How’s business?
It’s a favorite question of wall and ceiling contractors. The expression does not change
much from year to year, just the faces asking it.
In the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to visit several AWCI chapters across
the country, and the universal response has been, “We see a glimmer of hope, and
building is picking up not only in the public sector but the private as well.”
The past few years have been a challenge, to say the least. The echoes in the industry
are that a recover is coming—however tentative, it is still in sight.
A philosopher once said (or did I just hear it around a bunch of drywall hangers?),
“Before you get to see the rainbow, you gotta wait through the thunderstorm.” It’s been
a challenge, but all good things are worth fighting for.
Taken from AWCI’s Construction Dimensions magazine, the President’s Message from
April 1983 (30 years ago) and written by one of my mentors, Jim Biddle: “The waste
and excess of boom times—or inflation times—have been washed away. We’ve paid
the price. Now we’re ready to recapture . . . to start growing again . . . to do what we do
best . . . to start building.
So you can see, not only do the questions remain the same, but also does the economy
in which we exist. Learn from the past, and improve the future. As leaders, it’s our
responsibility.
