The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association (NLBMDA) board voted Wednesday to approve new bylaws for the association, operate on an $835,000 budget for the coming year and sell its former headquarters building for $1.25 million.
The board also confirmed a new officer slate for 2008-2009. Paul Hylbert of ProBuild Holdings in Denver became chairman. Joining him on the new board are Dan Fesler, Lamperts, St. Paul, Minn., chair-elect; Joe Collings, Ferguson Lumber Corp., Rockville, Ind., vice chair; Linda Nussbaum, Kleet Lumber Co., Huntington, N.Y., treasurer; George Lester, The Lester Group, Martinsville, Va., as an at-large director; and Bob Magbee, Magbee Contractors Supply, Winder, Ga., as a second at-large director. John Somerville of Dow Chemical Co., Marietta, Ga., will remain as chair of the Manufacturers and Services Council, while Rick Seely, head of the Michigan Lumber &Building Materials Assn., Lansing, Mich., will continue to serve as the Federated Association Executives Chair.
"We have done significant listening and work to understand what is most important to serve the industry going forward," Hylbert said in a statement issued Thursday, Oct. 2. "Our focus will be on doing a few things well; on legislation and regulation, on growing NLBMDA's voice of the industry to advance our policy agenda, and on bringing dealers, manufacturers and suppliers together for top-quality business and networking meetings."
The new bylaws streamline the organization, NLBMDA President CEO Michael O'Brien told ProSales. It features a federated structure, in which lumberyards belong to NLBMDA by dint of their regional associations' affiliation with the national group.
The association also will concentrate more exclusively on federal issues, O'Brien said. Its current Government Affairs Committee will be broken into two groups, one focusing on legislation and the other on regulatory affairs. Meanwhile, the LBM Institute, which focused on providing data, statistics and education for the LBM industry, will become dormant.
The board-approved budget calls for revenue of $835,000 and expenditures of $786,000 over the next 12 months. The association's revenue is expected to come primarily from three sources: funds from the federated associations, dues collected from vendors that join NLBMDA's Manufacturers and Services Council, and revenue from the sale of NLBMDA's old headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington. The National Democratic Club, a meeting place for Democrats that owns the townhouse next door and has been renting the NLBMDA's building, has offered to pay $1.25 million for the structure and the board approved the sale, O'Brien said.
