Big News

By now, you may have seen or heard that the President and CEO of the National Glass Association, Nicole Harris, announced her retirement. This is massive industry news since Nicole is the leading figure in our space, and her work over her career has been crucial for the industry and many of us in it. Nicole noted she will wrap it all up in June of 2025, so as that gets closer, I’ll be writing something more in-depth as a tribute. Needless to say she was the ultimate in game changers. But for now, it’s just taking it all in (I was stunned when I initially heard) and being grateful for all Nicole has done for me, my family, and our industry. These will not be easy shoes to fill, that is for sure! Congrats, Nicole, on all, and if you missed her announcement, it can be found here.

Elsewhere…

Upcoming 2024 MVP Award winner

Next week, in this space, I will announce the 2024 Glass Industry MVP Award winner, along with the runners-up for the year. I started this program in 2013 to give recognition to folks/companies who go above and beyond for our space, and it’s been a great mix of people & companies from far and wide in our space. Below is the list of past winners and past runners-up. My goal is never to repeat any, and I think once again this year, I’ll be successful in that effort. I admire everyone on this list in one way or another, and I appreciate all they have done and, in many cases, continue to do. I’m excited to unveil who gets the nod in 2024 next week!

Starting with the past winners- your previous MVP’s were: 

2013- Tracy Rogers

2014- CR Laurence

2015- Jon Kimberlain

2016- Chuck Knickerbocker

2017- Joe Erb

2018- Nathalie Thibault

2019- Bill Sullivan

2020- Tim Kelley

2021- Matt Kamper and Steve Dean

2022- Jodi Martinez

2023- Ron Crowl

And the long list of previous Runners Up:

Tom Culp, Mark Silverberg, Ed Zaucha, Mic Patterson, Oliver Stepe, Dr. Helen Sanders, Scott Thomsen, John Wheaton, Rick Wright, Tom O’Malley, The late great Bernard Lax, Garret Henson, Walker Glass, Dip Tech, Kris Vockler, Mike Albert, Thom Zaremba , Urmilla Jokhu-Sowell, SAPA, GCI, Darijo Babic, Cathie Saroka, Felix Munson, Jeff Haber, Glenn Miner, Rob Struble, Greg Oehlers, Courtney Little, Scott Rowe, Rowe Fenestration, Syndi Sim, Dustin Anderson, Casey Anderson, Sam Hill, Bill Daubmann, Keith Daubmann, Dr. Kayla Natividad, Kyle Sword, Adrian Lowenstein, Tom Jackson, Stanley Yee, Chris Phillips, Frameless Hardware Company- FHC Matt Day, Tyler Faulk, Brandon Bellegarde, Jennifer Lang 

So there you go. Next week, we’ll know who’s on the list for 2024!

Latest pod

ICYMI, the latest From the Fabricator pod, is out. This one is getting a lot of play, especially with a lot of future-focused conversation from Scott Smith at LTS and Conley Oster & Gary Chen of Raise Robotics. Product insight from Scott got people going and the possibilities of Raise indeed had an impact. I love the feedback, as always, and I also should’ve noted thanks to Thomas Cornellier of TSI Corporations for introducing me to Conley and Raise. Very cool to be on the cutting edge!!

Watch on YouTube or listen here, or by searching “From the Fabricator” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Note: Next week will be the annual year-end podcast, which is always a solo effort with one major newsmaker/influencer, and I am very excited about that one. Please stay tuned, and thanks again for checking it all out!

Northwest Glass in Iowa

The NGA Member spotlight this week focused on Northwest Glass in Iowa. I was unaware of their challenge from a brutal food this past summer. 

This sums it up:

On June 22, 2024,  70% of our City of Spencer was flooded with 7 feet of water in a national disaster. In a 10-week period, Northwest Glass alongside their employees cleared debris and cleaned four 3,200 square foot buildings and were able to reopen our doors to help the local residents and businesses get re-opened and moved back into their homes. Northwest Glass lost 100% of inventory, 9 company vehicles, all computers and files and yet we refused to give up. We had to replace all the sheetrock, wiring, computer wires, flooring; it was a complete gut job for all four buildings. We are proud to reopen without much assistance. We do have a GoFundMe account set up and appreciate any industry support. 

As an industry, we always step up for others. Please check it out and support and to learn more about the great people at Northwest – here’s the NGA piece.

Glass Magazine review

Glass Magazine review time… the latest issue with the cover on D10 is a good one. Good coverage from GlassBuild and the obvious focus on Division 10 lead the way, but of course, I have my favorites. The fantastic Mary Avery of Tubelite/EFCO/Alumicor & Linetec delivered a great piece on door construction. My guy, Devin Bowman of Technical Glass Products and AD Systems, provided a tremendous resource on the future of glazing. I always have been a fan of Devin’s, and stuff like this is why. Also a very cool dude too.

Ad of the month continues always to be challenging to pick a winner on, but this month, the title goes to PRL for their clean and sharp piece that had the right mix of text and imaging and smart use of the QR code. Good job to the team at PRL on this one!

Delta serving Shake Shack

Last this week… If you are lucky enough to be in the right seat and right flight, you could be served “Shake Shack” food on your next Delta flight. That would surely make the flight go faster, right? If any road warriors get lucky enough to experience this, please let me know. Can’t wait to hear how it is!