Active engagement

As president of the National Greenhouse Manufacturers Association, I want to convey our concerns over the impact of the COVID-19 virus, our prayers for continued heath, and our hope that we will return to normal soon. Our organization and members are all very proud to represent a great and growing industry. We continue to focus on greenhouse manufacturers, system component suppliers and educational representatives that contribute to and support the growth of greenhouses nationally.

Our organization is the collective voice of all of our members. We are not only the representatives to the International Building Code Committee but also promote best practices through education and networking at our annual meetings.

Usually, I convey the success of the NGMA spring conference, but 2020 is a special year, and our meeting has been postponed to the fall of 2020. This postponement is now an advantage to all of you. The NGMA will be hosting the annual meeting this fall, in Jacksonville, Florida, from October 11th to 13th. We encourage everyone who has an interest in the greenhouse market to attend. The annual meeting is filled with expert speakers, educational presentations and networking events, and we even throw in a bit of fun!

The NGMA codes and standards committee had a very successful year defending the greenhouse market and continuing to carve out awareness of the greenhouse structure in the building code. We can all agree that we want our environment to be healthy for us as well as our plants. The efforts to improve our planet’s environment are coming in many forms, one of which is the IECC energy code.

This year we lobbied and participated in the committee hearings to prevent proposed changes to increase restrictions in the energy code for greenhouses. After the fall hearings, we learned that we successfully defended our position and the proposal was rejected. Unfortunately, due to an extremely high level of influence and pressure from the energy conservation representatives, an unprecedented adoption of the proposal occurred without an opportunity to further debate our position. There are still a lot of details to be ironed out, and you can hear firsthand from the codes and standards committee at the fall NGMA annual meeting.

I want to personally thank the many volunteers who contribute to the success of NGMA. We have made progress with various initiatives, but the energy codes will continue to challenge to our industry. I encourage everyone to become an active member of the NGMA and I look forward to continuing to serve as president in 2020.

Tom Vezdos
General Manager
Rough Brothers, Inc.