"Makin' My Head Spin"
The President's Message
by Michael I. Roman, MBI's Past President, Resun Leasing Incorporated

The convergence of a robust economy, new market opportunities, ever increasing acceptance of commercial factory built construction and growing user awareness of our capabilities has generated a level of activity unprecedented in our industry. Member companies from Maine to California report that business is brisk and shows no signs of abating. Today we are at the height of back to school construction and capacity is severely strained. Freight companies are booked, qualified set-up crews are committed, factory production is scheduled tight, dealer's attentions are divided among far too many projects and new customers are pounding on the door. Yet the best news is that the boom is broad based. Lease fleet utilization is at or near an all time high as construction offices and model home sales offices are in great demand. The requirement for general office space is escalating as companies are budget driven and wary of committing dollars to fixed capital assets. The hallmark of business in the nineties is speed and flexibility. As these are the primary market drivers for our industry, it is no coincidence commercial factory built buildings are in great demand.

Our industry serves numerous market segments and each segment is currently enjoying significant growth. At this time of the year education is the most visible. Factories are jammed with singles, doubles and complexes as public and private schools vie for dealer and set-up crew attention in order to accommodate anticipated student populations. This is also the time of year all the newspapers across the country begin to assemble the back to school articles. Many will focus on facilities and the student learning environment.

The association is receiving requests for information about modular classrooms every day. These requests come from architects, facilities personnel and more frequently, newspaper reporters. The MBI staff, led by Judy Smith, spend a substantial amount of time responding to requests and providing information. Yet our resources are strained and much of the information provided is stale. We simply do not have sufficient resources to take advantage of the opportunities being generated by our industry success. While we have developed an extremely informative web site and dramatically increased the marketing element of our bimonthly newsletter, the current dues structure does not provide a sufficient platform upon which to build a viable marketing campaign.

Several years ago, the MBI Board of Directors voted to adopt a program whereby participating manufacturers would affix an MBI label to units as they were produced. The impetus for this program came from the perceived need for adequate funds to conduct a coordinated industry public relations campaign. Although factory built commercial buildings continue to penetrate new markets and gain wider acceptance from an ever increasing user base, the public's view of our buildings is largely shaped by the print media. Unfortunately, many of the articles published are in the education marketplace and condemn the "trailers" as a sub-standard learning environment. Complaints voiced repeatedly about the trailer villages at our schools carry over and taint all commercial factory built buildings. We must develop a pro-active marketing campaign to educate the public about the benefits of factory built buildings. A pro-active campaign requires increased finding and the finding was envisioned by the MBI Board to come from the sale of MBI seals.