 2008, on State Route 1 in Spotsylvania County, Va.:

I was riding down the road catching up with my old friend, Frank Baitman, whom I’ve known since college. Frank’s gone on to have quite a career: Fulbright scholar, former VP of IBM, president of a number of multi-national companies with a broad variety of experience—quite the intelligent, experienced guy.

Frank also loves photography and, many years ago, supplemented his income while in grad school by taking pictures of auto glass installations for the magazine at which I worked. He became familiar with NAGS® numbers and pricing, parts and proper installations and the issues of auto glass safety.

As we were riding down the road, Frank asked me if the auto glass industry had changed much since his picture-taking days in the late 1980s. “Oh yes,” I replied, and explained the current dynamics of the industry, the influence of insurance companies, the rise of the mega-chains, etc. I told him there had been a number of industry shake-outs since the 1980s and the one bright spot was that those companies still in business have increased in their levels of professionalism and proficiency. The auto glass industry, I declared, had become much more professional in the past twenty years.

I’d barely completed the sentence when we were passed on the right by an old, brown sedan sporting dents and dings all over it. It had a wobbly front right side and the backseat was almost unrecognizable as it was filled with what looked like garbage up to the middle of the backlite. Attached to the back fender with some sort of handmade wood carrier was a windshield just riding along outside about 8 inches from the ground with a sign that said “AUTO GLASS” and a Virginia phone number (Note: We've removed the last four digits of the phone number from the photo.)

We pulled up behind the car and took some pictures. Frank looked over to me and said “You know, Deb, to a lot of consumers that guy is the auto glass industry.”

When I got back to my office I called the number on the sign and asked about windshield replacement. A man named Otto answered and, in broken English, told me that he could replace my windshield. He said he took all types of insurance. I specifically asked about State Farm and Erie and he said, yes, he did work for those companies.

I told Otto that I might want to come to his shop and have my windshield replaced. “No, no,” he said, “we just open. I come to you.”

“Do you have a shop?” I asked.

“We come to you. Give me your address. I be there tomorrow,” he replied.

I asked if he had certified technicians and he said yes. When I asked who they were certified by, he wanted to know why I was asking.

I said I had seen on the web that I should ask for certified techs when I had my windshield replaced.

”But we are not on the web,” Otto said. “not on the web. Don’t worry about certified. Everyone certified me.”

* * *

People occasionally ask me why I am so involved with and passionate about the AGRSS Council and what it is doing. It’s because my friend Frank is right. To many people, Otto remains the face of the auto glass industry. And the people in the professional auto glass industry who I care deeply about, for whom I have worked more than 28 years, have to compete with the Ottos of the world every day. They might even watch their insurance work go to him with pricing that only an Otto can meet. And I wonder, too, how many networks refer their work to him.

AGRSS is the best greatest hope our industry has. It’s come a long way in its ten-year existence and it has the potential for greatness. But no one is going to raise the lowest common denominator of professionalism other than our industry itself. The AGRSS conference opens in Vegas this week and it will unveil an ambitious program of self-regulation coupled with third-party validation unlike anything ever produced by an industry for itself.

It’s my hope that, in the next few years, all quality auto glass replacement companies will be AGRSS-registered so that when Frank and I ride down the road behind an auto glass truck, it will be the face of true professionalism with a strong commitment to safety.

Glasstec Leaves Questions

2008-10-29T06:01:00.000-07:00

Though glasstec—the ginormous* bienniel glass show in Düsseldorf, Germany is now history, it left behind two questions just begging for answers. The first (and most important from a business perspective) is that of a central theme emerging from the halls, the show floor and within the industry. Next month, USGlass will provide extensive coverage that explains exactly what those themes were and why they are important. In the meantime, you can check out our coverage of the event, including extensive video, at our daily news site, www.usgnn.com.
The second question (and the one that I find more interesting from a sociological point of view) is: “What does the rest of the world think of the United States?” Well, this year, the answer to that question is in the questions that the Europeans were asking of us. glasstec 2008 proved quite an eye-opener in that respect. Just about everyone I met, from every walk of life, asked a variation of the following questions:
• Who is going to win the U.S. presidential race?
• What the heck happened to your (country’s) economy?
• You know all the world’s economic problems are your fault, don’t you?
• How are you going to fix it?
So a few thoughts on all these questions. Assuming we don’t have a 2000 election redux by the time you read this, we will have a new president. I hope we make the right decision because it is very evident to me that the whole world is not only watching, they are involved. The importance of this election to the entire world is obvious by the comments I received. And while it gives me some pride to think the U.S. is such a powerful world leader, it makes me hope we chose the right guy.
Second, the blame for the current worldwide economic situation has been placed squarely at the doorstep of the United States. We are seen as creating the problems around the globe and we are expected to fix it.
The world is interconnected as it never has been before. And every day it gets more so. Let’s hope our leaders, who ever they are, can inspire, solve problems and move us forward—for the good of the entire world.

