NEPCA Winter Conference

The association’s 2009 10th Annual Winter Conference, held on Tuesday, January 13th in Marlborough, MA, marked a series of new beginnings for the precast concrete industry in New England

The association’s 2009 10th Annual Winter Conference, held on Tuesday, January 13th in Marlborough, MA, marked a series of new beginnings for the precast concrete industry in New England. And, in addition to the many changes that were represented at this event, it seemed that a new, “can-do” attitude permeated the 6,000 square foot conference and exhibition hall, despite the difficult economy.

NCPA Changes to NEPCA

To be sure, there were many changes that either were announced, or coincided, with this year’s Winter Conference. The most visible change was the unveiling of our association’s new name and its accompanying logo redesign. Our association is now known as “NEPCA,” which stands for the Northeast Precast Concrete Association. Your Board of Directors, under the capable leadership of President Greg Stratis of New England Concrete Products, Amesbury, MA has worked diligently since last autumn to set up the foundation for our association to help promote the products and services of our member firms to their primary market segments. The board agreed that the term “concrete products,” previously in our name, needed to be changed to “precast concrete,” in order to clarify which segment of the concrete industry our members serve. That our new name, “NEPCA,” can also be pronounced as an acronym instead of four separate initials, is a well-designed by-product of our name change. The association worked on this project with a well established, professional marketing firm, Altos Marketing Group, Bedford, NH.

In addition to our name and logo changes, we’ve also embarked on a new effort to expose our members’ products and services to those segments most likely to specify precast concrete over alternative products in future projects – primarily the region’s engineers. To begin this campaign, NEPCA now owns a well-designed trade show booth that was on display at the Winter Conference. This booth will be utilized at many industry events and trade shows.

The association also included several new marketing communications documents that contain graphically coordinated messages designed to provide important information to specifiers. These documents can be distributed by direct mail or at events and trade shows. Each document focuses on a particular category of products commonly supplied by our member firms.

Perhaps even more important than all of the above, our website has a new address – www.nepca.com -- and it has been redesigned to be more interactive and useful to members and the engineer community. NEPCA President, Greg Stratis, provided a brief demonstration of the new website at the Winter Conference.

Winter Conference a Great Success - Click Here for the Winter Conference Photo Gallery

On top of all of these new developments, our association hosted a very successful Winter Conference for our producer members, associates, engineers and invited guests. Approximately 130 people attended the event, which included more than two dozen engineers.

For this year’s Winter Conference, NEPCA expanded the seminar schedule to cover the entire day. Although attendees could hear each speaker, the program was divided into a morning program geared towards precaster and associates, with the engineer-specific program taking place after lunch. The speakers and topics were:

Precaster and Associate Program

 

“Marketing Your Business”
Gina Lathan, Hygrade Precast – Ontario Canada

“Leadership Tips to Increase Your Focus”
Mary Ann Masur – Synergy Consultants

“The Power of Persuasion”
Frank Damelio – Target Intellect

 

Engineer Program

“Stormwater Management and LEED”
Nick Lewis – National Precast Concrete Association (NPCA)

“Stormwater Technology Evaluation Project”
Jerry Schoen – Umass MASTEP Project Manager

“Stormwater Modeling Software”
Peter Smart – HydroCAD

The seminars were extremely well received by virtually everyone in attendance. The morning program offered precaster and associates an opportunity to assess new marketing and business opportunity ideas that they can implement in their own companies or in their personal work. Gina Lathan presented a “nuts-and-bolts” message to precasters and associates on how they could put together a cohesive marketing plan to reach out to their target customers. Mary Ann Masur followed with her program to help management people lead the way in their respective companies. We learned tips to make your personal and professional life both fulfilling and effective. She presented several thought-provoking issues and had the attendees break off into groups to demonstrate the effectiveness of her ideas. The participants left with new ideas on leadership, communication, team dynamics, customer service, business growth and life balance.  The morning program concluded with a presentation from Frank Damelio who entertained the participants in an interactive and, at times, “magical” demonstration of how they could persuade others to get what they want out of business and personal relationships.

After lunch and leisure time spent by attendees in the exhibit area, several engineers and our own members were treated to a more technical program during the afternoon. Nick Lewis, from the NPCA, offered a presentation that equated the use of precast concrete products for stormwater management projects with the voluntary, but widely accepted, LEED Program. His explanation of the LEED program was very helpful for the precasters and associates in the audience as well, as many were not familiar with how the program works. Jerry Schoen, from the University of Massachusetts MASTEP Program followed with his explanation of how the Commonwealth of Massachusetts evaluates various types of stormwater management projects. His presentation sparked some lively conversation and questions from many of the engineers in the hall. Finally, the day’s program concluded with a presentation by Peter Smart, the developer of HydroCAD, one of the most widely used stormwater modeling software programs at engineering firms. Peter reviewed several innovations and changes in the newest version of his application. Since most engineers either used or were familiar with the application, this presentation became a highly interactive session.

Following Peter Smart’s seminar, NEPCA President, Greg Stratis, presented an offer to the engineers of a special 10-node express version of HydroCAD, which will help them specify concrete chambers for their stormwater management projects using underground ponds. The NEPCA version of HydroCAD was distributed to the engineers and Greg gave the details of how they could register these copies. NEPCA has invested heavily in this program and our organization is subsidizing this effort to get the “concrete-chamber” version of HydroCAD out into the engineer community. This is a tremendous step forward for our association and it is certainly in keeping with our long-range goal of promoting the products of our member firms to specifiers.
Ten companies sponsored this year’s Winter Conference. Here is a list of the sponsors:

Gold Sponsor

 

QMC Hydraulic Cranes

Silver Sponsors

 

Capco Crane & Hoist
Sika Corporation

Bronze Sponsors

 

Advanced Concrete Technologies
Cleco Manufacturing
D.C. Bates Equipment
Hamilton Kent
Lafarge North America
M.A. Industries
Syracuse Castings

Twenty associate member firms displayed their products and services in our table top exhibition area. The exhibitors are listed below:

Exhibitors

 

Advanced Concrete Technologies
A.L. Patterson, Inc.
A-Lok Products, Inc.
Cableworks, Inc.
Capco Crane & Hoist
Cleco Manufacturing Co.
D.C. Bates Equipment
Gordon Corporation
Hamilton Kent
ICT
JEPCO Sales
M.A. Industries
Meadow-Burke Co.
Mixer Systems
Myers Associates
Pennsylvania Insert Corp.
Polylok, Inc.
Sika Corporation
Syracuse Castings, Inc.
U.S.F. Fabrication, Inc.

NEPCA thanks all of these associate members who sponsored or exhibited at our Winter Conference.