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It’s Not Always a Matter of Surround and Drown As one involved with industrial fire protection engineering for more than 25 years, you would expect very few surprises to cross your desk. However in the ever changing, technology enriched world in which we live, change is the only constant. One …

Twenty-six years ago I was given the opportunity to run a division for my company. I was 31 years old and had six months of field experience, six years of design experience, and four years of estimating and project management. As is often the case, I was given the opportunity …

AFSA Member Companies in the Age of Social Media The American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) has some of the best and brightest in the industry. Our members are forward-thinking individuals looking to connect with their fellow AFSA members, their customers, and their friends. In this digital age, one of the …

Awareness. Prior to being hired as AFSA’s executive vice president in late 2014, I had been employed as the executive director of the Michigan Lupus Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization. We operated knowing that groups focused on socioeconomic or medically based causes often rely on awareness as a driving …

Flying back from a chapter meeting last week, I began thinking about how the customer service woes that the airline industry has faced recently have become a teachable moment for businesses in general. As the manager of chapter relations for a hungry and growing national trade association, the concept of …

Fire Sprinkler Misrepresentations in the Media It seems that everyone who works in the fire sprinkler industry inevitably develops a very specific pet peeve: the blatant misrepresentation of fire sprinklers in the media. Think about it. Can you remember the last time you saw fire sprinklers all go off at …

NAWIC President-Elect Shares Vision Catherine Schoenenberger, president of Stay Safe Traffic Products Inc., Westford, Massachusetts, and national president-elect of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) grew up in a construction family. “My parents had a commercial landscaping business and Dad sold heavy equipment,” she recalls. “However, the girls …

AFSA Offers a “Second Chance” with $5,000 in Scholarships Are you currently in college or would like to return but need financial assistance? For individuals who have already graduated from high school or earned a GED, the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) offers its Second Chance Scholarship contest. Those seeking …

Getting Products to Market Research and development (R&D) in the fire sprinkler world is a fascinating, frustrating, regulated, fun, rewarding, and slow process. In the fire sprinkler industry we often confuse R&D with good, old-fashioned product engineering. I have had the pleasure to be involved with the R&D process for …

“Truth or Consequences” was originally a television show in the early 1950s. On that show, contestants received roughly two seconds to answer a trivia question correctly. The way the show went, if the contestant could not complete the “truth” portion, there would be a “consequence.” They were usually required to …