Change Leadership Focus Of CCA Meeting

By Kelly Faloon

Members of the Construction Contractors’ Alliance learned from keynote speaker Gary Heil that while leadership traits are important in a leader during periods of change, the environment and attitude of the company can be just as important. He found in his research that people tend to overestimate leadership characteristics and underestimate the impact of environment.

“The attitude of leaders and management team is important,” he told attendees of the Chicago meeting in September. “It’s positive thinking vs. negative thinking.”

The theme of change continued as members heard from Shawn and Matthew Erickson from C.J. Erickson Plumbing Co., and had an opportunity to visit its facilities. Matt recently bought the business from his father.

Attendees also received information from The Fulton Group on outsourcing inventory management. Joe Piro stressed that each company undergo a step-by-step process to determine whether outsourcing is the correct step to take.

The next CCA meeting, which is the group’s 10th anniversary celebration, will be Feb. 27-29, 2008, at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas

Looking for a reprint of this article?
From high-res PDFs to custom plaques, order your copy today!

Kelly Faloon was a former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical as well as the BNP Media Plumbing Group’s Integrated Content Development Specialist. She also was a former editor of the Radiant Comfort Guide the Radiant & Hydronics Report — both official publications of the Radiant Professionals Alliance — and twice-monthly Radiant & Hydronics eNews, an enewsletter for anyone interested in the world of heating with hot water.

Her editorial specialties included women in plumbing, recruiting for the trades, green construction techniques, water conservation, water treatment, hydronic heating, radiant heating and cooling, snow melt, solar thermal and geothermal.

After a 3½-year stint at sister publication Supply House Times, Faloon joined the PM staff in December 2001 as senior editor. She was named PM’s managing editor in 2006 and editor in 2013.

Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.

A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a 1986 journalism graduate of Michigan State University.