Regards,
Deb
*For those you purists who scoff, ginormous is now a legitimate word; along with “smack down,” “crunk” and “DVR”, it entered Webster’s Dictionary last year. But, as a Webster’s editor points out, you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

Glasstec Day Two

2008-10-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

Every day at glasstec is really two days--the business sessions from 9 a.m until 6 p.m. and the evening activities which include various receptions, dinners and the obligatory visit to the Altstadt (Old Town) area.

The center of the glasstec universe in the Old Town area is the GPD Pub. Machinery manufacturer Glaston hosts Glass Performance Days (GPD) every other year in Tampere, Finland. It rents out an Altstadt pub for the evenings of glasstec.

Though the Euro may be the currency of Germany, and U.S. Dollars still have some value, the real currency of glasstec are the drink tickets for use in the GPD pub. There is a brisk trade in GPD dollars at the hall worthy of the best black market. And the keeper of those drinks tickets, Glaston's Jorma Vitkala, is a very popular guy around here.

(Now just because I am writing about the pub --shown in photo above by Brian Pitman-, don't think I spent my whole evening there or anything like that. No sir-ee. In fact, I haven't even made it over there yet. From the sounds of it though, every one else has.) A visit to the GPD pub has become a glasstec right of passage.

Day two was filled with visits to many stands and many visitors to our stand. Russ Ebeid of Guardian stopped by and told me he had a hot story, so I plan to try and find him today. If stalk him I must, I will. Larry Johnson of Edgetech explained what it took to get permission to use a replica of a window from an a recently completed job in Abu Dhabi. The exquisite replica, at 70% the original size, sits in their booth.

AGC's stand has been very crowded, the result of their recent new product announcement, as has Glasslam's as well, which features a Rubik's cube about 50 times its original size, though the Porsche standing on glass has garnered much attention, as has glasstec's own version of the bridge to nowhere--the total glass bridge that visitors continue to walk under and over.

With two days in one glasstec leaves little time for sleeping. There will be time enough time for that on the way home.

Deb

P.S.--anyone with extra GPD drink tickets can drop them off in Hall 13, stand C73 which is, coincidentally, the USGlass stand. We will take it upon ourselves to see they get used.

Glasstec Times 20

2008-10-22T01:44:00.000-07:00

The only thing that could overcome the intense jetlag that overtakes me on trips to Europe is the intense excitement of glasstec. The world's biggest trade fair for the glass and glazing industry is held every two years in Dusseldorf, Germany and attracts the industry from around the world. It is the show's 20th anniversary.

In addition to final stand set-up, yesterday's events included the opening ceremonies as well a number of press conferences and meetings.

One of the nicest part of glasstec for me is getting to see a number of people with whom I have acquaintance around the world, including members of the world glazing press. It's always great to see colleagues who publish glass-related magazines from other parts of the world.

The number of exhibitors at glasstec is up this year compared to 2006. It seems to me that the number of U.S. visitors, as well as those from Asia, is down. (My colleague Charles Cumpston thinks the U.S. contingent is about the same in size so we will have to wait for the final numbers to see who is right.) While a reduction in U.S. attendance would be understandable, we think the increase in glass shows in Asia might be enabling attendees from that part of the world to stay closer to home.

U.S. visitors walking the massive trade show floors (that's right, plural, think GlassBuild times 5) included Bill O'Keeffe and his group from SAFTI as well as Cliff Monroe and his colleague from Arch who stopped by our booth the first day five minutes after the show opened. Doug Canfied of Casso-Solar is exhibiting in the North American pavillion, and said he had a good day yesterday.

The weather hasn't been too bad. Monday was a beautiful day and for the show's start yesterday it was normal Dusseldorf weather--a bit rainy and overcast. But it doesn't matter much since we are not outside any way.

If you are at glasstec, please stop by our stand in Hall 13 C73. Here's a video review of Day One. More later.

