GANAPerspectives

Set Your Sights on Florida or Las Vegas
GANA’s Events are on the Horizon
by Ashley M. Charest

If you live in a geographic region similar to mine, you see white and shades of gray out your window right now. Winter has finally set in and after watching the inches (or feet) of freezing snow piling up on your drive, shoveling that snow off your drive, putting salt on to melt the snow and ice and bundling up the kids in about ten layers of clothes each time they want to go outside, you are ready for warmth and fun (and in massive doses). How does beachy Florida or sunny Las Vegas sound?

Florida-Bound for GANA Annual Conference
Formerly known as Glass Week, the Glass Association of North America’s (GANA) Annual Conference is scheduled for February 20-24, 2012, in Sarasota, Fla. (only a short month away!). While the conference program is filled with working sessions, luncheon speakers and in-depth division meetings, we’ve also planned fun-filled evenings to network with old and soon-to-be best buddies. We’ll get your toes into the warm Florida sand with our evening luau or have you matching wits against each other in our trivia night.

"Known as THE place to be, the BEC Conference provides valuable education for glazing contractors while also providing vendors a single location to see most of their customers at once."

We have focused much of our energy in creating an exciting Energy Session (pun obviously intended) that discusses what our industry needs to prepare for in order to take advantage on this red hot industry, while also giving energy industry vendors an opportunity to exhibit their products and services during our Energy Trade Show. Also part of the conference program will be a Towne Hall discussion led by GANA members to encourage brainstorming and big-picture thinking on the direction you want your association to head in the short-, medium- and long-term future.

If the warmth and fun haven’t sold you, then the education and technical activities should. Visit our website at www.glasswebsite.com to check out all the details, and to get yourself and your fellow co-workers signed up for the trip. After all, they are suffering through the snow as well!

Vegas BEC Conference-Style, Not ‘The Hangover’ Style
If you don’t know what the Building Envelope Contractors (BEC) Conference or The Hangover is, then you’ve probably been living under a rock or lost Internet access for the past few years. While The Hangover is a recent pop-culture film on a Las Vegas bachelor party gone wrong, the BEC Conference is an industry must, now serving contract glaziers in the glass and glazing industry for its 16th year. Known as THE place to be, the BEC Conference provides valuable education for glazing contractors while also providing vendors a single location to see most of their customers at once. Place it on your calendar for March 18-20 at the Paris Las Vegas Resort, and remember to register for the event on our website.

This year, the BEC Conference is going back to its core educational value of providing pertinent information for our glazing contractor members. Titled “The Many Hats of the Glazing Contractor,” the event features presentations on:

• State of the Glass and Glazing Industry;

• Leadership in Your Contract Glazing Firm;

• How to Position Your Business for the Coming Recovery;

• How to Avoid Problems in the Field;

• How Do You Know You Are Making Money?; and

• Many, many more….

But it won’t be all work and no play. The conference also provides you with ample time to catch up with your old and new friends at one of our awesome receptions, a brief breakfast chat or even time to talk with one of the 12 suppliers exhibiting at the BEC Conference Tabletop Show. So while we are not encouraging a re-staging of The Hangover, or making The Hangover 3: Glass Guys Gone Wild, we do think you’ll have time to make the most of Las Vegas both in and out of the meeting rooms.
Find out all of the details for the BEC Conference at www.becconference.com.

Ashley M. Charest is the account executive of the Glass Association of North America (GANA).

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