GOBSA's people-oriented approach gets attention

The Greater Ozarks Building Systems Association, or GOBSA (pronounced gob-suh), is changing to be more member-friendly. Last year, GOBSA rewrote its statement of purpose to be people-oriented. We even changed the title to our mission, and dropped many of the task-oriented statements. We have relaxed our membership qualifications to include individuals, partnerships or corporations engaged in a business serving or promoting the building industry.

Our thrust is to promote general interests of the building industry, and to develop knowledge and understanding for all parties touched by the industry. We have developed a friendly networking atmosphere at our general meetings and now schedule social events throughout the year. 1999 saw an almost 20 percent increase in membership.

We increased our scholarships this year by more than 30 percent. We maintained our sponsorship of the Ozark Empire Fair for the second year, and also continued our sponsorship of the Sertoma Club's Chili Cook-Off this year.

We went from one to two fund-raising golf tournaments this year, greatly improved our two-day fishing tournament and lake outing and just held our full-costume Halloween Party. Our Annual Party (alias Christmas Party) and induction of new board members and officers will end our year in January.

In 1981 a small group of contractors met to form the Greater Ozarks Chapter of the National Metal Building Dealers Association.

In 1985 the association withdrew affiliation and formed the local group, the Greater Ozarks Building Systems Association. Since that time, our emphasis is directed more to nonresidential building construction than to strictly metal-building professionals.

Our organization has been headed by many notable area businessmen. A list of our past presidents includes Jim Holmes, Jerry Miller, Jerry Carroll, Jim Vincent, Mike Simmons, Larry Harrison, Harry Gilmer, Paul Dock, Ron Bell, Richard Reed, Danny Edwards, Scott Pearson, Dick Smith, V.R. "Smitty" Smith, Mark Elwood, Mel Brooks and Ed Canning.

(Ed Canning, of Masonry Structures Inc., is president of the Greater Ozarks Building Systems Association.)

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