Promising Start

2008-10-07T09:46:00.001-07:00

He seemed like a nice, sincere young man, about the age a son of mine would be. So I was trying to be positive. “Surely,” I had opined, “ there must be something good about Vegas. After all there seem to be lots of pretty single girls here…”

“No,” he said sadly. “All the women around here are –look, you seem like a nice lady, so let me say it this way, they are all ambitious. All the women around here are looking for a .. How do I say it? .. a sugar daddy. When you meet them the first thing they ask is ‘what are you going to do for me? Will you buy me a house? Will you get me a ---let me say it this way--will you pay for a medical procedure to enhance my looks? (I told you his English was good.)

Not quite expecting that answer and not sure what to say, I said nothing. It was my fault, I’d asked the question.

“They are all show and promise,” he said shaking his head “They are all show and promise but they leave you with nothing,” he repeated as I paid him and sprinted it out of the cab.

Show and promise. Got me thinking.

People go to shows for the promise of what that show may offer: the new customer to sell; the new product see; the new technique to bring back home; the newest information to learn. Shows bring promise and day one of GlassBuild America was no exception.

There were notable changes from the 2007 event in Atlanta and 2006 when it was last in Vegas. The number of exhibitors is down significantly, and many exhibitors had rented smaller amounts of space than in previous years. Companies involved primarily in residential fenestration are scarce, and the machinery displays are much smaller than in previous year. The presence of actual glass manufacturers and major fabricators is also light, but that was not unique to this year’s event.

Yet there was promise. The number of attendees on Day One exceeded the dire predictions of most. The floor was very busy for the main hours in the middle of the day and some exhibitors, such as Contact Industries and Erdmann, had neat new products and heavy traffic all day. Major sponsor Edgetech did a great job marketing its “Edgetech University” in a stand complete with grammar school writing tablets and employees dressed in shirts that said “Edgetech University.” They always do a great job getting their message out.

So on a day when the Dow plunged in a downward spiral and cable TV networks screamed gloom and doom, there was at least in Las Vegas for a few hours, show and promise.

Strip of Nervousness

2008-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

“I hate it here,” the taxi driver tells me on the way from the airport to the Hilton yesterday afternoon. Okay,.I think, it’s a short ride, I’ll bite. “If you hate it so much, and don’t mind me asking,” I say, “then why are you here?”

My question elicits a long response. He tells me he moved here from Turkey three years ago and I congratulate him on his English, which is excellent. He came here because he heard Vegas was always busy, and there was always work. He bought a house right away with “one of those mortgages on the news now”. But, just yesterday, he says, they announced the tourism dollars are down 50 percent from the same month last year. There is no work. He is making half what he made last year at this time. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble and I now I have a house I can’t sell,” he says “ I hate it. I am very worried. I don’t sleep so good at night.”

Welcome to the club. There’s an aspect of nervousness and unease among those attending the GlassBuild America Show in Vegas this week. The effects of the economy can be seen everywhere—even in the cab you take from the airport.

It will be an interesting show, I think, so check back for more reports this week. I don’t know whether to feel really good or really bad about the following fact, but I am going to share it with you anyway: this is actually my 27th consecutive year of attending this show. Sometimes I was working at it, sometimes exhibiting, one or two years just attending but I haven’t missed a one since the first I attended in 1981 when I was barely out of college.. (Besides my esteemed colleague, Charles Cumpston, who has the exact same record, I’d be curious to know if there’s anyone else out there who has a longer consecutive attendance.).

I remember when the show was in March (much better I think for the industry), when it went to family-friendly cities like San Antonio and all the stories I have from things that have happened during it. (I’ll put them in that hypothetical book I write some day.).

So what, besides a nervous industry on a nervous strip, will we find this year?

I lean back in the cab. We are stuck in traffic due to an accident and my short trip has gotten longer. I look at the cabby and around the cab. He has no wedding ring, no pictures of a wife or kids around. “Okay,” I say, “you don’t gamble, you don’t drink and you don’t smoke, but what about girls? Surely Las Vegas is good place to meet women, no?”

Oh he gave me an answer all right, but I’ll save it for next time….

Fixing the NFRC

2008-09-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

Our report on the most recent meeting of the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) is included in the September issue of USGlass magazine. The decision-making process continues to be the source of major frustration for most in the know in the glass industry. In fact, some leading members of the glass industry are considering boycotting the next meeting. And Greg Carney of the Glass Association of North America (GANA) and Marg Webb of the Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA) have already withheld their votes in protest at a previous meeting.

Those in the contract glazing industry who got involved early have long since seen their input ignored. Contract glaziers are among our industry’s busiest segment and most are happy to provide their input when they feel it will be considered as part of the democratic process. But they will not be part of a charade that does not have an open and fair process. And anyone who thinks that there is democracy going on in the NFRC’s process has either drunk the kool-aid or been fed a great line—or maybe dinner—by NFRC officials.

