First, let me thank all of our Council members who participated in last week’s virtual Council meeting. We are all living through uncertain times and none of us really knew if an online Council event would work. Well, it most certainly did!  By the way, the links for all our sessions are at the end of this message.

Our meeting opened with a welcome message from Council Chair Sonja Rheaume. She emphasized how important it is for us to share ideas and practices, especially as we navigate through COVID conditions and business uncertainties.

The first live event, a webinar on Navigating Pandemic-related Business Challenges, featured Kathy Mazzarella (Graybar), Steve Richman (Milwaukee Tool), Larry Beltramo, President, ELECTRI Board of Trustees and President of NECA, David Long, NECA CEO and Daniel Burrus as moderator.  All of their insightful advice and comments are now posted for contractors across the country at the ELECTRI website. During the week, two other live presentations got rave Council reviews:  Jonathan Marsh (MEP Innovation Lab) spoke about The Emerging Technologies for Specialty Contractors and Lonnie Compton, (NECA Director of Construction Manufacturing) brought us up to date on The Future of Electrical Contracting,

Council members had the opportunity to review entries for the Early Career Awards and then spend time with each of the researchers via a Zoom meeting.  You voted and selected your top two choices for 2020 funding:

• The Russell J Alessi Early Career Award to Hala Nasserddine, University of Kentucky, for her proposal: Allocating and Leveraging BIM Efforts for Electrical Contractors
• The Thomas Glavinich Early Career Award to Sogand Hasanzadeh, Purdue University, for her proposal:  Examining a Latent Side-Effect of Electrical Safety Interventions among T&D Line Workers

As researchers work on their projects, it’s very important for them to keep in touch with ELECTRI. We had a very productive Zoom meeting with the 2020 researchers. You can be assured that each project Task Force is doing an excellent job of keeping our research on topic and on time.

A summer Council meeting would not be complete without a Talent Initiative competition. We held a virtual competition for the best NECA Student Chapter video in connection with the 2020 Green Energy Challenge. From the eight videos submitted, you watched and voted for the top three finalists: Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State University and Pennsylvania State University. You will get to select the winning NECA Student Chapter video with your online vote during the NECA 2020 LIVE convention in October.

As promised, here’s the link to the full Council meeting agenda.  All the presentations are available under the “Presentation Links” tab.  Presentations are available to all contractors – at no charge.

So, these are our Council meeting highlights. I want to add a note of thanks to Laura Holmes and Amanda Harbison for their behind the scenes efforts to make all of this work.

And remember, we’re here to hear from you.

Josh Bone

Interim Executive Director
ELECTRI International