NEWS RELEASE

For more information contact:

Carolyn Fitch (703) 481-2038

"Are You Ready for This?"
Co-located with ICC, NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Conference
Shares Challenges & Best Practices with
Building Regulatory, Construction Community & Elected Officials
September 29 - October 1, 2004, in Salt Lake City, Utah

Herndon, VA – July 7, 2004. Over 95% of the American public live and work in buildings that are designed, constructed and renovated under construction codes and standards adopted by over 40,000 state and local governments in our nation.

In these times of economic recovery and heightened security, elected officials, building codes administrators and the construction and information technology communities collectively face a wide range of challenges as they work to assure both the economic competitiveness of their jurisdiction and the safety of their citizens.

Representatives from these communities are invited to join the members of the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards and the Association of Major City & County Officials in Salt Lake City September 29 - October 1 to hear panel presentations and to participate in the discussion of best practices addressing the following issues:

  • State and local government homeland security initiatives that coordinate building regulatory programs across jurisdictional lines
  • Successful disaster recovery initiatives – lessons learned in the school of hard knocks
  • High-rise retrofit – how jurisdictions are balancing public safety and rebuilding neighborhoods
  • How to successfully address changing demographics and codes administration and enforcement (bilingual work forces, pending massive retirements of senior officials, etc.)
  • Funding effective codes administration and community development in times of tight budgets
  • Addressing federal regulatory overlap and duplication and update on new pending federal regulations impacting the construction industry
  • Helping state and local jurisdictions identify and obtain interoperable hardware and software to reduce the costs of codes administration and enforcement
  • Licensing contractors and inspectors – successful approaches towards oversight, penalties and revocations
  • Effective approaches towards coordinating state and local construction codes and codes administration

The joint NCSBCS/AMCBO annual meeting includes special work sessions for state, major cities, counties and small jurisdictions in which specific codes administration and enforcement concerns of each of these levels of government will be explored. In addition, the conference features hands-on demonstrations of hardware and software now available for use in codes administration and the streamlining work products of the Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age.

Among featured speakers for the annual meeting are: Shyam Sunder, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Building Fire Research Laboratory, who will deliver an update on the NIST World Trade Center Disaster Report; David Levey of Forest City Development Corporation, who will provide a developer’s perspective on high-rise retrofit issues; and a representative from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), who will describe the importance of interoperability in the hardware and software used by state and local governments.

The NCSBCS/AMCBO meeting starts on Wednesday, September 29, and runs through Friday, October 1. The program is being held in coordination with the International Code Council (ICC) annual meeting in Salt Lake City that runs from September 25-28.  A special one-day registration fee has been set for ICC meeting attendees who wish to participate in some of the NCSBCS/AMCBO conference.

Registration fees for the NCSBCS/AMCBO annual meeting is $300 for members of NCSBCS and AMCBO and $400 for non-members. Through August 15 an early bird registration fee of $250 is available to NCSBCS and AMCBO members and $325 for non-members. A special $100 per day registration fee has been set for those attending the International Code Council meeting.

Click here for annual conference agenda and early-bird registration.

NCSBCS was formed by the nation’s governors in 1967 to provide a national forum
in which government officials and the private sector can work together to address
common concerns in the building regulatory process.

NCSBCS provides technical support to the National Governors Association
under an executive branch agreement and provides secretariat services to the
Industrialized Buildings Commission - an interstate compact,
the Association of Major City/County Building Officials, and
the Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age.

The Association of Major City and County Building Officials (AMCBO) provides a
national forum for building officials of large cities and counties to discuss
their mutual interests and seek solutions to common problems
in the administration of major building departments.