By Misty Byers, Editor, tED magazine
The 2012 NECA Show, which runs from Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, kicked off Sunday morning with an opening general session.
NECA President Dennis Quebe addressed the audience and quickly got to his point: addressing three topics of major importance to NECA contractors:
- Construction Wireman/Construction Electrician (CW/CE) classifications (“This needs to be in every IEBW labor agreement NOW,” said Quebe.)
- The labor agreement benefits package (“…and the burden it places on our ability to compete,” noted Quebe.)
- The need to aggressively pursue new business (“I encourage all NECA contractors to hire a business development person for their company,” urged Quebe.)
Following the introduction of 13 new fellows into the Academy of Electrical Contracting, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the primary hosts of MSNBC’s weekday morning show “Morning Joe,” took the stage to share their quick wit and insight on the state of national and global events with NECA conventioneers.
The show floor opened at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. For the first time, the NECA Show—the largest electrical construction industry trade show—is free to all electrical professionals (admission is limited to the NECA Show itself and does not include access to NECA Convention events, which are reserved for the association’s members). Attendance to the NECA Show is reportedly up about 10% from 2011.
This year, the show floor features nearly 300 exhibitors. Over the three days of the NECA Show, in addition to highlights of educational offerings, I’ll be providing a glimpse of some of the products being displayed. Here are a few that caught my eye as I roamed the floor on Sunday – Photo gallery: Products from Day 1 of NECA 2012
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