Business View Magazine - October 2018

292 293 geo-political issues of the day.We were heavily involved in the Section 232 Investigation, and we were impacted by the recent Russia sanctions because Russia is the world’s second largest alu- minum producer. Most noteworthy, in 2009, the AEC came together and decided to take a trade case against Chinese aluminum extrusion indus- try. In 2011, the Council won its case and became the first aluminum segment to address the China overproduction and overcapacity issue. That was a key event in the AEC’s history. It galvanized the domestic industry, and the AEC developed into the association it is today.” BVM: How many members belong to AEC? Henderson: “We currently have 121 member companies –50 to 60 percent extruders and 40– 50 percent suppliers or metal producers. Remark- ably, that number has remained fairly consistent over the last 20 years while there’s been major consolidation in our industry. Even though there are fewer companies, our membership number sus- tained itself or even grew a bit by keeping the newly merged companies (where two or three became one) and also picking up others.The AEC represents 80 to 85 percent of total domestic product of alumi- num extrusions in the U.S. and Canada. “AEC growth has come in the expansion of pro- grams, in their trade and political footprint, and industry promotion efforts. The Council budget has tripled in the last ten years.We are funded by membership dues, publication sales, conferences, ALUMINUM EXTRUDERS COUNCIL and events.We produce 25-30 events every year, including our annual conference, best practices workshops, and industry promoting webinars.We have a dynamic website which becomes the re- pository for all things aluminum extrusion.We also have an active social media presence, a variety of webinars, a lot of committees, and a high level of member engagement in all these activities.” BVM: What are the key benefits of member- ship? Henderson: “The AEC’s basic three-prong strat- egy was developed in 2008 and summarizes the Council’s ambition to promote and grow the in- dustry; to protect the industry against any threats (i.e. trade issues); and to become better at what we do. Every program, every dollar, and every hour we spend on AEC traces back to one of those three items. So, when I’m a member, I have an association that, in the last six or seven years, has developed over 15,000 names of engineers, archi- tects, specifiers –decision-makers about whether to use aluminum or another material on a given project. On that list are people who downloaded our design manual, attended a webinar, visited us at a trade show booth, or contacted the AEC office to ask for more information. “In business excellence, we have trained over