July 2022, From the CEO: The Power of Partnerships

By Brian Pallasch, CAE

Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, IIBEC

IIBEC’s vision—to be “universally recognized as the leading authority in building enclosure consulting”—can be achieved only through partnerships with members, manufacturers, Chapters, and peer associations. These partnerships provide IIBEC with new ideas, insights, momentum, and member value. As we strive to reach that vision, IIBEC has renewed its focus on partnerships—and the benefits are starting to be realized by IIBEC members.

PARTNERSHIPS WITHIN IIBEC

Many different levels of partnerships inside IIBEC provide value to members. Advancing our mission and strategic plan is achieved through partnerships among IIBEC volunteers, staff, and active committees. As examples:

• The Education Committee is currently working to update a number of core IIBEC education offerings, including a new reroofing course and a building enclosure commissioning course.
• The Advocacy Committee has been focused on creating a bedrock of public policies that will allow IIBEC to engage in issues that affect the building enclosure consulting industry.
• The Codes and Standards Committee worked for the last 18 months to craft a set of code change proposals, collaborating with industry colleagues to ensure success at the recent code hearings in Rochester, New York.
• The Industry Liaison Committee, formed in 2020, provides industry, facility management, and associate members a forum to enhance the overall body of industry knowledge and provides input to IIBEC leadership regarding trends and issues in the industry.
• Also formed in 2020, the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force has been working to ensure that IIBEC is a welcoming organization to all building enclosure professionals. Its efforts have focused on educating IIBEC members, creating a resource page on iibec.org, and reviewing the IIBEC Code of Ethics in partnership with the Ethics Committee.

The thread that flows through these efforts is the partnership between IIBEC members and staff to advance the goals of IIBEC for the benefit of building enclosure profession.

INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS

IIBEC continues to work with outside organizations to advance our mission. Recently we partnered with the National Roofing Contractors Association to host Roofing Day in Washington, DC, where 12 national organizations and 250 industry professionals came together to educate elected officials on pressing issues for the roofing industry.

In November, IIBEC will be partnering with the Architectural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers to produce the 2022 Building Enclosure Symposium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are looking forward to a new format with dual education tracks, 30 exhibitors, and 300 building enclosure professionals participating to learn emerging technologies; codes and standards; specifications; forensics; and restoration.

Starting in 2021, in an effort to provide more relevant industry data to IIBEC members, we partnered with other industry associations on Market Index for Reroofing Survey. The survey—an industry-wide effort to collect information about the reroofing market—is spearheaded by a coalition of trade associations (see page 44 for 1st quarter results). The next quarterly survey opens on July 5. You can fill out the survey at bit.ly/RoofingSurvey.

IIBEC has also been doing outreach to other industry groups to explore partnerships where appropriate. These include Adhesives and Sealants Council, Construction Management Association of America, Construction Specifications Institute, Lightning Protection Institute, and National Women in Roofing. Additionally, we have begun efforts to better educate owners groups about the benefits of engaging IIBEC members when addressing building enclosure issues. To that end we have begun discussions with the Building Owners and Managers Association International and the Community Associations Institute about how to work with IIBEC members.

Finally, this year I have had the honor of serving as the vice chair of the Consultative Council at the National Institute of Building Sciences. The Consultative Council brings together industry leaders and experts from across the built environment to make recommendations directly to the executive and legislative branches of government to improve our nation’s buildings and infrastructure.

None of this success is possible without a key partnership—the one between the IIBEC Board of Directors who provide strategic guidance and the IIBEC staff team who implement the strategic plan and manage the organization.

For IIBEC, this partnership continues to gain strength and meaning as we advance our shared vision for the organization.

As you can see by this quick recap, IIBEC has been focused on using the power of partnerships to advance the mission to be universally recognized as the leading authority in building enclosure consulting.

All the best,