Get your hands dirty!

Among the things specifiers grumble most about are the typical architect's lack of knowledge about how things work and how they go together, and the belief that "If I can draw it someone can build it!"

CSINext October Anniversaries

Each of the following members joined CSI in October. CSINext is please to congratulate the following CSI members on their continued membership.

• 1 Year - Jeffrey Mosley, CSI
• 21 Years - Lynn Javoroski, FCSI, Member Emeritus, CCS, LEED AP, SCIP
• 24 Years - Michael Young, CSI, CCCA
• 30 Years - Helaine Robinson, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP
• 31 Years - Robert Dye, FCSI, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP, RRC

CSINext October 2016 Meeting

Greetings! We will be conducting our October Chapter Meeting and the presentation will be "The Accessible Restroom" Presented by Daniel Hargreaves, FCSI, AIA, CDT, RAS. Mark your calendars for October 12th at 12:00pm EDT. We look forward to having you attend this free webinar, register today as space is limited!

(PMI) - Construction Extension to the PMBOK - 4th Edition Now Available

Hello everyone,

Around this time last year I wrote a blog about my involvement as one of the SME content editors for the Project Management Institute's (PMI) upcoming release of the 4th Edition of the Construction Extension to the PMBOK.

Happy New Year!

Comments have been bantered about in the CSI community about the value and worth of supporting the CCPR- Certified Construction Product Representative exam as part of the certification offerings of the Certification Committee and CSI. These comments are many times attached to a conversation about the financial viability of the entire Certification program. Granted, the CCPR exam does not get as many exam registrations as do CCS, CCCA and CDT. Many hours of effort and validation have gone into revamping the CCPR exam. I can personally attest to the work done to properly align the exam to the study documents, having chaired the CCPR sub-committee for the past three years. I would like to thank Lee Ann Slattery CSI, CCPR, TJ Gottwalt CSI, CCPR and Tan Diep CSI, CCPR, for the countless hours they have invested in making the CCPR exam overhaul a success. We are seeing an upswing in registration for the CCPR exam. Do numbers of registrants alone give value to the CCPR certification? The answer is no. There are other reasons why the CCPR certification has value and should be considered as part of the overall long term CSI certification offerings. The balance of this article will be devoted to discussing the reasons for “Why CCPR”.

In Person we present...

CSINext took advantage of having the members at Construct and did a group photo. And then in a rare instance we had the entire board at one location. We had members from Canada, Texas, Ohio, Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina and Colorado. Below is the chapter members photo:

CSINext March Anniversaries

Each of the following members joined CSI in September. CSINext is please to congratulate the follow CSI members on their continued membership.

• 17 Years - Nina Giglio, FCSI, CCS, SCIP
• 31 Years - Lane Beougher, FCSI, Lifetime Member, CCS, CCCA, AIA, CSC, DBIA, LEED AP
• 31 Years - Janet Piccola, FCSI

CSINext September 2017 Anniversaries

Each of the following members joined CSI in September. CSINext is please to congratulate the follow CSI members on their continued membership.

• 1 Year - Lenee Hicks, CSI-EP
• 18 Years - Nina Giglio, FCSI, CCS, SCIP
• 19 Years - J.W. Mollohan, FCSI, CCPR, LEED GA
• 32 Years - Lane Beougher, FCSI, Lifetime Member, CCS, CCCA, AIA, CSC, DBIA, LEED AP
• 32 Years - Janet Piccola, FCSI

President's Message August 2016

I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to write one of those messages that starts out saying “Where has the year gone” but as I sit down to prepare my message I’m really in a state of confusion as to where did the year go? But with that I think of the great 2016 that CSINext, the Chapter continued in a very stable and self sustaining manner, the Board made decisions to advance the Chapter and we had really GREAT programs at each meeting. We say a huge thank you to both Ann Baker for her leadership of the Chapter as President and to Randy Watterson who served as Secretary. Luckily, Ann will be staying on the Board to keep me focused. Randy is moving on to other things but we will look forward to him participating in the Membership meetings as often as he can.

CSINext August Anniversaries

Each of the following members joined CSI in August. CSINext is please to congratulate the follow CSI members on their continued membership.

• 4 Years - Robert LeClare, CSI, CDT
• 7 Years - Rachel Grissop, CSI, CDT
• 25 Years - Ann Baker, RA, FCSI, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP, SCIP

CSINext September 2016 Meeting

Construction Specifications Institute
CSINext Chapter
September 2016 Meeting

Meeting Date: September 14, 2016
Meeting Time: 12:00pm EDT 12:30pm EDT (Yes, it is delayed 30 minutes)
Meeting  RSVP: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/63038677161374212
Webinar ID: 441-216-403

Speaker: Victor Brewer

"The use of drones in the construction has been steadily on the rise over the past several years and will only intensify as the current state of technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace. 

