BEC Crowds Come to Las Vegas

Many Glass Association of North America (GANA) members have been at the Rio in Las Vegas since February 13, the start of Glass Week, but since the Building Envelope Contractors (BEC) conference kicked off yesterday the city has been flooded with glazing contractors.

More than 700 attendees have come to the event, and the crowded room during last night’s opening reception seemed to host all of them. Crowds did not dwindle this morning either as the first sessions opened.

Max Perilstein of Arch Aluminum & Glass, BEC Division chairperson, welcomed the audience before turning the stage over to keynote speaker Shep Hyken. Hyken created “moments of magic” for the audience during his talk on creating such moments for customers. As he told his audience, studies have shown that “over 40 percent of satisfied customers don’t come back.” As he explained, those customers are satisfied by satisfactory services, not wowed by exceptional care. Hyken stressed the importance of creating a powerful and positive interaction between the customer and every representative of a company to create an impression that will build not just satisfaction, but loyalty.

Hyken also noted during his keynote address, “People want to do business with people they know, they like and they trust.” Those words seemed to be exemplified by the networking opportunities made available throughout the BEC conference.

Hyken’s magic tricks and advice gave way to more technical sessions later in the morning. Joseph Solinski with Stone & Glazing Consulting presented the audience with a troubling case study during his presentation, “Structural Glazing Survey and Repair.” He walked the audience through the examination of a unitized system with a history of loose glass and leaks, then the eventual testing of 26,000 windows for sealant defects and other problems.

Raj Goyal of Graham Architectural Products next presented information on designing for blasts per the new UFC-DOD standard. “We all have dealt with disasters like water infiltration,” Goyal said, “but in these cases we are designing for life safety.”

His videos of flying glass shards following test explosions impressed upon his audience the importance of following the 2007 document and thoroughly understanding its requirements.

A full afternoon of seminars is scheduled, and the conference continues through tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned to USGNN.com™ for updates.

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