Tag Archives: management

Getting Products to Market Research and development (R&D) in the fire sprinkler world is a fascinating, frustrating, regulated, fun, rewarding, and slow process. In the fire sprinkler industry we often confuse R&D with good, old-fashioned product engineering. I have had the pleasure to be involved with the R&D process for …

Services. Providing or supplying activities utilized by members or the public as a process of supportive assistance. The American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) offers many helpful services to contractor members, manufacturers and suppliers, as well as the general public. One AFSA service in particular, that directly impacts all members and …

The beginning of the New Year is upon us and it is time to take stock of the past year and look forward to the next. The industry saw solid growth in 2016 with particular strength in multi-family residential construction and commercial construction. Our vendors verified the trend as they …

Volunteerism. The practice of volunteering your time or talents for charitable, educational, or other worthwhile activities, especially within your community or industry. It’s an interesting challenge to draft a semi-regular opinion piece for an industry-wide magazine, and a lot of credit goes out to the past chairmen of the AFSA …

Frank Mortl III, CAE to Succeed Steve Muncy, CAE The American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA), the nation’s largest fire sprinkler industry organization, announces that Steve A. Muncy, CAE is retiring as president effective December 31, 2016, and the board of directors have unanimously voted to appoint Frank Mortl III, CAE …

An Exemplary Committee Grows Even Stronger The American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) Manufacturers/Suppliers (M/S) Council recently made a few changes to its membership. Mike Dooley of FlexHead Industries in Holliston, Massachusetts was re-elected to serve a three-year term, and Ray Fremont, Jr. of General Air Products, Inc. in Exton, Pennsylvania …

Officers and Directors Lead AFSA The American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) held its 2017 election of officers during the September 14, 2016 meeting of the Board at the 35th Annual AFSA Convention & Exhibition in Nashville. Michael F. Meehan, VSC Fire & Security, Virginia Beach, Virginia, will remain as Chairman …

AFSA Celebrates 35th Anniversary in Nashville Extraordinary things happen when the fire sprinkler industry comes together for North America’s largest – and we’d argue, best – convention and exhibition. That was evident throughout the American Fire Sprinkler Association’s (AFSA) 35th Annual Convention & Exhibition September 14-17 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort …

A different way to measure. There are many ways to measure the health of a company or an industry. All the usual metrics of profits and losses, business cycles, competition, and employee morale, but there is another one that I think is often overlooked. It is people’s charitableness. And as …

This will be my final column in Sprinkler Age. Two years ago I notified the AFSA Board of Directors of my intention to retire on December 31, 2016. During the past two years we have planned for this transition, repositioning some staff to new responsibilities and adding new faces. In …