Victor Brewer noticed an increasing need for the use of drones in the construction industry and entered the market with his company Aerial Image Solutions and set out to provide Owners, Architects, Engineers, and Contractors with advanced technology that can assist in design and delivery of all project types. 

How did we get here? The transition to maintenance activities

So far in this series, we first looked at the good old days, when CSI membership rose continually, sometimes at an amazing rate. During the growth period, we saw that membership in CSI offered tangible benefits. CSI was an organization that helped those involved in construction to understand how construction documents are related, how to prepare them, and how to interpret them. Much of that information was developed by CSI members, so there were countless opportunities for members to take an active part in the future of specifications. Face meetings were important because the only other options for communication were written letters, which made real-time discussion impossible, and telephone calls, which were quite expensive.

CSINext July Anniversaries

Each of the following members joined CSI in July. CSINext is please to congratulate the follow CSI members on their continued membership.

• 1 Years - Kim Ki Young, MA, CSI, CDT
• 12 Years - Thad Goodman, CSI, CDT
• 16 Years - Steven Lawrey, CSI, CCS, CCPR, CCCA, AIA, LEED AP

Time for some fun!

Each summer, boards of directors make plans for the next year, education and certification committees begin preparing study courses, newsletter editors start bugging chapter presidents for articles, and planning committees search for good technical programs and tours. All of these are serious, necessary things that must be done to provide the services members expect.

CSINext June 2016 Meeting

Greetings! We will be conducting our May Chapter Meeting and the presentation will be "Adopting Lean Principles, Methodologies, and Practices in the Construction Industry: Observations on Challenges, Considerations, and Possible Approaches" Presented by Alex Johnson with Newforma. Mark your calendars for June 8th at 12:00pm EDT. We look forward to having you attend this free webinar, register today as space is limited!

CSINext Election 2016 results

In less than 2 months, CSINext (and CSI) will be having a changing of the guards. When I was on the Institutes Nominating committee we had a large pool to draw from. At the there must have been 300+ names. However, it is always a challenge for the chapter to fill the slate. But once again we have found our board for FY17. If you have some extra time and want to enrich your CSI experience, I do encourage you to reach out to the CSINext board and see what can be done. But we do want to thank those who have stepped up to the plate...

CSINext Election 2016 results

You can’t turn on a television these days without seeing political ads or a news report about the latest primary (and don’t get me started on how Colorado doesn’t have primaries and therefore I personally had no say at all in selection of presidential candidates). As I write this, the presumption is that it will be a Trump-Clinton race in November. If you look around you’ll also see that people are googling how to move to Canada if one or the other candidate wins. I also subscribe to a site promoting Irish tourism, which has been telling me that there are more than a few towns there actually advertising that they’ll welcome Americans who want to leave the country after the election. Really? They’d give up on a whole country, a whole way of life, because of who is occupying the White House? I’m not sure I’m quite ready to throw that baby out with that bath water.

CSI Bylaws, here we go again...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” this is the opening sentence from “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. But you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with CSI, construction or the internet? Everything and nothing, as I reflect on when I became in Institute Director 10 years ago (yep, July 1, 2006) it was a trial by fire and the boards first attempt to do a comprehensive revision to governance and its bylaws.

Please say thank you

Please - say "Thank you!"

Among the first things parents drum into their children's heads are the words please and thank you. Parents do such a good job that these words become automatic, and, to a great extent, they become white noise. If they are used automatically, without conscious thought, what good are they? Do they mean anything? Why do we insist children use them, even if they don't mean what they say?

President's Message, March 2016

Here in Colorado, we’ve had a mild and rather dry winter. It’s been a bit too warm for my liking, with above-average temps for much of February and March, probably January too. While we had an above-average snowpack in January, it’s dwindled and could use some help about now. Not only do front-range communities look toward that to predict water supplies for the rest of the year, but we also need rain and snow to reduce our wild fire susceptibility. Plus the dog loves it. So, as I write this, during the last week of winter, we’ve started off dry and with nearly 70° F. Tomorrow the high temps are supposed to be below normal (I think we should call that “typical” instead of “normal”, don’t you?) somewhere closer to 30° F and we’re supposed to have snow. Of course, there’s always the chance that they miss the forecast, and tomorrow is sunny and dry all over again.