Yet, there is a way to fix this. There is a way to make sure the process is open and democratic and that all parties involved from every industry segment or any “stakeholder group” (as NFRC calls them) feels the same way. There is a way to ensure that participants have no quarrel with the process and no market segment feels cheated. Here’s how: NFRC should develop its programs in accordance with the ASTM or ANSI methods for consensus standards development.

These methods provide a sound, proven method for developing documents. The procedures have been properly vetted for fairness and balance. Since NFRC professes a commitment to openness, the adoption of such procedures should only be welcome by the group’s board of directors. And the development of all procedures, policies, approaches, certifications or other items would no longer be suspect.

If an effort such as this is not made, the commercial glass industry’s buy-in will never occur. At a recent GANA meeting one participant was so upset by the NFRC’s antics that he said he plans to add a separate line on all his estimates and invoices called “NFRC compliance fees.” “I want the architects—and everyone else who sees this estimates—to know right away how much this is costing them,” he said. NFRC’s use a proven consensus-building process might also help advance the acceptance of its work without such measures.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Sailing Away for a Day

2008-08-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Our office always tries to take a day or two each summer to do something a little different. We get just a few days a year without a magazine in production and used to hold the stereotypical “office picnic” on one of those days.

A few years ago, we tried something a little different and went to a local amusement park—King’s Dominion for those of you who know Virginia—and it was a great hit. Last year, we spent the day at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. We got to see the new baby panda, the refurbished reptile house, one very tired looking sloth bear and a great variety of unique mammals. The best part of that trip for me was watching the looks on the faces of the kids of our employees as they got to see the animals. I have some great pictures of the Taffera girls (daughters of DWM publisher Tara Taffera) at the petting zoo that I treasure.

Our venues are always chosen by majority vote and this year, a trip to Tangier Island (http://www.tangierisland-va.com/island) won.

If you’ve never heard of Tangier Island, you are not alone. It is a 1 ½ mile wide and three-mile long island at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It was one he first places settled by the British in the 1600s and was relatively isolated until the 1960s. Some of it older residents still speak the King’s English with a decidedly English accent that is neat to hear. The only businesses are crabbing, fishing and a little tourism. Tangier Island has just over 600 residents, 20 cars, a ton of golf carts. It has no post office, no bank and ferry service twice a day to both Virginia and Maryland.

Everything used for the construction of buildings there comes by boat. Glass is brought in via boats from three glass companies that work on the island and is rolled in carts from ship to site. “Most of the glass that comes in is already in windows,” explained Captain Billy, captain of our vessel, Liquid Assets http://www.captbillyscharters.com/charters.asp), and our tour guide. “None of the pieces that come over are too big because of the transportation. You just don’t see large expanses of glass.”
Pity, because the views are beautiful.

After a day of visiting the island (and, boy, did we pick a hot day) we all gathered at Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House (http://tangierisland-va.com/cheshouse/) for an indescribably delicious meal of Tangier fare, including crab cakes made with crab so fresh I was expecting it to crawl away.

The islanders were so hospitable that they opened the new Tangier History Museum (http://tangierisland-va.com/water_trail_brochure/) especially for us in the early evening. We saw a very moving film about the history of the island and how the Chesapeake, their way of life and their livelihood is being destroyed by environmental irresponsibility. It gave life and new cause to everything we are trying to do in the office to be green. We then boarded Liquid Assets and enjoyed a peaceful trip—and beautiful sunset—on our way home.

Photo Captions (from top to bottom)

Views of Tangier Island
The Key Communications team enjoys a visit to the Tangier History Museum
Art director Dawn Campbell, chair of Key's activities committee with Captain Billy (right) and first mate Tony (left) on Tangier Island.

The Thrill of the Scoop

2008-07-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Some of the most enjoyable times of my life were those I spent working on my college newspaper. In those days, issues came out twice a week, tabloid size, anywhere from 32 to 64 pages an issue. The Student Press was quite an undertaking, considering it was produced totally by students who stayed up all night twice a week to make sure the issue got done. Then, as the sun came up, we’d draw straws to see who would drive it the 90 miles to the printer. This practice continued until one of the editors nearly feel asleep behind the wheel on the way back and we decided to hire a driver—who was henceforth listed in the masthead as “chauffeur.”

Being at the university and working at the newspaper was the most fun I ever had in my life. You might think I’d be bittersweet about it now and long for those times again, but I don’t. That’s probably because I enjoy working for USGlass quite a bit, and also because I knew what I gift I’d been given when I had it.

