April 24, 2009

Building Envelope

Business plans are top priority for new executive director at Ontario Building Envelope Council

DON PROCTER

correspondent

Putting together new business and marketing plans tops the priority list at the Ontario Building Envelope Council (OBEC) for recently hired executive director Bruce Taylor.

It has been 10 years since the association’s last strategic plan and the new one, initiated by OBEC’s board of directors, will see Taylor make special efforts to get input from the association’s members, who include building scientists to materials suppliers.

“It is really important for us to address the new needs of our membership,” he says.

OBEC’s membership comprises about 250 individuals and 50 companies, including a host of building science firms, suppliers and contractors.

The time is right for the association to grow quickly because the building and design industry is realizing how important building envelopes are. Municipalities, engineers and architects are taking it a lot more seriously.

“We’re right in the hub of everything,” says Taylor, who was hired Nov. 1.

One of the executive director’s objectives is to keep the council’s members up to speed on the latest news and events in the field.

Under Taylor’s watch, expect to see an updated website, with news and relevant issues from other associations and media posted regularly, including stories taken from OBEC’s own twice-annual, Pushing The Envelope magazine.

He will also post blogs online on pertinent subjects and the website will feature write-ups on speakers at the association’s regular dinner meetings.

Since Taylor retired from The Res Group of Companies, he has done extensive volunteer association work with the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute. He is a recent graduate of the OBEC’s Building Science Specialist of Ontario program operated through the University of Toronto.

He teaches a course part-time in the architectural technology department of Humber College that covers the building envelope, from foundations to penthouse. It includes such materials as masonry, curtainwalls, precast concrete, EIFS and crinkle tin metal walls.

While Taylor’s post is a one-year term at OBEC, the position is renewable at the discretion of the board of directors.

“We look forward to working with him and his organization and advancing the interests of the building envelope in general and communicating the interests of our respective industries,” says John Garbin, president of the EIFS Council of Canada.

“We’re working on a common purpose. Things that happen in their arena impact us and vice versa,” says Garbin, adding that recently he was a guest speaker at OBEC’s Ottawa chapter where he outlined the Council’s Quality Assurance Program. This spring the EIFS Council will officially launch the QAP, an important issue for anyone working in the building envelope industry.

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