NRLDA Wins ATAE Award For Industry Enginc ered Homes Promotion

The National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Washington, D.C., has been presented with an American Trade Association Executives "Award of Merit" for its development and promotion of the Industry Engineered Homes Program. Placing second in the Large National Association classification of the ATAE awards, the NRDLA rvas cited for "outstanding service to the industry which it represents as well as to the American Public."

The A#ard of Merit was presented at the AT,AE 13th National Au'ards Luncheon at the Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C., April 26, 1948. David Bruce, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Commerce, made the presentation of the avi'ard to Secretary-Manager H. R. Northup.

The NRLDA received the first ATAE award in its history entirely on the public service value of its development and promotion of lbwer cost homes for American hotleseekers through the IE Homes Program.

Each of the Federated Associations who are promoting the IE Homes Program in the field and who make up the National Association will be sent a replica of the National award for their part in making the program a success.

The over-all objectives of the IE Homes Program are three in number:

1. To meet America's need for lorver cost homes without sacrificing essential standards and quality. This program, it was pointed out, ll'as not a "lloverty housing" program, but was designed to develop means of lorvering the cost of home construction regardless of the price level existing at any given time.

2. To provide smaller contractors everywhere rvith the coordinated materials, methods and designs generally available to large-scale operative builders.

3. To meet the challenge of public housers, in and out of government, and to prove that private enterprise could provide the homes needed by America.

Such ideological objectives had to be translated into practical terms.

The practical objectives, therefore, were five in number:

A. To secure cooperation betrveen the manufacturing and distributing elements in the building industry essential to the continuous flow of coordinated modular materials rvhich could be combirfed with the least lost time and waste.

B. To study methods, designs and or-r-site construction procedures and to publish the resulting recommendations for the benefit of all those engaged in small home construction.

C. To stimulate local building industry interest in and acceptance of the Program.

D. To inform the public of the industry's research and results and to explain the possible benefits of the program to the American homeseeker.

E. 'Io promote actual local construction of model homes incorporating the principles and procedures recommended for use in small ho4re construction.