Houston Rocks

The great state of Texas never disappoints and that was the case again this past week when I had the honor of speaking at the Houston Area Glass Association (HAGA) luncheon. Just a tremendous group of people that are so engaged in our space and future.

Among the highlights for me was HAGA awarding four scholarships to college and trade school applicants. I love that this organization, and I know others do as well, is doing this and hopefully it can keep growing and help us eventually attract those folks back into our world.  

Obviously, the people there were a highlight for me, starting with one of my all-time favorites Jacque Freeman of Binswanger Glass. She continues to just dominate out there and that is incredibly cool for me to see. The board of HAGA is a great group and it was nice for me to get to meet and chat with the current president Landon Lovette of Door Control Services. I enjoyed getting to meet a bunch of new people too. RJ Hernandez of Absolute Glass not only had some great insight on our market and the adventures currently, but his company logo and shirt won the day. Kenoel “KB” Burleson and Charlotte Davis of Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope were also new people for me to meet and both were super impressive. Mario Lopez of MI Glass has a heck of a back story and he and his companies are crushing it. Also doing well and nice to finally meet in person was John Dockery of Dockery Fabrication. We were supposed to meet a long time ago and whatever craziness at the time hit and postponed it. Was great to finally make that connection here. YKK AP was well represented, and it was super to chat/meet Julie Freund and Heath Brown from there.  I am sure that is why that brand is so well respected in the area there. And when it comes to respect, big time tap to Terri Gilmore of A3 Glass- everywhere she goes I know the respect and appreciation follows.

Plus seeing folks I have known for years like Dustin and Lindsay Price of Texas Glazing Solutions. They were not wearing the lone star shoes though. Wade Arnold of Quickserv, an amazing presenter in his own right, I think he’s going on an arena tour soon with his presentation. Mike DeBotte of Smartlift, who gave me a great tutorial on the amazing machine he had on site, was a great extra plus. Thanks also to Dorothy Gurka of HAGA for her hospitality and to Kyle Sharp of Sharp Glass and the Texas Glass Association for driving 3 hours to see the presentation, hopefully it was worth it for him! And I know not as fun as shooting up stuff with Andrew Haring but hopefully close!

Elsewhere…

Latest pod

In case you missed it, my latest podcast is up and it is getting incredible feedback. Guests were Anas Al Kassas of INOVUES, Eliot Benor of Building Envelope Testing, and the duo of Tyler Faulk and Brandon Bellegarde of The Drafting Marketplace. Majority of the feedback has been along the lines of “did not know that” in the sort of knowledge nuggets these folks dropped. Thank you for checking it out!

Watch it here or listen here, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google and more!

Shower Door Professionals

The best thing going on Facebook is the Shower Door Professionals group but for many the angle of Facebook was a non-starter. So good news, the great Chris Phillips has brought a version to LinkedIn. So if you are involved anywhere in the shower door chain, this forum is for you. It’ll probably take a minute to replicate the success of the FB version but I have no doubts it will. Check it out and join here.

YKK AP/cove.tool partnership

Good to see the YKK/cove.tool mash up.  Two forward thinking companies and the combo makes sense.  cove.tool has been sending me e-mails for a while and each one takes a dive into how they are helping note energy and carbon performance on a project. Glass Magazine has more details as this connection gets officially announced this week.  No doubt more and more focus is coming to this space in the future.

Something extra

Last week… Those who know me know I love the Buc-ee’s chain. And this article breaks it all down on why. A must stop whenever you can…