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Developing leaders creates leverage for the organization. It allows business owners to step back from day-to-day operations and focus on strategic growth.

To start off the new year, editor Kristen Bayles reflects on 2025, and what's to come in 2026.

This new standard will mark a turning point for water supply and sanitary drainage pipe sizing, which together haven’t received a meaningful update since the 1940s.

I'm grateful my family showed my brother the value of trades. After my great-grandfather's plumbing business closed, my dad became a welder and shared his skills with my brother during many afternoons in the work shed, like an apprentice learning from a master.

You can teach anyone to sweat a copper joint or wire a circulator pump. What’s much harder to teach is attitude, curiosity, pride in craftsmanship, and the ability to make a customer feel at ease.

People from all over the world came together with a shared purpose: to learn, grow, and help one another succeed. I sat with plumbers from Georgia during one session, and over lunch, I joined a group from Wisconsin. We talked about everything from the unique challenges of running a business in different regions to funny on-the-job stories that reminded us all why we love this industry.