Business View - May 2015 43
you can. It’s harder these days to get people’s atten-
tion. We have a magazine; we have a web presence on
social media. We have meetings three times a year,
we have board meetings, the Sunbelt Builders show –
those are all things we do on the state level. We have
our rally days, our big capital day, where we will have
hopefully close to 1,000 of our members come to the
state capital from all over the state for one day and go
and meet with their elected officials and gather and all
of those sorts of things.
So, there’s a number of things we do on a state level to
engage people. At our board meetings we have three
times a year, we have committee meetings held in
conjunction – we have committees for various things
like government relations, associates committee, and
then obviously functioning committees like finance
and by-laws and that sort of things. We have a mem-
bership committee, education, codes committee, sev-
eral builders-specific issues committees that people
get engaged in that drives policy or drives association.
And similarly, on the local level, it functions much the
same way, just on a local level. Obviously, they have
more meetings on the local level, they have monthly
meetings, more social events, that sort of thing.
BUSINESS VIEW: Is it a fairly engage-able member-
ship? Do they respond to committee meetings and
calls-to-action and things like that? Or is it tough to
light a fire under them?
NORMAN:
Well, yes. Obviously some things light a
fire more than others, but our core engaged folks are
very engaged. The way we’re structured there’s en-
gaged government relations folks from all 28 of our
associations and there’s a hierarchy within them. We
have more people that want to be on our boards than
we have spots, but like anything else, you have your
more engaged folks and then you have your less. Do
all 10,000 members engage and respond? No, but
when we have call for action and need to flood the
capital with letters, emails, or calls, we can turn that
on if need be.
BUSINESS VIEW: What things are on your priority
agenda to get accomplished in the next five years?
NORMAN:
Well, we want to continue to grow. Texas
has been leading the nation in housing starts for the
past 5-6 years since the downturn. Hopefully Texas will
continue to be among the top states in relocation, job
growth, and other places, and with all of those things
comes the need to increase housing starts and if that’s
the case, then our industry is continuing to thrive and
Texas Association for Builders will be there to support
our members and help build to make Texas a better
place. That’s what we’ve been doing for 70 years and
hopefully that’s what we’ll continue to keep doing.
With all of that growth comes challenges, and I men-
tioned some at the start of the call – transportation,
water, roads, educated workforce for our industry –
those are all big challenges for our industry, but our
association has really taken the lead over the last few
sessions and gotten a lot done. So, hopefully there will
be some fruit from that labor five years from now that
we can see is paying off.
CONSTRUCTION
