Build Confidence by Building Up Your Team

Take a moment to read the article in this issue of Concrete Facts about this year’s recipients of the CFA’s professional awards. As the executive director, it brings me great pride and joy to continue seeing the variety of individuals and companies who provide thought leadership, issue challenges, and roll up their sleeves to drive […]

Twenty Years! Where Does Time Go?

This spring marks the completion of twenty years serving as a staff member for the Concrete Foundations Association.  Having received an invitation in early 2000 to consider a change of career focus, I could never have imagined the diverse world that I would soon move into, one where every day is marked with a different […]

Turning the Page

When was the last time you read a really good book of the page-turner variety? Each page is turned more quickly than the previous one. An anticipating pace races you deeper into the plot, the action, the historical moment, or the truth you are seeking. With that picture in mind, consider the page turning taking […]

Amazing Leaders…Amazing Minds!

This past October, the Board of Directors completed a three-day Strategic Planning event. The first such effort since 2012, our collective energies were still focused on the same general sense of goals and strategies, though constantly adapting to fit the needs of the membership and the industry. In nearly a decade that plan had been […]

The Times They Are a-Changin’

I have had this tumultuous and famous Bob Dylan ballad playing in my head for weeks now, as change is perhaps more noticeable during this season than during any other time of year. Color, temperature, atmosphere — all is evidencing a transformation. Serious storms, raging fires, a planet in stress — I wonder if Dylan […]

Summer is here!

I can scarcely believe that I’m uttering that statement. Where have the months gone? Technically speaking, it is still spring for me — but you will be reading this in the summer and wondering where the first half of the year has gone. Some stayed or worked from home, most pressed forward as essential businesses, […]

Letter From the Director

Fear vs Caution We are now gripped by the global news of COVID-19, and we are being asked to remain flexible and nimble in our reactions and expectations. This pandemic is reaching into every aspect of our worlds, and, no doubt, you can already list numerous disruptions to your businesses and personal lives. One of […]

Are You Willing to Reach Into Your Stocking?

In seemingly a blink of an eye, we have gone from our Concrete Foundations Convention in July, through the ACI Fall Convention in Cincinnati, and promptly right through Christmas and New Year’s Eve. While I am writing this a couple of weeks before that actually happens, I realize you are reading this after it has […]

Letter From the Director

New Year, Mid-Year—We Keep On Keeping On Every once in a while, it strikes me that I start talking about the new year while in the midst of the current year. Yet, in our everyday lives, autumn ushers in so much newness. In fact, one could really argue that the truest sense of the term […]

Letter From the Director

Code Provisions for Wisconsin – Raising Awareness One of the primary sources of visibility for this Association and for me as Executive Director is the participation and experience we have in the codes arena. Recently, I have been actively engaged with numerous professionals from the state of Wisconsin. I’ve had phone calls and emails from […]