PGC Underway in Washington D.C.

The Protective Glazing Council (PGC) Fall Symposium is being held today at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., with a morning seminar track focusing on the Homeland Security aspect of protective glazing.

After a brief welcome by PGC president Scott Haddock, the seminars kicked off with Steven Smith of GSA discussing the protective glazing requirements for the ISC security criteria, which included an early look at emergency ingress-egress for firefighters, a topic to be addressed again in the afternoon session.

Ed Conrath with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Protective Design Center followed Smith, explaining to attendees about forthcoming changes to the Standard 10-UFC4-010-01, and proposed changes to ASTM F 2248.

After a short break, Mignon Anthony and Dave Shatzer, both with the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), gave an update of a curtainwall design being implemented in the department's newest building. The construction of the new facility has been presented as a case study throughout the project and today's presentation brought attendees up through the real world testing process applied to the design intended for the project, including video from the actual test. They also gave an update on the construction of this facility.

Ron Waranowski presented a second case study, looking at the "assessment and upgrades of windows in EPA facilities." He injected humor into a potentially scary topic-just how vulnerable windows can leave a person or company to electronic eavesdropping on wireless Internet systems and other electronic means.

"There aren't many solutions on the glass side [yet]," he said.

After Waranowski's presentation, all speakers from the morning session participated in a panel discussion open to audience questions and mediated by Joseph Smith of Applied Research Associates.

The afternoon session continued after lunch and was scheduled to cover AIA accreditation for blast mitigation, emergency ingress/egress of first responders and an informational paper for the fenestration industry on protective glazing.

The next PGC symposium is scheduled for March 14-17, 2006, in Chicago.

For more information on today's meeting, see the next issue of USGlass magazine.

For more information about the PGC and its symposium, visit www.protectiveglazing.org.