Thank you NACHI staff!

[John Onofrey]

NACH staff,

Thank you so much for all of your help during the 2006 NACHI convention in Orlando. My family and I are back home now and it was a great trip.

What a great bunch of people Nick Gromicko has assembled in Colorado. I want to express my sincere thanks to Aimee and her staff who truly have shown me that they care about their NACHI members, not only through their words, but through their actions.

Chris Morrell was always ready to help with wireless connectivity, passwords and just about anything network related, even though he was being pulled in a bunch of directions at once. Thanks for coming up with nachi.net when we needed it.

Deanne was so nice and came up with a printer for us when we needed one. She has the best personality and is so cute it makes you want to hug her every time you see her, even if she was rooting for the Seahawks.

Christine, Kystal and Kay are equally as endearing and were always visible and available. I was amazed at how tireless each one of them seemed to be when working the convention.

Russell Spriggs, what can I say?

I guess I can honestly say that I have not felt so "taken care of" and "at home" since since leaving the 1st Marine Brigade.

As a group, your Esprit de Corps is convincingly similar. What a group! I think the convention was great.

Thanks a Million!

[mbryan]

I agree!

It was a real pleasure meeting you too, John!

[Greg Bell]

Ditto everything John said.

I would also like to thank John B, Blaine W, Paul S and Gary J for all of their efforts in putting on such a wonderful event.

I can bloody well say that we (NACHI) have the best educator in the business. Gerry we all love you mate!!!

It is an honor to be able too call Chris Morrell a friend he is without a doubt the most intelligent, friendly and sincere young man I know.

Nick you are the man. None of this would have ever started without you.

It was great to meet everyone that I did this year. For those of you that were unable to make it this year I hope to meet you at next years event.

[William Warner]

Ditto!!!

Everyone who put this on deserve a great round of applause.
We have the BEST by far group of guys and gals working for and in NACHI. All are too humble.

Gerry's Manufactured Homes course is a MUST take for those who missed it. He did a great job writing and presenting the course (and we only saw a glimpse of it).

Well done everyone, and it was great to meet all of you in person!

[Nick Gromicko]

Can't forget Christine and Megan who held down the office while we were all gone. Special thanks to Will Decker and Russell Spriggs for helping so much.

Staff had much to overcome including many problems that could not be predicted (some major one's were totally my fault) but mainly the hotel, which sold to a new owner before we arrived. The new extortionist management was horrible. I won't get into all of it but I will give you one example so you can understand what we were up against: Prior to arriving, I checked several times to make sure the exhibitor hall had wireless. The hotel assured me it was already there and waiting. Well when I got there they said that the wireless is always on and ready, but that I would have to pay $100 for the password. I tried to argue with them but some of our exhibitors needed it so I gave them my credit card to bill me the $100. Then the hotel tells me "No, not $100 but $100 per exhibitor." What could I do. So I paid. The next day the hotel comes up to me again asking for more money to access the wireless. Mind you now, the whole hotel has wireless, they are just demanding I pay to access it. I told them I already paid $100 per exhibitor. They said "no, not $100, not $100 per exhibitor, but $100 per exhibitor per day, each day, paid in advance." This would have been a $50,000.00 payment had every booth wanted it... a charge the hotel conveniently forgot to mention in their contract with us.

That is just an example of what kind of hotel I was dealing with. I won't go into the rest as this one example (above) says it all.

Being a perfectionist in an imperfect world I figure I better just focus on the main issues we needed to succeed at. Those were as follows:

1. Education for our attendees: It was very good. It was almost too good with sometimes 110 inspectors violating the Fire Marshall's rules by crowding into 80 person max classrooms. All exit poles said that every course was great. My thanks to our educators and speakers. Most complained about too much to choose from. HOMERUN#1.

2. Exhibitor traffic: Our opening act (the coattail NAHI convention down the street the 3 days preceding NACHI's convention) was a total bust. NAHI had only 80 attendees. Some of the exhibitors I met Saturday before our NACHI Convention were threatening to hang me if NACHI had only had 80 attendees like NAHI's. Well, on top of the hundreds of registered attendees, we had an additional 600+ 1-day pass walk-ins. PRO-LAB alone took $21,400.00 in orders the first day! That is more in one day than the other two association's recent conventions total take for all days combined. 4 exhibitors had their best convention in terms of interest and sales ever. 1 said he doubled his business with our one convention. Steve Luxon said it was his best attendance and sign-up in the history of CMC Energy and that he ran out of material. We also sold 250+ more room nights than we had to to meet our room minimum on a Super Bowl weekend. And despite our NACHI convention being stretched out for 5 days, the exhibitor hall being open too many hours, and the classes being held on 2 different floors of the hotel, we generated awesome foot traffic and interest for our exhibitors. It was a very big convention. HOMERUN#2.

