Business View Magazine | February 2021

77 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021 industrial construction. Very few do residential, although some will do it in the sense of big, multi-unit housing condos but we still class that as commercial because of the relationship with the owner, GC, etc. We don’t have the regular home builder or residential painting contractor. We represent purely the specialty contractor. That’s important to note because during COVID, for the most part, construction was deemed essential and shielded, so our guys were able to do work. If there was a delay, they still had the contract and they knew they were going back to work, and they had a backlog of work they had to complete.” Oscar: “When the pandemic first started, we had over 1,400 ASA members write to 38 governors requesting that construction remains essential. That’s an awesome accomplishment, which directly demonstrated ASA’s advocacy impact. Throughout the pandemic, most of our members have been declared essential. Unlike other construction trade associations, ASA is the only association to have an attorneys’ council, which files ‘friend-of-the-court’ briefs to inform the Court regarding the broader impact of relevant construction industry cases throughout the country. We have won dozens of these cases since 1997, vindicating subcontractor rights today and into the future. To that end, our members have heavily relied upon this council during the pandemic to ensure projects are completed on time and to better understand the implications of force majeure clauses in construction contracts.” BVM: How does the Association communicate with members, since in-person events aren’t possible right now? Bright: “Our 2020 convention was in Vegas early on when COVID was just hitting, so we did get a few last minute cancellations but we were lucky to have it take place. However, we’ve had to postpone our Feb 2021 SUBExcel convention in Florida to 2022. We’ve also had to do virtual board meetings and we’re having weekly open- ended conference calls, we do a lot of webinars, AMER I CAN SUBCONTRACTORS ASSOC I AT ION (ASA) Mike Oscar, Director of Government Relations