Friday the 13th threatens GLE NACHI Chapter event.

[Nick Gromicko]

NACHI Great Lakes - East, in Michigan, had themselves an interesting meeting October, Friday the 13th, 2006. Not willing to give up without a fight, we still had an exceptional meeting.

Even though the Detroit Tigers were playing and won the forth game of the play-offs to put them in line for the World Series, we had a good showing. We had 26 participants show up for our meeting. We did have 9 RSVP's not show up but at least 3 of them called to cancel even if it was at the last minuet.

The most critical events that happened threatening to put an end to our chapter meeting was the cancellation of both of our guest speakers. The first speaker we lost was the Key speaker for the meeting. This happened on Tuesday the 10th, three days before the meeting. Steve Morton of Nationwide Reinforcing was to be giving a two hour presentation about "Foundation Problems, Causes & Cures". He had a family scheduling predicament arise. The second speaker, due to an unforeseen death in the family needed to cancel the morning of Friday the 13th, the day of the meeting. Mike Schneider of FLIR Systems, Inc., Michigan District Manager was to speak on "Infrared Technology and the Building Sciences". Mike, even though this was an unforeseen loss for your family, I hope everyone is able to take the time to celebrate your family members' life rather than grieve for the loss.

I was able to find a speaker to replace Steve Morton Tuesday evening. It was short notice, but Roscoe J. Clark of Permanent Wood Foundations, Inc., a wood foundation system designer and writer of the upcoming Update to the National Building Code to include over 125 pages dealing with Permanent Wood Foundations was up for the challenge. He has wanted to give a presentation to Home Inspectors for quite some time now. He and I still had some challenges to over come yet. He had a presentation prepared, but it was designed with Power Point. We did not have access to a Power Point Projector though. Well luckily he had been doing similar presentations for years and had most of his presentation on slides for a slide projector. It needed to be updated, but he did have an overhead projector that he could use for that purpose. Also, due to the fact that my father was a professional photographer I had access to two back-up slide projectors incase we had a bulb burn out or some other failure of the machines sense they have not been used in years. Well Friday the 13th hit again, thank goodness I brought the back-up projectors. Roscoe's presentation was so well received that most everyone at the meeting announced that they would like me to request him to schedule his 8 or 16 hour classes on Building and Inspecting Permanent Wood Foundations. We would need to get a Power Point Projector for the chapter though.

Now, the most stressing situation was finding a second speaker 6 hours before the meeting. Ron LeClair of Douglas Water Conditioning came to our rescue. He was able to inform the chapter about the most recent concern of home owners involving water treatment to date. This concern is Arsenic in drinking water.

He did a great question and answer session with us on water treatment and conditioning. Michael Lehner, U of M Flint Home Inspection Instructor, said "Ron LeClair was more informative in the first 15 minuets then the water conditioning people he has speak to classes".

Lastly, Craig Ceccarelli of HomeSpec, who does basement waterproofing and repair came and set up a booth at the back of the room. He was a great help as well. He offered to give a presentation if I need him to. He had nothing prepared and said he would rather speak to everyone individually rather than to stand up in front of everyone to give a presentation, but if I needed another speaker he would stumble threw public speaking. He looked relieved when Roscoe's presentation started to run over our time schedule. Craig will be coming back to future meetings to answer anyone's questions about basement water proofing and repair. He said he will also prepare something so that if we need an emergency presentation he will have one available.

Adversity brings out the best in all of us. I love Friday the 13th's. Really, I do!

Jason Alan Sieg, CMI
President, NACHI Great Lakes - East
http://mi.nachi.org/greatlakes

[Russell Spriggs]

Jason, congrats!
It seems you have the chapter well under control. I enjoyed being up there with you!

[Jason A. Sieg, CMI]

It was a great meeting. when I reviewed my paper work later I noticed that I actually had 5 RSVP's for dinner not show.

Shortly I will be scheduling our next 2 or even 3 Events. They will each include a meeting & an 8 hour or 16 hour class.

The announcements will be comming soon!