Winter Meeting 2020

Embassy Suites by Hilton San Antonio Airport

Board Meeting and Mixer, Thursday Feb 20

The Board of Directors met for the Texas AWI winter Meeting on Thursday at 8am and worked out several changes. Former President Dan Poole of Hunter Millworks officially handed over his duties to Matthew Robinson of Panel Specialists Inc. Jeff Richard of Environment LTD was named Vice President while maintaining his role as Treasurer for one more year.

There were plans for an afternoon activity, but the weather did not cooperate. The Thursday night mixer/dinner at the legendary Alamo Cafe was enjoyed by all. The Jalapeno poppers where a treat.

General Meeting, Friday Feb 21

The General Meeting on Friday, 8am started off with the normal procedure of all members present agreeing to abide by the Non-Collusion statement and reviewing the minutes from the September meeting in Houston.

The next item on the agenda was to fill open seats on the Board of Directors. 3 new board members were elected and sworn in. We welcomed Gabe Lutz of Lutz Woodwork, Cory Woodward of CCI Group as Manufacturing Members and Nelson Bonilla of Hardwoods, Inc as a Supplier Member.

President Robinson and the rest of the Board communicated their plans for the future of the organization. They acknowledged the fact that attendance has been down in recent meetings. To address this, there will be some rearranging of the upcoming meeting schedules in order to accommodate and attract more membership attendance at the meetings. The plan is to move plant tours and similar activities to Thursday before the Mixer. Fun activities like golf, skeet shoots, etc. will be fit-in when possible, but will not be a main focus of the itinerary.

Friday morning will still be reserved for the General Meeting, but will be followed by an educational speaker. The emphasis on the educational aspect of the upcoming meetings is an attempt to focus on informative topics that many manufacturing members might need. Topics such as the newly released AWI / QCP / ANSI Standards, Contract Negotiation & Estimating techniques.

SkillsUSA Texas

Another big topic of discussion was the SkillsUSA Texas State competition in Corpus Christi. This huge event will be April 3rd and 4th. This is our biggest event of the year. We hope you can join us and help judge the student projects on Friday night. Texas AWI sponsors the Cabinetmaking Competition on Saturday. Students from districts all around the state will be building a cabinet in our booth at the America Bank Center. Scholarships starting at $1,500 will be given to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. The 2020 1st Place scholarship is named in Honor of Charles Lutz.

For more information on how you can help with the SkillsUSA competition, please contact Jim Kollaja.

Shop Tours

After the General meeting concluded, we adjourned to a pair of shop tours. First up was a tour of Maverick Doors. Craig Montgomery showed off his facility and discussed some new CNC machinery that would be installed soon.

Next was a short trip over to Supa Doors. Supa manufactures a line of Commercial Paint Grade MDF doors for VT Industries. A boxed lunch was provided while the Supa crew presented their engineering and manufacturing process. Supa’s tour showed the whole process from shaping the stiles/rails to creating custom louvers and glass inserts. SUPA is a member of National AWI, but is now considering joining the Texas Chapter. We hope to see their representatives join at meetings soon.

Note: This content was written prior to the cancellation of the SkillsUSA event. We’re all looking forward to 2021!
Good luck out there and Stay Safe!

Categorised in: General Meetings, News, Past Meetings, Uncategorized

This post was written by YooperJeff