Chairman's Message: TALENTED NEXT GENERATION SPARKS ENERGY AND GROWTH

Words: Dick Dentinger

A common need in any venture is the importance of staying open to new strategies, ideas, or risks, as there is a tendency to get too comfortable with the status quo. We witness how an industry or entity is most successful if it makes efforts to keep operations from being stuck in a groove, which may cause a downward trend in performance. Or it may miss opportunities to leap into a rise with tides that will otherwise pass you by. We all go through such a chess game of maneuvers while running our businesses, our sales teams, or our crews. It requires making tough calls and being willing to take risks. The good news is, when these strategies are put in place and the plan works as designed, it is a real pleasure to watch the results blossom into recognizable success.

I wanted to share with you a recent moment where I was able to see yet another example of such success while at the Concrete Masonry Hardscapes Association midyear meetings in Florida. First off, to be clear, CMHA, like the MCAA is aggressively working to grow our masonry industry. At their midyear conference, it was once again evident in their busy schedule and the committees packed full of industry leaders volunteering their company’s time and talent to guide CMHA’s efforts. However, the observation I share with you now is that while at the conference, MCAA’s Jeff Buczkiewicz, Robert Melgaard (MCAA National Director of Youth and Education), Kent Huntley, and I went out for a late lunch with the three technical directors of Concrete Masonry Checkoff. They are Chuck Rotondo, Tino Kalayil, and Lauren Kennedy. Chuck is based in Region 1, covering the Northeast, Tino’s area is Region 3 in the Midwest, and Lauren is working in the Central part of the country in Region 4. It was an absolute pleasure visiting with these three stellar talents. They bring a flawless blend of varying personalities and backgrounds to the workload in front of the checkoff’s important goals. From the perspective of the two contractors at the luncheon (Kent and me) and Jeff and Robert of MCAA, these three Technical Directors are quality finds for the checkoff program. We found them to be a burst of energy injected into an old industry that will help encourage us to push aside some old habits and consider the “why not” rather than the “better not” in the challenge of growing back masonry.

Our lunch started out with us asking them questions, but it quickly became clear that they were hungry to find ways to work better with contractors in pushing masonry as the choice over our competitors. They are challenged with helping to be a resource for technical and design questions at the front end of building designs, as well as trying to help switch or flip buildings from a competing design back to masonry late in the process. They are finding success but see much more potential. One hope they have is to get a broader base of go-to contractors to work directly with when trying to gather regional or market-specific data, as they try to convince others to keep our masonry products at the front of the line. It was very refreshing to see the confidence and boldness in their ideas.

When you think about the history of masonry, it may be impossible to find an industry older than our masonry industry. As such, the ruts we sometimes find ourselves in, or periods of stagnation, may perhaps be harder to grind out of as we try to meet challenges. Having new talent, new ideas, and bold confidence and courage to take on big challenges is critical to charging forward. These three technical directors are going to hit for power on behalf of Checkoff. It’s not surprising at all when you consider all of the talented volunteers made up of stakeholders within our industry that carried the water starting back in 2010 when the producers voted to form the checkoff. And the countless hours of meetings, and lobbying trips to Washington, DC, and then all of the regional groups who have set up the goals and objectives of checkoff to win back more market share for concrete masonry. It’s been a long haul since 2010 when the Checkoff journey began. Which makes it even more exciting to be reassured that the strategies and plans put in place are working as designed, as we are beginning to see so many examples of how the results are now blossoming into absolute success.

Chairman's Message: TALENTED NEXT GENERATION SPARKS ENERGY AND GROWTH

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