My
Blackberry began buzzing early last week while I was attending the
International Roofing Expo with the sad news that Millard Fuller had died in an
ambulance on the way to Albany from Americus, Ga. Friends all over knew Millard
Fuller was one of my heroes.
Greeted in the
morning by a panel of industry superstars at the keynote address and
complemented in the afternoon by nearly 400 companies showing off the newest
trends, the International Roofing Expo opened Tuesday at the Mandalay Bay
Convention Center with a
pledge for better times ahead.
When you consider all the good things that can
come from a down cycle in the economy, it is hard to be depressed about it. I
am not referring to silver linings, but golden
opportunities.
All this talk about stimulus plans is making me crazy. I
hate to be so cynical (not really - but it does not feel 100 percent right
sharing it with you), but using the words “federal government” and “solution”
in the same sentence makes me suspicious.
It
would be business as usual for me to add a P.S. to this editor’s note reminding
you that it is not too late to sign up to attend the International Roofing Expo
(IRE), which runs concurrently with three days of the NRCA convention next
month. Most of you would agree, however, that business is anything but “as
usual” right now.
Last
January I put forward some resolutions for 2008. It would be easy to hit the
restart button and start over, but I choose to hit the rewind button instead.
It
would not amaze anyone to learn that I am a fan of magazines. My first
subscription was to Boy’s Life
back when I was around 11 years old. The sub probably cost less than one
lawn mowed or whatever other manual labor I managed to peddle back in the old
neighborhood.
According
to a report in the Sudbury (Ontario, Canada) Star a roofer was caught
practicing some bad business and wound up in the pokey for 30 days. Seems he
took a homeowner’s money as a deposit for work he never managed to begin.
I
will now admit that I did not vote for the man who will be our 44th president
in a few weeks. My main reason for not voting for him was his lack of experience,
and he leans just a little far in one direction for my tastes (I am just not a
fundamentalist kind of guy – and that goes for both sides of the political
spectrum).
How do you define success? That is a question I
have asked at the conclusion of more interviews than I want to think about. For
some reason it stops most interviewees in their tracks. I have become
accustomed to patiently waiting on a response.