Getting Out and About
One of the best things about being the Association of Wall and Ceiling Industry’s president is the opportunities it provides to meet many of you. I’ve just returned from the Annual Fellowship Awards Banquet of the Wall & Ceiling Contractors Assn. of Metro St. Louis in Missouri, and the Hawaii chapter meeting in Las Vegas. […]
What Good Employees Need and Want
Editor’s Note: Our author’s workload has increased so much recently that we are giving him a few months off from writing this column. This give us the chance to bring back some of our old favorites; this one is from August 2002 but still works today! What does it take to retain […]
Errors in Estimating (and How to Avoid Them)
No matter how good you are as an estimator, at some point you will probably experience that sick, gut-wrenching feeling that comes with the discovery of an error in your estimate. These errors and the ways errors in estimates can be made are almost without limitation. Some of the different types of errors I have […]
Bubbling Stucco
I write as a concerned consumer. I’m having a problem with “bubbling and delaminating” of the stucco that was applied to my residence. I’m interested in knowing what may be causing this and what types of warranties the manufacturer and the application contractor usually provide. As a preamble to the answer, I refer […]
Plaster in the Tradition of the Renaissance
“I’ve been around plaster all my life,” says Mark Cline, president of Plaster, Inc., in Garland, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. One of my earliest memories was when I was five years old, I went out on a job with my father and older brother. They were slacking the lime to make the plaster for […]
Building Green: Coming Soon to a School Near You
Survey Reveals That More Than 70 Percent of Executives Believe That Green Buildings Enhance Student Performance and Ability to Retain Teachers … Yet a Lack of Awareness and Misperception of Higher Construction Costs Are Still Primary Obstacles to Building Green Turner Construction Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Turner Corporation, announced the […]
Pulling Off No Small Miracle
An unusual $95 million renovation project completed mid-July 2005 has transformed a 400,000 square foot sports and entertainment arena, Houston’s Compaq Center and home to the Houston Rockets, into the new 600,000 square foot state-of-the-art-facility for world-renowned Lakewood Church. The old Houston landmark that used to host events such as the NBA and WNBA finals, […]
Entertaining Your Customers
How much time should I spend entertaining my customers? Good question. The world of the field salesperson is changing rapidly these days, and everything is in question. The practice of entertaining customers is one of those issues that needs to be rethought. First, let’s consider whether or […]
The Best of 2005
Toward the end of October 2005, we sent an e-mail to some of our readers to ask them for their thoughts on the things they thought were The Best, with one or two Worsts thrown in for good measure. Some of the questions were serious, and some were just injected to spice things up. Some […]