Education was the keystone of the Flat Glass Manufacturers Division meeting.

Chairman Mauro DiFazio, of Visteon, set the tone at the beginning of the afternoon-long session when he said, "Lots was accomplished in the past year."

(He also noted that a new member had been added in the last year-Saint Gobain-and that he hoped to have an additional member-Vitro-in the coming year.

The big education effort was the development of a Power Point presentation, which serves as an introduction to glass.
The division plans to have the program in the booth at the AIA show in May in Las Vegas and to allow architects to receive education credit on the show floor.

It was also decided to make the program available to other GANA members so that they can start making preparations to give the presentation to architects throughout the country.

A decision was also made to make the program available on-line to allow architects to take the course that way. A test has to be developed in order for this to be done, and no fixed time was set for having the on-line version functional.

"What do we want to do next on education?" DiFazio asked the group. "We've done flat glass 101, now what is 102?"

Echoing that, Steve Farrar added, "Let's talk about where we go from here." He stated that the group needs to be more visible to the users of glass-architects. He cited the Michael Duffy article in the January issue of USGlass (What Architects Want: An Open Letter to Members of the Glazing Community). "What do architects want from glass? That's what we have to find out," he told the group.

"We have to go out to the architects and give them the information they need," he added. "We have to give them information about the issues they are wrestling with-the types of glass that are available." He suggested putting together another AIA credit program on solving new problems architects are facing as it concerns glass.