As we enter into the last quarter of our fiscal year, I realized that there has been a tremendous amount of work done by the staff of the Builders Exchange of Rochester to make your membership more valuable.  Each and every day we continue to improve the products and services we offer and the members are taking advantage of them. That includes:

• Over 200 individuals from our members have received FREE training in areas such as OSHA 10 and 30 hour classes, Fall Protection, Scaffolding, Trenching and Aerial Lift through our grant from the Department of Labor.  That’s 200 more people that are properly training to be safe on our worksites.  By the time our grant is fulfilled, more than 300 people will have gone through the programs. 
• We launched a fleet management program to help members save money on their vehicle purchases and leasing.  To date, members have saved in excess of $2,500 for every car or truck they purchased.  Please take advantage of this program and save your company valuable resources!
• Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, was launched last month.  Now, members can enhance their search capabilities by entering specific words or phrases and identify which projects they want to review.
• Advocacy – the staff of the Builders Exchange and our members have been continually working with elected officials to get meaningful reform of Labor Law 240/241, Workers Compensation and promoting Economic Development legislation and/or programs.  Our coalition, Builder Partners, has now grown to include members from every major city in New York, including New York City and Long Island.  The results? 
  • We successfully blocked restrictions on the usage of plastic pipe
  • Ensured that the State Insurance Fund won’t be writing general liability policies to cover 240/241
  • Were instrumental in the release of the Workers Compensation Improvement Act of 2006 which paved the way for workers comp reform earlier this month. While there is still more work to be done on the workers comp bill, we applaud our elected officials for recognizing that this was an issue that needed attention and for working with everyone to get a bill passed.

So, what has this meant for us?  It has meant an increase in new members and the retention of current members.  The membership of the Exchange has grown nearly 25% in the past two years.  There are now in excess of 530 members of the Exchange.  Our retention rate for members continues to be in the low-to-mid 90’s, well above national averages.  And more than 40% of our members have chosen to bump their company to the next level of support and have become Upgraded members.  They see the value we can provide in accessing project information versus national companies in the area.  

In a time when many organizations are actually losing members, we are growing.  And it adds strength to our voice and our ability to make this industry more competitive and drive economic growth.  So what’s next?

For the remainder of this fiscal year, we will continue to seek out new members and improve the services for our current members.  In our 2007-08 fiscal year, we expect to:

• Make further improvements to the Build NY On-line Planroom by increasing the speed with which you can access plans and specs
• Roll-out the second generation of OCR software, further improving your search capabilities
• Launch a new Membership Directory and Buyers Guide that is constantly “live” with the most up to date listings possible.  And you can choose to view it electronically or print it out for your office
• Enhance our safety training programs by nearly doubling the size of our Department of Labor grant
• Continue to push elected officials across the state to address the on-going problems that Labor Law 240/241 presents to all of you and the tax paying citizens of our state

We hope that you are pleased with everything we can and will do for you and your company.  I welcome your feedback.  If there is something you’d like to see us do or something you think we need to change, please call me directly or send me an e-mail.  Your feedback is critical to our, and your, continued success.