From the Fabricator: The Throwback Blog

Last Friday, I was lucky enough to go to an eighties-themed NBA game featuring Debbie Gibson as the halftime performance. So I was already in “throwback” mode when the e-mail came in from an industry friend with a crazy piece of news from an old nemesis of mine. Yes, the NFRC has returned to the radar like it was 2005 again. Now this little tidbit is nothing like what I battled over for years, and I have moved on, being too much of a fan of Tom Herron, NFRC’s excellent senior manager of communication and marketing, to pick on anything else now that the major battles have passed. But that said, this one was too much not to comment on.

NFRC sent an e-mail to its membership that had chosen to be partners in an Energy Star program. After thanking them for doing this and mentioning how wise and wonderful the decision was, the next paragraph dropped the doozy: “As an Energy Star partner, you have the option to participate in a verification program. However, failure to enroll for verification testing or to respond to requests for products or information in a timely manner will require the National Fenestration Rating Council to inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

Yep, so you have the “option” to participate but if you don't do so, we’re turning in you into the authorities! Ummm, that means you actually don't have the option if you don’t want some muckety muck from the EPA on you. So why not just spell it out: it’s not an option, it’s a requirement. Plain and simple right? I swear, it’s like old times again. It was loose, inconsistent language like this that started the whole fight. I guess it is true that everything old can come back and be new again. I can go on and on, but if I start ranting on NFRC again, I’ll become that crazy outlier blog no one will want to read.

Elsewhere…

• But wait… another one of my old staples is China, and that too hit my radar this week. Legendary technical consultant Greg Carney dropped me a note with a link to a story of the growing amount of vacant skyscrapers in China.  As Greg correctly noted, the scary part is if this issue causes the Chinese government to stop investing in real estate and the glass guys there run out of places to supply, the dumping that could take place in North America could be off the charts. Here’s the link; it is one story to watch.
• Before I go back to 2013, just a heads up on a movie coming out that is based on an incredible, true story from 1994. The movie is called Pain & Gain, and it stars The Rock and Marky Mark Wahlberg. It will surely be made with a Hollywood spin and be a buddy film sort of thing (based on the trailer). However, the true story is so unreal, so amazing, and filled with just mind-blowing twists, it’s a shame it won’t be covered accurately. The story is here. It’s three parts long but worth it when you get a moment.
• And last from the past, a word of congrats to a former co-worker of mine, Howard Holesapple, on his new gig as VP of Sales at Consolidated Glass in New Castle, Pa. Howard is riot, and I'm glad he left his band “Howard and the Holesapples” to stay in the glass industry.
• Before I end, we’ll come to the present for the last item of the week. The news that Grey Mountain’s Consolidated Glass Holdings named a new president and CEO broke on GlassMagazine.com late in the week. I will say the same thing here that I said on my blog when the new CEO at Trulite was announced: I wish them the best of luck, as there’s a bunch of excellent people in the organization. It will surely be interesting to watch how this progresses.

Read on for links and clip of the week...

The author is founder of Sole Source Consultants, a consulting firm for the building products industry that specializes in marketing, branding, communication strategy and overall reputation management, as well as website and social media, and codes and specifications. E-mail him at MaxP@SoleSourceConsultants.com.

The opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Glass Association, Glass Magazine editors, or other glassblog contributors.