I have the good fortune to be able to travel around the country as part of my work. It is not too often that my travel schedule coincides with a local CSI Chapter meeting, but I always check my local listings, so to speak, to see if I can attend. Recently, I was able to make two Chapter meetings.
In October I was in Houston and was able to attend the CSI meeting there. The speaker was Mr. Mark Lemanno of Franklin International speaking on moisture problems in concrete floor slabs. Mark gave a very interesting presentation. My field is roofing, so you might think that would not share much in common with floor slabs. Actually, there were a lot of familiar concepts. Moisture moves through systems from “wet” to “dry”, whether the system is a floor or a roof assembly. And when it does, it can make serious problems.
In November I was in Omaha and attended the Nebraska Chapter meeting. The speaker was my friend Ms. Joy Davis of CSI. Joy is the CSI Web Content Manager. Not only does she know her way around a website – which was the topic of her presentation – she is also an excellent public speaker. I am somewhat hesitant to share that two of the examples she referred to in her presentation were: 1) my blog and 2) a website called “Web Pages That Suck”. She used my site as an example of one that doesn’t suck. At least, I think that was her intent.
One other thing that really excited me about both these Chapter meetings: they had a large contingent of college students attending. Each of these Chapters had reached out to a local college and invited the students to attend. I do not know if these were Student CSI Chapters, but they certainly were well represented at the meetings. The students were majoring in Architecture and Construction Science. While so many of us are asking how we can keep CSI relevant in our industry, these chapters have the answer. Go back to school!
