The following is SMACNA Executive Vice President John Sroka's annual business meeting report on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003.

Eight years ago I prepared an annual report with some service statistics to give you an idea of an average operations year at National SMACNA. The point of the report was that SMACNA National has built a sophisticated service structure to be responsive to member service needs.

It is not surprising that superior service is one of the six SMACNA core values identified in response to the question 쳌gWhat does SMACNA stand for?쳌h

Eight years ago „Ÿ 1995 „Ÿ however, was a strong market year „Ÿ a large man-hour year. We experienced nine straight years of increased man-hours from 1993 through 2001.

This year and last saw a decline in man-hours. We should not be surprised. The history of construction markets is replete with these kinds of cyclical down markets. We have experienced them before.

But the service needs go on . . . in fact, they increase. They increase because when markets get tight you have to work harder to get the extra edge . . . the little extra something to enable you to weather the down market cycle.

And your national Association has to work harder to give you that extra edge. For example:

• The Technical Resources Department handled more than 1,100 technical inquiries and interpretations by phone, fax, in writing and electronically from members as well as architects and engineers.

• The Labor Relations Department handled 37 arbitration system cases this year.

• The Technical Resources Department conducted 16 technical seminars at chapters.

• SMACNA staff visited 30 chapters to provide SMACNA and industry updates.

• The Labor Relations Department averaged 360 inquiries per week from members, chapters, IFUS contributors and local unions.

• 47 SMACNA committee and task force meetings have been held, to date.

• On average, 50 percent of all chapters negotiating requested customized research from the Labor Relations Department.

• The Public Relations Department issued 75 news releases.

• Through the first seven months of this year, we쳌fve had 166,000 visitor sessions on the SMACNA Web site.

• 3,600 downloads of SMACNA CAD symbols.

• 1,200 downloads of prevailing wage comparisons.

• 1,100 downloads of the SMACNA CAD Standard.

• Our legislative department sent 50 separate opinion letters to Congress, met with 70 senators and their staffs, and conducted 90 similar meetings on the house side.