Multiple Education Courses in Development by AAMA

Werner Preusker of PVCplus illustrated how the PVC demand in Germany increased gradually from 1990-2006.

Among the topics of interest at AAMA's annual summer meeting in Huntington Beach, Calif., are the educational classes, or learning units, being developed by multiple councils within the association. The five classroom courses under development come from AAMA's aluminum material council, door council, fiberglass material council, glass material council and another one relating to blast/AAMA 510 certification.

According to Janice Charletta, AAMA's director of marketing and membership, there's been a lot of interest to convert the classroom courses to online versions.

The association will also be releasing its Tool Kit, an interactive CD explaining AAMA certification.

"It's a critical component of the campaign," says Charletta.

Attendees enjoyed an interesting presentation called Benefits of Vinyl: From Defense to Promotion by Werner Preusker of PVCplus, Initiative of the PVC Industry in Bonn, Germany. Preusker shared his insight and experience with promoting vinyl in Europe.

The PVCplus campaign's goal is to promote the benefits by emotional images and to create sympathy to a targeted audience of decision makers in economy and politics.

Benefits of vinyl, according to Preusker, is that it is durable, smooth surface, low maintenance, can be made in a variety of forms and is the number one polymer for windows, pipes and cables worldwide. Better trust in the PVC industry and products were the results of the campaign in Europe.

"The PVC market could triple in production between now and 2020," he says, adding that right now, 55 percent of the windows in Germany are PVC.