President's Message

Galvanizing Our Industry through MCAA's Masonry Magazine

William McConnell
President, Mason Contractors Association of America

Several years ago, the Board of Directors of the Mason Contractors Association of America decided to get our Association's magazine into the hands of every mason contractor. Every month, over 17,000 contractors read Masonry magazine. When our Board took the monumental step of going from a bi-monthly publication sent to 3,000 people to a monthly magazine sent to over 17,000 readers, we did so not to compete with our competitors, Hanley Wood — although our magazine now threatens the very survival of that for-profit magazine. We did so in order to communicate directly with our industry's contractors. We believed, at that time, that Masonry could communicate vital information, critical to moving our industry closer together and toward a common goal. We knew that too many issues were looming on the horizon, perched to impact our industry, for our Association and our Board not to react. The cost of expanding our magazine to the Association was dwarfed by the cost to the industry if we did not begin to communicate, educate and mobilize our industry's contractors.

Masonry magazine became the logical vehicle for our Association to inform mason contractors about ergonomics, silica, code changes, concerns over future industry competition, legal and contractual concerns, workforce issues and promotional activities. We believe that our industry contractors could not fully comprehend issues, nor care passionately about issues, unless they were informed and educated.

It is our hope that over the past months and into the future we will communicate trends to you and mobilize you into action. Action such as becoming a member of the MCAA and supporting us through your dues dollars and hopefully your active involvement. Actions such as writing your U.S. Representative or Senator to express your viewpoint on the issues you read about in Masonry. Actions such as educating your employees about the issues so the next time they vote, they select the candidate that will be good for our industry.

As the MCAA strives to expand our leadership into the code, regulatory and legislative arena, we hope you will find the information in future issues of Masonry in-depth enough to cause you to act.

Thank you for reading our magazine.