Anyway, I digress. At the newspaper, I worked with a lot of talented award-winning young people who went on to write for the New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Globe, Gannett News Service, Forbes, Rolling Stone—you get the idea. I still enjoy reading their bylines and seeing their names on the wires.

So I had to smile when I saw this story yesterday written by Jill Coffey, night editor of the New York Daily News. Jill might have learned how to be a night news editor by working all those late nights at our student paper, but she became part of a story earlier this week when a yet a third person decided to climb up the exterior of the New York Times building.

So THIS is how the News scooped the Times on a story about the Times own building, which I know Jill absolutely loved and HERE is how they are going to fix it. Yet again, it’s always about the glass.

P.S.: Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve checked in, but truth is, this is my slow travel time. I enjoyed a July with very few trips in it but I am getting ready to get back on the road this week.

Business Lessons Sealed With a Kiss

2008-06-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

My “baby” sister is only two and one-half years younger than me, and she lives just one hour from central Pennsylvania. So, when it was decided I’d be going to the summer meeting of the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA); there seemed a plan to be hatched. We’d both arrive at the Hotel Hershey in Pennsylvania late Saturday, have dinner and do a little sightseeing Sunday morning before she headed back to Delaware when the meeting started.

After all, why would AAMA have a meeting in the middle of an amusement-park, tourist-attraction-land if they didn’t expect us to check it out?

Well, I found out why. In the course of our half-day sightseeing, which included the obligatory visit to Chocolate World and the exquisite Hershey Gardens, we toured the Hershey Museum. Yes, it seemed a little scattered with its three separate collections (Native American, German Dutch and Hershey history) but what it really provided was a reminder of just what entrepreneurs do and how much of a difference one person can make to the business landscape.

Milton Hershey grew up in a household of very modest means and was sent to New York in his late teens to become a candy maker’s apprentice. A failure at the candy business in three cities, he returned to this area in Pennsylvania and set up shop there. He achieved some notoriety in standardizing the manufacture of caramel candies and become known for them. Then he set his sights on chocolate, then a strictly European delicacy. He then began incorporating milk (thus keeping local farmers in business) and sugar.

Convinced that there would be a market for “milk” chocolate, he sold his caramel business in 1900 for one million dollars. Let me write that again. That’s one million dollars in 1900 (approximately equal to $25 million today). He used the proceeds of the sale to perfect his milk chocolate process and the Hershey bar was born. Hershey’s Kisses followed a few years later and still look the same today—except their price has increased considerably from the half penny they were in 1903.

Hershey eventually made the decision to sell the caramel company and to concentrate on making only a few products on a massive scale, thus turning candy making from a local “mom and pop” industry in a nationwide one. Hershey’s entrepreneurialism led to mass production in an industry where it had never existed before and led to massive changes in an industry.

Hershey was quite the philanthropist in his day, using his profits to build the town of Hershey, then to build the attractions to bring tourists to town and fund a wide variety of causes including disadvantaged youth.

Of course, Milton Hershey is basically canonized everywhere you go in Hershey. One display in the museum quotes an employee of the 1930s saying how working at Hershey was really just fun all day, while the display on the opposite side of the room mentions the strike of 1937 and the subsequent unionization of Hershey’s plants. But leave it to those folks at AAMA to remind us how great success in business can be built on a conviction and a bowl of beans. Cacao beans.

Please visit http://www.usgnn.com/ for updates about the AAMA meeting.

Memorial Day Travels

2008-05-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

Even though Memorial Day weekend is known as a great travel weekend, sometimes the time you spend on the road is all in your head. My trip started when USGlass editor Megan Headley asked if I would rustle up some old issues of the magazine. The June issue of USGlass includes our 25th Annual New Products Guide and Megan wanted to scour the very first New Products Guides for ideas and artwork. Megan knew that I (like so many of you, I am sure) keep a complete set of every issue of USGlass magazine in “archives” in my basement (fear not, we have a true offsite archives as well) and that borrowing the issues wouldn’t involve more than a trip to the cellar for me.

Now Megan is usually spot-on, but when she suggested this would be a quick and simple task, she was dead wrong. Once I’d brought the requisite issues out, I just had to go through them. So I sat down with a cup of tea, and away I went through a time tunnel.

What a trip it was! Names that I hadn’t heard for years kept flowing through my brain: PTI had a new adhesive … Tempglass (long since acquired) was advertising “flat, clear distortion-free tempered glass” (funny, we have an article about this in the June ’08 issue too) and Hordis Brothers was heralding the machinery systems to make it. Vistawall trumpeted its 11 locations round the country … PPG was celebrating Solarcool’s 15th anniversary … Interpane was announcing its first plant in the United States, to be located in Deerfield, Wis.; the company planned to make a little-known, misunderstood product called low-emissivity glass.

