Masonry Magazine April 1983 Page. 6
MCAA president Don Leonard and his wife Ruth cut the ceremonial ribbon officially opening the '83 MCAA Trade Show.
'83 MCAA CONFERENCE REPORT
San Diego, California, February 20-24, 1983
MCAA was there, and the weather was majestically beautiful. The Queen of England was there, and the weather was deplorable. Moral: If you want something nice to happen to you, stick with MCAA.
The place was San Diego, California, scene of MCAA's 33rd International Masonry Conference and Trade Show at the huge Town & Country Hotel complex in picturesque Mission Valley, February 20-24.
When MCAA arrived, the area was bathed in brilliant sunshine, with temperatures in the mid-70s beneath cobalt-blue skies. When Queen Elizabeth arrived aboard her yacht Britannia scarcely two days later, Southern California was being deluged by torrential rains and some of the worst weather it had experienced in decades, foiling the best-laid plans of monarchs and presidents. MCAA timed it just right, adding an extra measure of good fortune to a well-paced and productive meeting and trade exposition. A benevolent Mother Nature was truly on our side.
While the Conference did not officially begin until Tuesday, February 22, an IMI Industry Promotion meeting on Sunday afternoon and a full slate of MCAA committee and vice presidents think-tank sessions on Monday got things under way. A three-hour-long Executive Board Meeting also was held on Monday afternoon.
The Industry Promotion Meeting, conducted by Ray Lackey, executive director of IMI's Market Development Program in Washington, D.C., consisted of slide presentations covering the masonry/metal stud wall system, an update on IMI's educational activities involving schools of architecture and engineering, and IMI's efforts in developing a building codes improvement program that would affect the United States and Canada. The latter would be promoted on the national level as well as through local and regional masonry promotion groups.
(A more detailed discussion of IMI's current and past activities is contained in President Don Leonard's report, Looking to the Future, featured elsewhere in this issue.)
Lackey showed slides of the historic Brice House in Annapolis, Md., a 200-year-old colonial style building that is being converted to the proposed International Masonry Center.
The Center, which is a joint effort of MCAA and the International Union of Bricklayers & Allied Craftsmen, would contain an extensive library on masonry subjects, a museum, a national and regional training center, and possibly a masonry research center.
A guest speaker at this session was J. Gregg Borchelt, P.E., executive director of the Masonry Institute of Houston/Galveston. Borchelt discussed loadbearing masonry construction and the need to get more input on this building system at schools of engineering and architecture as well as to design professionals and owners. "There's no question about it," he said, "we need more friends in the engineering and architectural fields to help us promote