problem

f\ELEBRATING its golden anniversary v year serving the nation's dealers, the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association held its annual meeting at Lake Tahoe for five days, holding twenty-five separate sessions covering a spectrum of subjects.

Opening day, October 28, consisted of a joint meeting of the NLBMDA executive committee and associate board members (manufacturers), and a meeting of the NLBMDA advisory council (managing officers of 30 federated groups of the national).

A next-day luncheon session heard Dr. R. Gene Conatser of the Bank of America in San Francisco project that residential construction would o'reach its lowest point in early 1967 and move gradually higher during the remainder of the year. Although total starts in 1967 will likely be below the 1966 total, the rate in the latter part of the year should be well above the current rate." He also stated that monetary policy is "likely to remain restrictive and interest rates should remain near current levels. A shortage of mortgage funds will persist, but may be partially offset by imaginative

SATES VOLU{YTE UP

A survey of business conditions by NTBMDA covering 967 deolers showed:

71to soid lheir soles volume wos qs high or higher thon lost yeor, with 5l o/. indicoting on improvement;

520/5 soid their profits were os high or higher with 34le indicofing they were definitely higher. The oullook for the coming month is mixed,

Only 6to fell homebuilding will be good; 35o/" foir, ond 59o/5 poor.

However, 17oh soid repoir ond modernizolion woufd be goodi 48oL loir, ond onfy 5o/" poor. Of those serving the form morkel, mosl lelt it would be good, ond the vost moiorily believed lhol commerciol ond induslriol conslruction would be foir.

PRESlllEI{I-EIECT Janes M. Shedden, (far left) of Chicago, congratulates George V. Stein for his outstanding service as this year's president of the National Association. Stein traveled 78.000 miles on association business and was away from his lumber yard 135 days. Shedden presented Stein with a action on the part of both the building industry and lending institutions."

Current manpower shortages were reported by Department of l,abor official, Robert J. McConnon, who said, 'olumber and building material dealers will be hiring employees that five years ago they would have flatly turned down." Dealers were urged to seek guidance and help frorn local BAT offices, and to utilize provisions in the Manpower Development and Training Act which ofiers financial and supervisory assistance in on-the-job training programs of individual businessmen.

Nine district meetings were held the morning of October 30.

Legislative representative Thomas C. Brickle reported on the national's legislative activities. Brickle told the board that association efiorts in the last twelve months have achieved a surprising degree of success in NLBMDA's legislative objectives. "Take the administration's measure to federalize the unemployment compensation programs in Congress. The infamous H.R. B2B2 sought to eliminate experience rating while it established a federal standard for payments. Such broad changes would require additibnal money which would be raised by both tax rate and wage base increases. The House rejected the proposal and came up with a new bill calling for a smaller tax increase. Due to an enormous political action effort on the part of businessn,en-including NLBMDA-this drive was thwarted and tremendous savings were achieved. Lumber dealers were saved $6.00 per employee per year at a minimum; the total savings to this industry ran over $l million; by defeating the costly H.R. 8282 proposal, savings per employee nuould be $89 per year, or a total industry saving of $34 million in 1967;'

Samson W'iener, chairman of the NLBMDA advisory committee on legislation, said two lengthy meetings were held to hammer out a long-needed NLBMDA legislative policy statement. "We have come up with a policy statement that is broad enough to allow lots of room for freedom of action within each area, and yet is specific enough to clearly state our position."

The statement of legislative policy was unanimously approved by the board of directors.

Sam Arnold, chairman of the national legislative action committee, said a plan had been devised which will 'oamplify our voices on Capitol Hill. and u,ill. if properly implementcd" multiply our voices far beyond the number of our memlrers." John f)ickerman, Nl,llllDA legislative <'oun-.el and consultant. was asked to give details on the plan" t'alled "A blucprint lor establishing a rrational lcgislatilt' action committee."

Thc "lllut'print" proposes <'reation of a Natir>nal Legislatile At tiorr Committee.

"The optimum objectivt' is to have 1000 or more well-informed and lt'gislativelr- activc dt'alcrs as NLAC memlrt'rs on a two-toone liaison ba,.is with car:h one of tht- ,tr35 Congressmen and Senators." I)ickerman statcd. A manual is l,t'ing prt'pared to outlinr' lrrnc tions to lrt' pcrf ormed ]rv each NLAC member. lJickt'rman explained.

J. Dt'Forest Venter. chairman of the \ational Research (lount:il. rerrorted on tht'

Council's progr('ss and activities for 1966. He praised the rr,ork of committee members antl the results a<'r'ompli-s1"4 by NRC during the past \'('ar.

Venter said tn o n('\\' seminars---Constnrr:tion and F-lt'< tronic I)ata Pro<'t'ssing are nc)\\' ar ailal,le to dealcrs through sponsorship of thcir federated associations. Also Project 70 has been revise<l and up(Continued on Page 64)

HERE'S A whole six-pack 0f association managers (l): Gene Ebersole (Texas), Mike Muscheites (Nebraska), Bob Reid {Carolina), Bob Jones (Mid-Atlantic), Jim Duke (Louisiana) and W. B. Parrish (West Virginia). (2) J. DeForest Venter, USG's Martin Bartling and 0wens-Corning veep Ted Peck of Toledo,0hio. (3) Mountain States Assn. manager Chet Nortz of Salt Lake with Mary Lenore and George Stein at the president's reception. (4) King Lumber's Art Masters with the Weldon Walkers of Walker-Kurth Lumber, Houston. (5) F.0. ltlarion of lVasonite, Chicago, and Mead Clark's Duane Bennett. (6) Harold Mattlin of Anderson Corporation and George Harpole of Potlatch Forests. (7) One of the highlights of the 50th Annual was LMA's special reception for the officers, executive committee members and manufacturers advisory council of NLBMDA held at Homer Hayward's beautiful Tahoe home, LMA prexy Homer pictured here with "Pete" Bowers, William D. Bowers Lumber, Nlaryland. (8) Ralph Thorn of General Woodworking, West Va. and NLBMDA pr gal Marge Mathis. (9) Mrs. DeForest Venter, Mary and Bob Butcher of San Lorenzo Lumber. (10) Kaiser's Dick Gerber, Mrs. Gerber, lsabell and Frank Heard. (11) Truckee-Tahoe's Charlie Cross, Sr., Ham Knott and Bill Lehrburger of U.S. Plywood, New York. (12) Phil Weyerhaeuser of Tacoma and LIVA's Bob McBrien. (13) Lela Cook, Arizona Assn. manager Frank Davis and Midway Lumber's Jack and Hazel

Sullivan of Tucson. (14) Joe Harley of Baldridge Lumber, Albuquerque, a guest, and Terry Mullin who was re-elected executive committeeman for California and Nevada. (15) Celotex exec Marvin Greenwood of Tampa and Florida Assn. manager Al Spain in most pleasant surroundings, (16) NLBMDA's Tom Brickle with LASC's Wayne and Colleen Gardner. (17) Ken and Mrs. Milliken of the Southwestern Assn. l8 the Al Stocktons, the Hudson Lees of Lee Lumber, Reno, Charlie and Jessie Dart. (19) 0utgoing NLBIvIDA prexy is all smiles here with San Bruno Lumber's Al Stockton. All LMA hosts were easily identifiable by their red jackets. Twenty-five separate sessions were presented at the Lake Tahoe conference.