I saw the names of companies that had faded away or gotten out of the industry, such as Ateco and Morton Thiokol. Binswanger was hiring “contract management professionals,” and the Flat Glass Marketing Association was selling its Glazing Manual (in this case, the name of the organization has changed, but its Glazing Manual is still going strong). An ad for J. Sussman had a picture of daughter Erin in it—in diapers—and Glass Medic was explaining this thing called “glass repair.” Glastec ’88 (one “s” in it then) was being heavily promoted as attracting 30,000 attendees and being held in Dusseldorf, West Germany. In a few months, more than 60,000 will attend glasstec ’08 (double s) in a unified Germany.

There were some constants too, such as Palmer Mirro-Mastic, C.R. Laurence and USGlass itself. The only primary manufacturer that bridged the time warp was PPG, but I wonder how much longer that will last. Pilkington didn’t own LOF yet, AGC didn’t own AFG, Cardinal wasn’t a manufacturer and Guardian was still a very quiet company, though you can see in the news stories that it was growing fast.

The people in the news gave me pause as well. Don Goldfus had just been named chairman of Apogee Enterprises … a guy named Rick Wright of Hordis Brothers had been appointed chair of the Glazing Committee of the Sealed Insulating Glass Manufacturers Association (SIGMA) … and there was a picture of Rick Cunningham at a trade show …

In 1986, we were just beginning to talk about the idea of the value-added glass products. Well, that’s an idea that took more than 20 years to stick. I don’t think anyone thought then that U.S. manufacturers would finally move toward value-added products because so much of the commodity glass business has moved offshore.

You can see why it was a trip I could take for hours on end. So even though I didn’t use a single gallon of gas this holiday weekend, I went far and away and back again.

Yee-haw!

2008-04-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Glass TEXpo ’08 was a mighty fine event. Nearly 500 industry professionals from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana—along with a smattering of attendees from as far away as Calgary and Pittsburgh—came together for a great two days of education and exhibition. There were three things that made me feel especially good about TEXpo.

First was the number of first-time attendees at the show. I stopped counting at ten, but had at least ten shop owners tell me that this year’s TEXpo was the first industry event they’d ever attended. Most mentioned how hard it is to get time away from their shops and how having something relatively close by made it so they could attend. That gives me a really good feeling because it was one of our goals when we started providing regional education in 1994.
I also was heartened to see a number of new products introduced at the show. One exhibitor from Germany showed a great new glass handler that was no bigger than the palm of a large hand. (CLICK HERE for more information.)

Another exhibitor from Japan showed examples of 3D glass that mimics a beveled appearance at a fraction of the cost. (CLICK HERE for more information. ). And first-time exhibitor Techniform had this to say about TEXpo:

But most memorable moment came toward the end of the first day of the show, when Lou Green of A1 Glass Co. in Beaumont, Donald Day of the Texas Glass Association in Victoria, Texas, and Bob Lawrence of Craftsman Fabricated Glass in Houston got together and reminisced about the formation of the Texas Glass Association (which co-sponsors the event) and the various and assorted characters they’ve come to know in the industry and the association over the years. Boy, do they have some stories. I could have listened to their colorful tales all night, but had some business to attend to just as they were talking about a former employee who had been married 11 times.

As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas.

Glass TEXpo will return to San Antonio in Spring 2010. I am already looking forward to it.

P.S. After TEXpo was over on Saturday afternoon, Tina Czar and I headed back to Dallas (see previous blog). Let me just say that even though Hertz advertises its GPS as “Never Lost,” it shouldn’t, that downtown Dallas is lovely at midnight and that when the shuttle bus driver looks at you with nine bags, laptops, cameras, LCDs and boxes between you and says “take the elevator to the skywalk,” you shouldn’t listen. The skywalk is actually three long flights up and three long flights down. The bus driver is probably still laughing at us now.

San Antonio Bound … and Princesses for a Night

2008-04-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

“You know, we have three or four things we have to do in Dallas,” said our ace event planner Tina Czar to me one afternoon nearly six months ago. “Why don’t we go to Glass TEXpo a day earlier than usual, do our stuff and drive down to San Antonio?” Now the fact that Tina was planning this nearly half a year ago would surprise anyone until they met Tina. She is planner extraordinaire and that means she plans well, often—and early. She was to handle everything, except our leg from Dallas to San Antonio. That was my job.

