My monthly Builder Breakfast has grown so much from its
humble beginnings of just a single builder meeting with me and talking about
the problems of modular housing into what it is now, a forum for the entire
modular home industry’s future.
This month the number of people that wanted to attend was so
large that I had to move it to Holiday Inn convention center.
Attending were factory people, modular home builders, engineers, Architects, Norm Hall from Simspon-Strongtie and Tom Hardiman, the Executive Director of the MHBA.
Jay Barlow, Barlow Engineering, was the featured speaker for
this meeting and talked about the importance of bringing in an engineer during
the beginning stages of builder talks with the customer. Waiting until the
plans are drawn and the contract signed can mean thousands of dollars out of
the builder’s pocket. It was eye-opening for everyone.
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| Jay Barlow, circled; Chris Minium, PBS to the left of Jay; Anthony Zarrilli, Zarrilli Homes in NJ; Ken Semler, Express Modular; Dan Hobbs, GM of Hancrafted Homes and Denise Jacoby, Director of Frederick County Builders Assoc. |
Tom Hardiman from the MHBA talked about all the areas that
our association is working in to help promote modular housing and lobby for our
industry in just about every state. He also invited everyone at the breakfast
to join us at the “Best Practices” conference in Philly next week.
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| Tom Hardiman, Executive Director of the MHBA |
Finally Harris Woodward, owner of FinishWerks in Savage, MD,
showed us how he builds “High Performance” houses and the inherent advantages
modular housing gives him in achieving Energy Star ratings in the 50’s and
below without adding much to the homebuyer’s total building cost.
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| Harris Woodward, Owner of FinishWerks in Savage, MD |
And finally, after the breakfast ended about 10:30, there
were groups of people continuing to talk in the lobby and nooks everywhere with
some of them even going to lunch.
This is what happens when the movers and shakers from the
modular housing industry get together and talk about our problems and
solutions.
If you are interested in joining us for the May Builder Breakfast on Wednesday, the 21st, drop me a line at [email protected].
