Proceedings of: Workshop on Improving Building Design for Persons with Low Vision

Closing

Comment from Earle Kennett: I think we’re coming to an end. And I want to thank the final panel who sat up here, especially Kurt, for your presentation, but for the whole panel, Marsha, for your passion, for the final panel and I think we had a great discussion here. We’ve got a tremendous list.

Give a hand, a round of applause for the panel. Well, we’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and we’ll send out everyone e-mails and kind of give you our plan of action and we’ll provide the forum. We’ll decide what that is, you know, a website, an FTP site or however we do that and give us – and start getting you involved in this effort. You know, it’s interesting. I’ve been here 20 years and I’ve been involved with a number of councils and committees that get started, and you know, NIBS is an interesting organization because we have a membership. We have several thousand people that participate but we’re not a membership-governed organization. It’s very interesting.

So we’re not like AIA or IES. So we have the freedom to do what we want. We’re governed by a board of directors who represent the building community. They are self-elected. They tend to be past presidents of the different organizations representing the different sectors, building codes, home builders, architects, engineers and including about six presidential appointees. So that board governs us. But they allow us, you know, a large amount of flexibility in setting up committees and councils and task groups based on areas that the industry want to go, and many times the associations are so formalized with so many rules and procedures it’s hard to get going in some of those organizations. I’ve been part of a lot of meetings that have taken place, many of which were successful and some of which resulted in committees that are still ongoing at NIBS. And I’ll tell you, I think your interest level is as high as any that I’ve seen in the first meeting.

So I think Stephanie is certainly excited. Stephanie is an architect and I’ve known Stephanie for what 20, 30 years. Anyways, it’s kind of scary. She was 11 years old when I hired her in AIA when I was there. But nevertheless, she’s a good judge and she runs a lot of projects for the VA and she’s got a huge Department of Energy project. What we do with our staff here is they get assigned to committees and councils and some of these groups, and it’s kind of a volunteer effort. You know, they’ve got a day job with federal agency clients doing real work, and so when I put this on them, it’s kind of volunteer. And you know, she’s got two very big councils, one on building enclosures and one on high performance buildings, and she has been begging me to take her off of them. She’s like, please.

So anyway, we’re hiring a new staff person and I finally told her, okay, I’m getting you off the high performance and by December you won’t have to do the building envelope. And as I was sitting here I said, you know I’m going to expect you to do this one, and she said, oh no I’m all excited about this. You know, she’s the other volunteer that can work with you to develop this. So anyway, I’m excited about it. I appreciate all of your interest, participation, excitement. I think it’s always great when we bring in new groups, new professions, new sectors to work with us in a multidisciplinary way. I sort of just for your own interest laid out our annual report there if you want to pick it up and take a look at all our programs.

We do report to Congress and we report to the president, so -- you know, not that anybody in any of those places ever reads it but at least it’s in the legislation and it gives us some [recognition].

And so I personally on behalf of Stephanie and the rest of the employees appreciate the time that you’ve spent here, and especially for the doctors who make the big salaries. You know, this was really, you know, an expensive and extensive effort.

But the last person that I want to give my appreciation to is this guy over here that really started this. And you know, I’ve known him and he’s a constant reinforcement of what good things people can do and how much, what comes at you in life, whether it’s your boss or the agency you work for or a physical impairment, that you just get up every morning and you put your clothes on and you go and you fight the good fight, and he has done that for the last 40 years.

Comment by Vijay Gupta: Well, I don’t know if I deserve all that but I thank Earle. We met [on this idea] about six months ago at GSA and I can recall Earle, one day I said we’ve got [to do something].

And it’s a problem, [and] because [it’s] my own problem, they’re not doing anything. So we talked for a little while and we met and we funded a small project to correct that, and we met a few times; and so that’s where we are. After all that, this is the effort of all these people: Earle, Stuart Knoop, Greg Knoop, Tom Sachs, Tom Williams, Marsha Mazz, Jim Woods and Stephanie.

Marsha supported it all the way. She gave us the idea [about accessibility], she told the VA to set rules so we can do that. So thank you, Marsha.

Response by Marsha Mazz: I told you to quit running your mouth and that’s exactly what you did.

Comment by Earle Kennett: Well, I think we all give Vijay a round of applause. Thank you all again.