So I decided to show Tina that I could plan a few things of my own. And, while not six months ahead of time, I did decide SIX WHOLE DAYS ahead of time that I wanted us to spend the night in Waxahachie. I’d been there a number of times before. (USGlass has a great advertiser there, U.S. Aluminum) and been enchanted by the old downtown feeling, the magnificent Courthouse (at right) and the beautiful homes along Main Street. It would be a straight shot from there down to San Antonio.

There are no chain motels in the old downtown area of Waxahachie. So I started looking at bed and breakfasts (B&B) and found one right on Main Street. Now, I’ve never stayed in a B&B before, but knowing Tina would be with me gave me the courage to try something new. And we both have spent more than our fair share of time in Hampton Inns and other assorted motels so I thought such a visit would be something different for a change. So I booked two rooms at the Chaska House on Main Street in Waxahachie. If nothing else, Tina would know I’d done my homework.

You know the drill. We’d both gotten up around 4 a.m., driven to the airport, taken our respective flights, got the car, had the meetings and driven almost 90 minutes in rush hour when we arrived there around 7 p.m. We were greeted by the notes of some very peaceful music escaping out of the home’s beautiful wrap-around porch. Our hosts, Linda and Louis Brown, had raised their family in the house, then moved out for a year, gutted and had converted to a B&B nearly 20 years ago. It’s an exquisite home.

Louis is a retired engineer and Linda, who hails from Atlanta, was kind enough to show me some of the unique glass features in the home. Each guest room had a unique glass door leading inside to a distinct theme. (One room, the Mark Twain, looked like the inside of a treehouse). I slept in the Teddy Roosevelt room, with a skylight directly over the bed (at left). “That’s got to leak,” I said to myself as I eyed the room with trepidation. It didn’t. The heavy rain and hail storm that woke me in the middle of the night proved that.

In the morning, Linda showed me the front door of the house. It was an almost full glass door (at right) with exquisitely beveled edges on all four side—and a big bullet hole right at eye level. “Some boys got real mischievous one night and shot it will a B-B gun,” said Linda. “We were going to replace it, then we found out it wasn’t just glass, it was crystal, real crystal. We decided to keep it as is.”

If you have never stayed in a B&B before it does feel a bit strange in the beginning—like you are intruding in a stranger’s home. But the graciousness and hospitality of the innkeepers quickly overtake any such feelings and their desire to see you have a good time is so genuine it’s easy to feel like family quickly.

“No, you sit,” said Linda to Tina (who had emerged from the Great Gatsby room as refreshed as Daisy Buchanan herself) as she tried to help clear the breakfast dishes, “you both are princesses while you are here.”

But, alas, it was time to go.

Louis and Linda were great hosts. Linda even tracked me down after I left an important folder behind and was kind enough to take it to Fedex it to me. I know, I know—poor planning on my part. Please don’t tell Tina when you see her.

-Deb

P.S.: We have made it to San Antonio now and are staying at the historic Menger Hotel, where TR himself recruited his Rough Riders (and check out that unique skylight!). I hope you get a chance to join us here at Glass TEXpo Friday and Saturday. It’s going to be a great event. See you there.

What’s the Story, Deb?

2008-04-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of people, I usually end up working over the weekend when it’s quiet and I can catch up (and write things like this). It’s just a usual part of a routine. So taking a whole day to play hookey is an unusual occurrence and, to my mind, sure better be worth it.

Well this past Saturday, it was. The main purpose of my trip was to visit the Nationals' new stadium and see the first (though exhibition) game played there. (It’s a nice stadium, but more on this another time.) So I made an outing of it and spent the whole day tooling around Washington D.C. like a tourist. I had a great time in the process.

First, I got to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. I'd never seen them before. Now you may laugh at this, but it’s been my experience that most people never play tourist in their native land. I grew up in New York (but don’t hold that against me) and have never been to the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t see the Empire State Building until just a few years ago when visiting friends from Spain dragged me there with them. I never went to the top of the World Trade Center. It’s just that, when you live somewhere, you think you’ll get there someday, but without a sense of urgency (or a guest from out-of-town) someday never comes.

I’ve lived in the D.C. area for 28 years and that’s how long it took to get me to see the area’s famous cherry blossoms. I should have gone sooner. They are well worth the visit.

