July/August 2023 President’s Message
The Annual ICAA Convention & Trade Show
I love the theme for this year’s ICAA Convention & Trade Show. We chose “Big Ideas, Big Opportunities” because we believe that’s exactly what you’ll find in every part of our event. From the Trade Show floor on Thursday, to the General Sessions on Friday and Saturday – there will be a treasure trove of ideas and opportunities that, once you’ve learned of them, will be yours to take back home and incorporate into your business. That’s the “Big Responsibility” ICAA has dedicated itself to from the very beginning: keeping insulation contractors in the know with relevant, specific, and timely information about all things insulation.
We’re tackling a number of timely topics and business opportunities this year in our General Sessions. You can see the full schedule on our website, or in our event brochure that you’ve probably already received in the mail. I’m particularly impressed with our lineup of speakers, who are all knowledgeable professionals with direct interests in our industry.
We’re starting off strong on Friday morning with a session called “Are You Retrofit Ready?” presented by JR Babineau of Johns Manville. JR Is the Research Manager with JM’s Building Sciences and Corporate R&D. A great communicator and Professional Engineer, JR knows his stuff! JR will walk us through a point-by-point evaluation of the retrofit home before insulation and air sealing are added. He will explain the scope of any needed preparatory work and he’ll discuss the potential disqualifying conditions, including the presence of combustion appliances, leaks, knob and tube wiring, and vermiculite. If you insulate retrofit homes, and who doesn’t, this session is a must-attend.
From retrofit review, we’ll head right into the practical fundamentals of negotiating, featuring Ben Sachs, who is president of The Landing Group. Ben will be showing us in a short and clear way how to negotiate agreements without giving in. We all could benefit from improving our skills in conflict resolution and contract negotiations – we seem to negotiate something every day. Ben will give excellent advice on how to get a wise agreement, one that meets the legitimate interests on all sides. Ben will share tools to overcome hardball tactics, negotiate in a digital world, and understand the behavior of others during a contractual negotiation.
The Inflation Reduction Act has received much attention from our industry, and for good reason – incentives for adding insulation and air sealing are robust. ICAA has already provided our members with webinars, articles, and practical tools relating to the IRA, but having an in-person general session in Dallas will allow us the opportunity to dig deeper as well as provide immediate answers to all your questions about an array of energy efficiency incentives we have not seen the likes of before. NAIMA CEO Curt Rich and Owens Corning’s Director of Industry Affairs Jay Murdoch will be leading this extremely valuable presentation.
We’re excited to bring back Kelly McDonald of McDonals Marketing, who will lead this year’s Insulation Contractors Best Practices Roundtable. And we’re thrilled to announce a brand new session on insulation trivia. The format for Win Big! Insulation Trivia will be a composite of the TV game shows Jeopardy and Family Feud, but the focus will be on insulation, and a panel of experts will provide informative feedback and insight. In another session, Sterling Miller of Frozen Fire, a digital-based creative marketing agency, will show what it takes to be successful with digital marketing and will offer helpful tactics to develop leads online.
Saturday morning we’ll be visiting contracts from the perspective of Karalynn Cromeens, a construction attorney. She’s going to make sure that, when it comes to contracts, insulation contractors can level the playing field and push back against general contractors. Karalynn will point out how to recognize a bad or unfair contract and adjust terms to meet their needs.
We’ll close out the Convention with Brian Cote’, Chair of ICAA’s Spray Foam Task Force. Brian will parlay his extensive knowledge of spray foam into a comprehensive session on how to achieve operational excellence.
Big Ideas, Big Opportunities, Big Responsibilities, and importantly for our members, Big Benefits to beef up your bottom line. That’s what ICAA is all about, and that’s why you should join us in Dallas for ICAA 2023.
Click here to register. See you there!
