We Need Your Help!

By G. Alan Griffin

For many of you receiving the January issue of the Association's magazine, Masonry, there is an additional tipped-on cover. This is to alert you that you are not a member of the national Mason Contractors Association of America. Inside the issue you will find a feature article on what the MCAA is doing to advance the masonry industry and protect your business. You will also find a membership application to join the MCAA.

I ask you to join today! Our livelihoods and the future of our industry are dependent on the strength and unity of our industry's contractors. We need to come together under the banner of the national Association and provide the strength and focus to fight a unified battle to regain markets lost to tilt-up, precast and other wall systems. No other segment of the masonry industry has the ability to impact markets faster and more effectively than mason contractors.

You may think you alone have little effect on the future. Wrong! You, and thousands of other mason contractors acting together, can change our industry.

What can you do?

First of all, join! The MCAA has done a tremendous job with what little resources we have. If you do nothing else but send us an application and dues payment, you are doing a lot.

Secondly, when you join, bring a fellow mason contractor with you. A collective unified voice is even more effective.

Third, after joining, get involved by working in your local chapter, attending the national convention scheduled for April in Chicago, or serving on a MCAA committee.

Lastly, you can join. Oh, did I mention that already? If you have not begun filling out an application, I need to say it again: join us today! Why wait? (Click here for online membership information.)

As a contractor, I know that things can be tight. You probably have thousands tied up in receivables and struggle to make payroll. But the fight to protect our industry is too important to ignore. We need you!

Are you a non-union contractor? Well, so am I. Are you a union contractor? Well, so is our Vice President Frank Campitelli. Union or non-union, we are all one contractor with one fight: to beat tilt-up, precast and the other competitive systems that aim at taking all of our work.

It is time to join. Welcome to the MCAA!

About the Author

G. Alan Griffin, President of Griffin Contractors, Inc., has severals years experience in the masonry industry. He is a past president of the Mason Contractors Association of America and the North Carolina Masonry Contractors Association. Griffin grew up working in the masonry business founded in 1957 by his father and grandfather, and has since taken over the family business. Griffin was award the C. DeWitt Brown Leadman Award for exemplary leadership in advancing the masonry industry in 2007.