From there, I headed over the 42nd annual Smithsonian Kite Festival on the mall. The mall is not your typical mall. Instead, it’s a rectangular area with the Capitol at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the other. The buildings of the Smithsonian make up the other two sides, and the White House sits among them as well. The Washington Memorial is sort of in the middle of the rectangle. It was great windy day when I visited, and there were thousands of kites of assorted shapes, sizes and heights billowed through the sky. I had to laugh at the image of the kites flying about the IRS Building, the Justice Department and the other bureaus. It is the one day a year you can tell the government to go fly a kite and mean it.

After that high-faluting fun, my day turned serious. I was lucky to be one of a select group of journalists who was invited to tour the new “Newseum” scheduled to open on April 11. The Newseum is a 250,000 square foot museum dedicated to news reporting that moved its headquarters from cramped quarters in Virginia to a brand new location on Pennsylvania Blvd. (Here’s some info.) The most moving item in the Newseum is the actual broadcast tower that once stood atop the World Trade Center and rode down 107 floors to the ground as the building collapsed. It is such a mass of twisted broken pieces and wires fused with molten metal that it takes your breath away when you come upon it. A somber reminder, as the Newseum wanted, of how important news is every day.

Yet what was the first thing I saw when a entered the cavernous building? A lite of broken glass in a railing. “Oh,” I thought I’d murmured to myself, “that’s a story.” Now I say “thought” I’d whispered the comment, but even whispering “that’s a story” in group of journalists is enough to get 15 of them to stop talking and quickly look at you then decide to follow you to the glass. It was a pretty humorous sight.

In fact, a lot of the glass looked like it had just been put in and, despite the preview, a lot more had to be put in. One person who’d joined the parade commented that the glass guys didn’t seem to have their act together. No, I explained, it’s probably that the glass guys are always among the last in the construction process and have to make up for everyone else being behind. You can’t assume it’s their fault, although the unique design of the railings make me think the glass guys have a lot to do in the next few days.

And so you can see how, for me, even on a crisp day in D.C. spent playing tourist, the story is that the glass is always the story.

What A Response …

2008-03-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

Boy, are you angry.

Not since I wrote about my father’s love of hockey have I seen such emotion pour forth in response to something I’d written. In this case, though, instead of sharing stories about their dads and their hobbies, our readers are sharing their concern and anger.

I’d venture to say I’ve heard from more than 100 people about their concern with what the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) is attempting to inflict on the glass industry and the methods they are using to do so.

In fact, some are so upset that that they are forming a coalition to fight against the group. I’ve heard suggestions in these last weeks of everything from public relations campaigns to legal action. Keep checking back to this blog—and to our daily newsletter, USGNN.com—for more on this in the next week or so.

What’s interesting to me, too, is that not one person has said they are against some type of energy coding and testing. The problem is how the program is being developed and the lack of the democratic process being used to do so.

A Crying Sham(e)

2008-03-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it …”

It is time for members of the glass industry to re-evaluate their participation in the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) with careful thought. The NFRC board of directors continues to ignore the votes of the Council regarding the Component Modeling Approach (CMA) as well as a variety of other topics.

The NFRC likes to create the illusion that the commercial glass industry is a participant in the process, but its participation is just that—an illusion.

Instead, the NFRC board of directors has ignored the voices of the commercial glass industry on the Council and continues to do as it wishes without regard for the opinions of stakeholders.

What makes the effort especially distressing is the perception that certain members of NFRC continue to advance. They say that NFRC is a participatory Council open to the opinions of all. If participatory means you can talk, but won’t be heard, then it is. If participatory means you can vote, but that vote will be overridden by the board, then it is. If participatory means anything beyond this, then NFRC is a sham and it’s time to call it so.

The participatory illusion is being created in an attempt to make other groups—most notably architects—believe that the CMA was developed with input from the commercial glass industry and, the story would go, since the glass industry was involved with its development, shouldn’t architects embrace it as well? The individuals and groups from the glass industry involved in NFRC form a very well respected list. But they are attempting to hold back an NFRC
locomotive called the Railroad Express and that is an impossible task.

Reality is not perception. These pages have continued to monitor NFRC and have seen instances in which input has been ignored and votes overridden. If the NFRC board does not begin to follow the wishes of its committees, then those committees are meaningless and those who serve on them merely shills in a public relations war. If our industry’s voices cannot be heard within the Council, then our industry should recognize the Council as flawed and move on to a better form of governance. It should not allow itself to be used as pawn in a game of public relations.

The words above ring as true today with regard to the NFRC as they did the day Thomas Jefferson wrote them in the Declaration of Independence. When government, or regulators, ignore the will of the governed, or regulated, it is time for independence from the oppressor. NFRC members in the commercial glass industry will want to evaluate whether or not being part of the Council really serves a purpose. As Jefferson wrote:

“… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”