CSI: More than just one - or three - types of members

In CSI membership - one more time, we reviewed the history of CSI's membership classification, and argued in favor of a single category of voting members. Although response has been favorable, two objections have been voiced, one regarding governance, the other related to practical aspects of communication with other members. The first appears to be more important, but the second affects day-to-day activities.

Board representation

As noted last month, CSI began as a group of specifiers, or, in today's terms, professional members. There also were a very few who would today be called industry members, but it was clear that this was an organization of design professionals, concerned primarily with the art of writing specifications. Over the years, the balance changed, and we now have almost equal numbers of professional members and industry members (for convenience, I'm considering industry and associate members as a single group). Along with their growth in numbers, industry members attained more rights and privileges, and there are now only a few small differences between voting members. Clearly, CSI has changed. It is not the organization it was in the beginning, but is an organization of design professionals and product representatives, with a smaller number of contractors and subcontractors.

CSI membership - one more time

Last year, our annual election ballot included a proposed bylaws amendment that would have combined the professional, industry, and associate membership classifications into a single group. Although the amendment received over sixty percent of the votes, it fell short of the required two-thirds majority required to pass. The Los Angeles chapter brought the issue before the members at the annual meeting in Philadelphia, where eighty percent of the members voted in favor of again putting membership reclassification before the members, as an amendment proposal on the 2011 ballot.

Readers of this column may recall that last year I questioned the need for changing to a single class of voting members. I still feel the same as I did then about some of the issues, but in the last couple of months I learned a few things that led me to the conclusion that the time for a single class of voting members is long overdue.

The Price of Gold

One of my CSI hats is History of Fellows Chair for CSI's College of Fellows. As such, I search for background to create or update the biographies that are on the Fellows' website, at www.FCSInet.org. This often is a difficult task even with new Fellows, who either can't find the time or are too bashful to write their own biographies. Getting information grows more difficult as time goes on, and becomes a real challenge for those Fellows who are no longer with us.

While my search generally moves along at a pace dictated by work at office and at home, some events, such as each year's elevation of new Fellows, notable achievements of a current Fellow, or the passing of a Fellow, inspire greater effort. One such incident occurred in February of this year, when Joy Davis notified me that a collection of three CSI medals - for President, Past President, and Fellow - were being auctioned off on e-Bay.

What's a vendor?

I’m not sure when it started, but in the last couple of years I’ve seen an increasing number of references to “vendor” with no definition of what a vendor is. In the context of the construction contract, there is no need to introduce another entity, as everything is the responsibility of either the owner or the contractor. That leaves exactly four options for any given item:

Go-To Guys

I recently received an e-mail from my local IMI (International Masonry Institute) representative, saying that she would be retiring in a few weeks. Even though I had known her all the twenty-plus years I have been a CSI member, and knew we were about the same age, it was a bit of a shock. After trying to convince her not to retire (not very hard), I thought about other favorite product reps - my go-to guys, some of whom retired or lost their jobs in the past couple of years.

Specifiers have a simple job: to know everything about everything. Which is interesting, given that they not only must try to keep up with new products and changes in old ones, but must somehow divine what it is that the rest of the project team has in mind. Of course it's impossible to know everything, so what they do know is phone numbers for their go-to guys. These are the people who have the right answer or know where to get it, help extract information from manufacturers' labyrinthine websites, respond quickly, and appear to remain unfazed by calls made just days - or hours - before bidding documents are issued. They're the ones who know not only their own products but those of competitors, and are able to offer advice about installation, maintenance, potential problems, and corrective measures for defects or failures beyond their control.

Success Story

We are approaching the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of two seminal documents for the construction industry: "A Tentative Proposal for a Manual of Practice for Specification Writing Methods", and "The CSI Format for Building Specifications". The first led to the publication of CSI's first Manual of Practice (eventually becoming the Project Resource Manual), the second to MasterFormat.

Although MasterFormat is more widely known and used, the original Manual of Practice (MOP) embodied the essence of CSI's raison d'être - clear communication in construction documents. Along with MasterFormat, the MOP provided impetus for CSI's growth through the end of the twentieth century, as design professionals across the country sought to improve their specifications. Despite its relative obscurity, I believe the MOP's significance was second only to MasterFormat and AIA's contract documents in the world of building construction.

Wood Door Finishes

Last year, while updating our wood door specifications, I became a little confused while trying to figure out the finish systems specified in AWI/AWS and WDMA standards. In the past I had specified wood doors using AWI standards, but after investigating the relevant standards, I changed our wood door specifications to use the WDMA standards because they are more specific to wood doors. However, because some literature refers to AWI and some to AWS standards, and some refers to current standards while others refer to old ones, I created a conversion table so I don’t have to go back to the standards whenever we get shop drawings.

Standards of the Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) and the Wood Door Manufacturer’s Association (WDMA) have been similar for a long time, and in most cases, a door that meets Premium Grade standards for one will meet them for the other. Perhaps the most important exception is face veneer grades, but I'm going to limit this discussion to finish standards.

Missing Standards

Although there may be a few products that require little thought in specifying, most require some minimum amount of research, comparison of similar products, and determination of the right combination of characteristics best suited to a project.

Even then, the process can be straightforward and fairly simple, provided the type of product is common, governed by widely accepted standards for materials and performance, well-described in product data, and supported by reputable manufacturers and representatives. Hollow metal doors and frames are a good example. Most manufacturers produce them according to one or both of two sets of common industry standards, published by the Steel Door Institute (SDI) and the National Association of Architectural Metal Manufacturers (NAAMM). Unfortunately, not all types of building products can be specified by use of similar standards.

Before you start that e-mail telling me how difficult it is to specify hollow metal doors,