Louisville, Kentucky, October 4, 2002. Construction industry representatives, building and fire code enforcement officials, first responders, and elected officials from across the nation will gather at The Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky, in two weeks to discuss and consider cooperative actions on a wide-range of issues of immediate concern to the public safety and economic future of their communities.

The October 20-22 program is the combined joint annual meeting of the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) and the Association of Major City/County Building Officials (AMCBO). The program includes the Second National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age and a special session on homeland security. (NCSBCS and AMCBO respectively represent the building code and public safety concerns of the states and largest cities and counties in our nation.)

The three-day conference opens on Sunday, October 20, with training for state and local building code enforcement personnel, members of the construction industry, and elected officials on: "How to Design a Local Disaster Mitigation Strategy" and a second program on "Public Relations Skills in Dealing with the News Media." Sunday’s training sessions are followed by an overview on NCSBCS programs and a "New Products Reception" featuring hands-on demonstrations of software systems that building departments are using to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of permit processing, field inspections, and plans review.

Monday, October 21, Louisville Mayor David Armstrong will welcome meeting attendees and open the conference’s special day-long session on building regulatory streamlining and information technology – the Second National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age. Featured presentations include panel discussions by major corporations and senior code enforcement personnel on the benefits to both public safety and the nation’s economic competitiveness by making changes in the building regulatory process to identify and eliminate areas of regulatory overlap, duplication and inefficiency. The work and streamlining products of the National Alliance on Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age will be shared with attendees in a subsequent panel that morning. Some of the models that will be covered in the program have saved the construction industry and local jurisdictions as much as 60% in costs attributed to the building regulatory system in their community.

Efforts to bring e-governance to state and local communities will be the topic of that day’s luncheon speaker, Doug Robinson, Director of the Governor’s Office of Technology. Afternoon sessions on October 21^st include: streamlining best practices and a demonstration of hardware and software that are transforming the construction and building regulatory processes. Featured items are: online permitting and plans review systems (including online plans review currently being done in Singapore), PDA’s being used for field inspections, and other I.T. applications now in use.

In a parallel program Monday afternoon, home builders, contractors and building regulatory personnel will receive an update on how building seismic safety zones are drafted and their implications to construction codes and look at the challenges that have arisen regarding the emerging problem of mold in buildings.

On Tuesday, October 22, the Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Meeting shifts its focus to homeland security. The program opens with "Lessons from 9/11." This session provides timely information on actions being taken by state and local governments, the Bush administration, and the nation’s construction community to better prepare, prevent, and mitigate future terrorist attacks on our nation’s infrastructure and our citizens who live, work and play in buildings.

Mid-morning first responders, code enforcement personnel, building owners, operators, and other segments of the construction community will participate in a discussion of steps that need to be taken to build a prototype of a secure database for first responders of as-built designs, evacuation plans, and other key contact information. The program will include a look at several existing first responder information systems.

Attendees interested in understanding the similarities and the differences between the nation’s two model building codes, the International Code Council’s International Building Code and the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 5000 Building Construction and Safety Code have that opportunity in a parallel mid-morning session. Representatives from both the ICC and NFPA will field a series of pre-assigned questions regarding how each of their codes handles different technical provisions and also will field questions from the floor.

The Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO meeting finishes the day with an awards luncheon and the business meetings of both organizations.

Interested parties can view the agenda and register online at the website.

The host for the Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Conference and the National Forum is the Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction. The Louisville conference is being held in association with The Infrastructure Security Partnership – a national coalition of over 115 organizations and governmental agencies working cooperatively on homeland security for the built environment.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Carolyn Fitch at NCSBCS – phone: 703-481-2038 or e-mail her at: cfitch@ncsbcs.org.