Great Success for NDA’s Annual Convention in Austin
Published: 4/3, 2020
I hope you found time to attend NDA’s Annual Convention in February, Demolition Austin. We had over 940 attendees, eclipsing last CONEXPO-CON/AGG convention by almost 250 attendees. We had 84 exhibitors, compared to 57 last CONEXPO-CON/AGG and 89 last year. The big news is we grew Live DEMO from 16 participants and 24 pieces of machinery in 2019 to 20 participants and 30 pieces of machinery in 2020.
Education was a huge draw. Our keynote speaker Seth Mattison was a huge success. His presentation highlighted workforce trends to engage your team for success. We also featured an OSHA update, an overview on workers’ compensation benefits and a presentation on the MATOC program from USACE. In addition, NDA hosted a pre-conference superintendent boot camp course with over 45 attendees, nine companies participated in the hands on portion of the course at the Live Demolition.
Appreciated Awards Dinner
To cap it all off we had an exciting evening at the Awards Gala with the introduction of new Michael J. Casbon Safety Award, six Hall of Fame inductees, three Excellence in Demolition Award winners, Lifetime Achievement and 11 scholarships awarded. The winners of the Michael J. Casbon Safety Award Adamo Group, Cherry Companies and Independence Demolition. Hall of Fame inductees were Bob and Susan Baumann, Bill Gumbiner, Walt Reeves, Saul Specter and Bob Stuppy. The 2021 winners in the Excellence in Demolition Award Stryker Demolition & Environmental Services, LLC, Alpine Demolition Services and Veit & Company Inc. Finally, this year’s Lifetime Achievement award goes to Jon A. Manafort.
You may ask with all of the excitement around convention, “What else does NDA have going on?” Last year we had eleven comments to regulatory changes and congressional action, including silica. This year we will continue to expand outreach. NDA will be conducting training for OSHA Region 5, April 3rd. This training is a crucial step by to formalize an alliance agreement with OSHA. An alliance agreement will provide members with resources and compliance assistance.
Download the 11th episode of Demolition Now!
NDA’s Director of Government Affairs, Kevin McKenney, explains the final Joint Employer rule set in place by the Department of Labor. Additionally, we encourage you to weigh in on the Electronic Logging Device Relief Bill at our grassroots portal. This legislation exempts small businesses that operate 10 or fewer commercial trucks from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) electronic logging device (ELD) requirement. Finally, the Government Affairs committee will be weighing comment on a proposed change to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to expedite construction, highway and pipeline projects. In education, we have four upcoming courses in the Foundations of Demolition Training Series. Two courses in Chicago, April 22-24, risk management and estimating and two courses in Atlanta, May 20-22, job cost tracking and project management. Send your employees and encourage your colleagues to attend! We will be hosting a member networking reception at each training. We are also pleased to announce a new member benefit, the NDA Demolition Best Practices Library. The library enables members to and access pertinent industry resources, content, templates, whitepapers and leading practices. More content added throughout the year. Check our website for details on these member benefits and registration. Are you a member? If not you should be.