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Palletized Red Gedar

THE NATIONAL Lumber and

I Bu.ilding J\4ate.rial Dealers Association will conduct its annual meeting, Oct. ll-14, in Music City, U.S.A., Nashville,Tennessee.

The Western region building mater- ial dealers have always been poorly represented at the national meetings. Even when the meetings were held in San Diego and San Francisco our Western dealers did not respond.

The same has been true at our annual Conference with Congress; Western dealers have shown apathy. There must be some means of encouraging you to attend important meetings that will assist you in your operation. Most of you have received the national meeting registration materials. Music City, U.S.A. is an excellent area for meetings. National has programed an outstanding meeting that will permit you to meet with dealers from across the nation to learn of new and innovative methods needed to continue the progress of our industry.

Business will slow somewhat in October and you will have an opportunity to get away for a few days of much needed rest. There isn't a dealer in the Western region who cannot afford the trip. There isn't a dealer who's business will collapse if he leaves for four days.

Isn't it time the Western dealers started attending the national meetings and show national dealers that there are more dealers in this country than iust those East of the Rockies?

Dealers and Energy

The resources and personnel of 15,000 of the country's retail lumber and building material dealers have been offered to help the Department of Energy carry out its assigned mission of bringing 9Wo of the nation's 74 million existing homes up to a minumum energy conservation standard by 1985.

This resource could be of significant assistance to a new agency faced with such a major task. Richard D. Snyder, exec. v.p. of the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Assn. says the effectiveness of the government's programs, its literature, films and educational materials promoting energy conservation could be multiplied many-fold by utilizing the business contacts at the nation's grass roots maintained by the building material dealers' more than 200,000 employees in over 20,000 locations throughout the nation.

The lumber dealers' dominant position in the building materials marketplace with over $25 billion of business executed this year makes them the natural distribution channel sought by leading manufacturers of energy conservation products. Other retailing groups do only a fraction of this volume, Snyder pointed out.