3. The Super Bowl party: I have to give credit where credit is due. The hotel managed to pull this one off. Horderves, a huge screen to watch the game, good sound system, very nice dinner, plenty of food. We had a Texas Hold-em tournament just prior (Greg Bell won) and a free raffle of many, many door prizes at half time. 600 attended the Super Bowl party. And best of all, the Steelers won! HOMERUN#3.

With my 3 major issues a success and Krystal back at work, though computerless and not eating solid food (see next paragraph below), I relaxed a bit, only to start counting up all the little things that went wrong, and there were many. So be it.

My worst moment: Krystal is the only staffer other than Aimee who has any experience with helping run a convention. It was a first event for every other staffer. Anyway, Krystal's laptop screen dies just before the convention, she brings it with her anyway with a dark screen hoping we can plug into another screen and get her docs and notes for the convention. Krystal is my detail assistant and handles all the bazillion little issues. She and I arrive at the hotel at 2 am on Thursday night. By 4 am she is puking in the toilet sick with stomach flu, then passes out for 30 hours. I figure I'm dead figuratively and she is dying literally.

My most freaked out moment: Two exhibitors arrive unannounced with a tractor trailer full of their stuff saying that they decided at the last minute to attend. They thought that we had a big hall and only a few exhibitors I guess. We were packed tight already but kept squeezing everyone till we got them in.

My scariest moment: Talking with Carl Fowler from 3D about how upset he is with a certain other convention .

My second scariest moment: Talking with Carl Fowler about anything .

My most proud moment: When I realized we were honored by members of nearly every other inspection association including several ASHI and CREIA Chapter presidents, all the guys from FAPHI, all the guys from ISHI, AARST, NEHA, AHIT, Envrionmental Education Foundation, NORMI, Small Business Administration (who by the way hired dozens of our NACHI members on site), HUD, Florida Department of Health, and even FABI's Administrator.

My best moment: When I used to run a home inspection company 10 years ago (seems like 100 years ago) I hired a fella, Ron Eckenroth, who later became a competitor, a good friend, and a NACHI member. He even worked for me while a competitor. He stuck with NACHI right through all the PHIC scam stuff in Reading and recently did a home inspection for Chris Morrell's (NACHI's webmaster) grandfather. Anyway, I'm doing a class on marketing at the convention and guess who is sitting in the front row? Yep, my old employee, competitor, and NACHI loyalist.

My funniest moment: I put on one of HomeGauge's crazy shirts. HomeGauge is a software company and a competitor of Lorne Steiner's. I then snuck up behind Lorne and asked him to pose for a pic with me. I kept my arm around his shoulder and directed his attention toward Russell Spriggs who could hardly keep the camera from bouncing while he held back his giggles. Lorne never saw my shirt till it was too late. We got a pic of Lorne and I in front of the PVS banner while I'm wearing a HomeGauge shirt. Lorne turns to me and asks for a copy of the pic then looks down and sees my shirt. You had to be there but it was funny.

See you all at the next one.

[lewens]

Ok.
I was supposed to be there and at the last minute had to back out.
Sour grapes.
Larry

[gbeaumont]

Hi to all,

My head is still spinning from the conference, as those who were there (or who read Nicks post) know the hotel was horrible, the gouging was incredible ($4:65 for a small coffee etc). I am glad that we will never be comming back here (or any other hotel opperated by Blackstone!!! )

As for the rest....................... Bloody fantastic

I believe NACHI put on the premier event for our industry this year, the vendor hall was too full, we had too many instructors, we had too many students, we had more fun than should be legal, we laughed way to hard (when not banging or heads against the wall) and I can't wait until next year.

It was great to meet old friends and make many new ones, it was also fabulous to meet so many people face to face who I normally only get to talk to on the phone, special thanks to:

• Some guy named Nick
• Paul Sabados
• John Bowman
• Lorne & Keith from Porter valley
• Aimee and the HQ staff
• Chris Morrell
• Russell and his crew from homegauge
• Will Decker
• Russell Spriggs
• Joe Tedesco
• John Onofrey
• Mike Rowan from Inspection Depot
• Kal from 1st inspection services
• Greg Bell
• Over 1,000 others who made the event what is was.

My head is still spinning, thanks for all who attended my classes especially those who suffered through a technical failure in my advanced electrical class, and those who stayed late to do the ad-hoc commercial inspection class that I did with Porter Valley software.

