Masonry Magazine April 1986 Page. 7
Reinforcing, production and a masonry panel check list. It's a thorough, professional job that has been well planned and executed, and should be a model for other masonry panel contractors pursuing this line of work.
Masonry Systems Marketing Seminar
The masonry marketing seminar also enjoyed overflow attendance and featured seven speakers in addition to moderators Felice and Cope. They were: Phillip Poole, Marketing Design Associates, Ft. Worth, Texas: J. Gregg Borchelt. Masonry Institute of Houston/Galveston: Dan Murray, Brickfield Masonry, Inc., Houston: Don Staab, Masonry Institute of New York: Howard Noziska. Masonry Institute of Minnesota; Dan Berich, Dan Berich, Inc., Englewood, Colo., and Bob Schuerman, Peterson Construction Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio.
Phillip Poole, a registered architect and professional architectural photographer, urged mason contractors to use professional quality photography in their printed sales presentations to architects. He also emphasized the use of dramatic angles of a building (utilizing light and deep shadows) rather than concentrating on shooting the entire building.
He advised investing in a professionally prepared, full-color promotional brochure with numerous candid shots of hands-on activity featuring bricklayers, forklifts, scaffolding and "plenty of hard hats doing their thing." Architects, he said, are impressed by on-the-job action photos as much as they are by dramatic photography spotlighting an unusually good piece of masonry work.
Gregg Borchelt moderated a session that included comments by the rest of the speakers on promotional strategies in their areas. Don Staab told of an East Coast mason contractor who constructed, at his own expense, a building made of rough, split-face concrete masonry units simply to showcase their structural and esthetic qualities. As a result, he has gotten at least a dozen sizable jobs thus far, Staab said.
Dan Murray explained how his company saved the building owner more than $600,000 on a $1.8 million job by convincing him to switch to loadbearing masonry instead of concrete frame and steel stud with brick veneer. He has since been able to switch many other jobs to load-bearing masonry, he said, and reap the profits.
MCAA Past Presidents. (From left) Robert Ebeling (1976-77), Eugene George (1978-79), Charles Velardo (1974-75), and Don Leonard (1982-83).
"Don't be satisfied with the contract documents," stressed Gregg Borchelt. "Remember, you are the expert on masonry. Make suggestions to re-design to developers, architects and owners."
Dan Berich said that his company's marketing strategy now is to aggressively seek loadbearing work. He urged MCAA members to learn floor systems that are compatible with loadbearing, then choose a specific market and go after it with specific information about that market. He.
MCAA Officers and Regional Vice Presidents. (From left) Anthony Zotollo, Kenneth P. Thompson, L. C. Pardue, Jr., and Jerry Vernon, Regional Vice Presidents; Robert H. Hatch, Vice President: Dee Brown, President: Richard Felice, Secretary; Richard C. Matthews, Treasurer; Edgar Boettcher III, Don Grant and Eugene George, Regional Vice Presidents. Not pictured are Robert C. Tubesing, Mack Pettit and Rennie Tejeda, Regional Vice Presidents.
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