NBTIDA Executives in L. A. to Tolk Wirh Locql Disrributors ond Spur Colifornio Group

More than 30 building material wholesale distributors in Southern California gathered for a luncheon meeting at Rodger Young auditorium in Los Angeles, September 13, to discuss the formation of a local group in conjunction with the National Building Material Distributors Association. C. A. Haag of Springfield, Ill., president of the NBMDA, and S. M. Van Kirk, general manager of the association, were in Los Angeles to attend the meeting and reviewed the general aims of the NBMDA for the local distributors as well as the progress of the 26 state or local groups now in existence.

Mr. Van Kirk declared that NBMDA membership has increased from a nucleus of 26 to a present 249 in 37 states, and that potential membership could be expected to reach 500-600 qualified members within the next few years. He also said that NBMDA is furnishing a focal point whose aims and activities should be aggressively supported by all qualified wholesalers of building materials throughout the U. S.

The local meeting was arranged by Dick Freeman of So-Cal Building Matcrials Co., Inc., Los Angele.s, and developed some interesting observations on the role of the building material wholesale distributor in the orderly movement of building commodities from the manufacturer to the consumer.

Further discussion of the NBMDA brought out that current members have over 7f million square feet of warehouse space, travel over 10OO salesmen and handle more than 35,000 carloads of building materials annually.

President Haag stated that more than ffi/o of the members are handling lumber products (CLM, 9/l/56) and, that special sessions are being developed for those members within the annual NBMDA meeting at the Sheraton hotel, Chicago, November 11-13.

The local group decided to hold periodic meetings from now on, with meetings eventually to cover wholesale distributors over the entire state of California.

Those attending lhe September 13 meetins were:

_-William G. Grieve, Building Material Distiibutors, Inc., Stockton; Vaughn L. Pipes, Building Materials Distributors, Fresno; (repre-