I'll write more when I am home, I wish I had had time to take my camera out of my case this year, but the memories are burned into my sole.

We truely have the best of everything within this organization, the camerarderie is fantastic.

See you all next year.

Regards

Gerry

[Mark A. Timpani, CMI]

sounds great!

[William J. Decker]

Some of my rememberances:

• Not that it is in any way surprising, but Aimee, Kay, Krystle, Chris (and I humbly appologize because I KNOW that I am missing a few people) were simply the best support staff I have ever seen. I have previously worked for or with many Fortune 100 companys and attended many conventions, but this crew handled hundreds of little and big disasters calmly, efficiently, and definitively, and in every case, with tremendous grace and class. They are, quite simply, the best support crew I have ever had the pleasure of observing. Each and every attendee, vendor and even the hotel staff (robbers that they were) were blessed by them. It is only proper that they treated the members and guests with such class, but they went further and treated those who were, quite actively, trying to change the terms in the middle of the game, with grace and charm. An army can always determine its success on the quality of the non-coms. NACHI has a cadre of grunts that are incomperable.
• Continuing the military analogy, the officers worked just as hard and equally brought honor to our organization. Paul was everywhere, at all times and always polite. Blane, while I could see that he was about to explode many times, kept his cool and sumply did the work. John Bowman worked tirelessly (usually behind the scenes) putting out fires, attending meetings with vendors, chapter officers, other VIPs and stil had time to schmooze with the members and be sexually harassed by Minnie Mouse . Nick was a combination janitor (cleaning up the figurative vomit) while helping the support staff (but not tipping their hands) and pressing the flesh with the members. He always gave the impression, so important with NACHI, that even the lowliest member can have a sit down the the founder and be heard and respected.
• The educators were great, as I previously posted. They taught and lead and informed, even in the face of many logistic, techincal and scheduling issues.
• It was great to put people to the posts and avitars I have been seeing on the board for the past year.

Quick story: Last day, only three classes going on, but pretty much allday ones (HUD cert, FEMA cert and Radon cert). Others are just milling around. That rugby hooligan from across the pond, Mr. Beumont, approaches me and asks if I would accompany him. Having gotton to know the guy, I was cautious, but had nothing better to do. Go figure.

We go to his car and he explains his plan to 'stick it to the man' so to speak, but his command of the Queen's English is much better and more colorful. Suggestion; never seperate Gerry from his coffee!

He intended to help his fellow NACHI members while at the same time messing with the hotel. The hotel would not allow anyone else to provide food or drinks (except for water) to the attendees. They wanted the business and the Gawd Awful overhead expense all to their greedy selves.

I accompanied Gerry to a nearby Walgreens where we obtained about 20+ cases of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew and bottled water, as well as a number of styrofoam coolers and ice. We then, in the Walgreen's parking lot, assempled our CARE packages.

Driving back to the hotel, we set up in the parking lot and Gerry went to inform the class attendees that free refreshments were available for them.

But Gerry went further (and this is where I came in). Seems he had calculated that:

1. A 6'8" guy wearing an orange shirt would be excellent distraction while a shorter, more inocuous guy wearing less conspicuous (and better tailored) garb smuggled iced pop and water into the actucal classrooms, right under the noses of the hotel mamangement and lackys.
2. A 6'8" guy, wearing said garb would lug multiple computer paper boxes (camuflage) filled with a 14 pack of water and 4 cases of soda past said authorities and right into the classrooms much better than a Brit with a bad back.

So, I was supposed to be a neon distraction, while at the same time, actually haul the booty.

If it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid.

It worked.

[Mark A. Timpani, CMI]

[Russell Spriggs]

These guys type way better and longer than I can.
But, it's all true.
Except, John, I brought the printer to you when you weren't looking. Otherwise, I know you wouldn't think I was as good looking as Deanna . . .

So, if there is any way everybody could dedicate the proceeds of one insp a month to attend the '07 convention, I am sure you will find it to be well worth it.
I agree with my fellow vets, the bonding was amazing.

[loconnor]

Wow! That all sounds like a great time. I can associate with Hotels price gouging.

It sure sounds like there'll be some challenges to tackle for next year. But with two conventions under your belt, that should be a small hurdle.

Congratulations and a job well done to all the NACHI staff and others who made it possible for this convention to happen.

[William J. Decker]

"We Are the Mushrooms! WE ARE THE MUSHROOMS!


Keep us in the dark and feed us 'feces'.

"If it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid" - W. J. Decker Sr.

Hope this helps (and works).

[loconnor]

?????

Will...Are you still down in Florida, hanging out at the bars?