An enthusiastic crowd of industry professionals, including an impressive number of first-time attendees, gathered in Palm Desert, California, to hear record-setting aviator Dick Rutan deliver his inspirational keynote at Concrete Sawing & Drilling Association’s 2016 Convention & Tech Fair.
The association’s flagship event, held March 10-12 at the beautiful JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort, experienced a 36 percent increase in first-time convention attendees over the 2015 event.
This year’s convention program boasted 18 industry-specific sessions in addition to Rutan’s Around and Out of This World keynote presentation. Dick’s thrilling account of his nine-day non-stop, around-the-world flight in the Voyager aircraft kept attendees on the edge of their seats and emphasized the power of dreams, dedication, desire and determination.
“I thought Dick Rutan was a great choice. What a wonderful story with very real implications to our lives every day. Not only having the chance to meet a man like Mr. Rutan in real life, but truly get to understand his mindset and sense of purpose, was amazing,” said first-time attendee Tommy Clay of Ardor Solutions LLC in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Other highly-valuable business sessions at the CSDA Convention covered a wide range of topics, including concrete slurry and dust control, dispatching procedures, roughness average in the polishing industry, utilization of social media and cooperation between concrete cutters and GPR contractors.
New for 2016, the convention program also featured a series of quick-fire manufacturer presentations that gave representatives the chance to showcase their products and services to convention attendees. This new format proved popular and will appear on the 2017 CSDA Convention schedule.
Aside from all the business sessions, networking opportunities and social events available in Palm Desert, the ever-popular CSDA Tech Fair was again part of the convention agenda. Around 20 leading industry manufacturers and affiliates exhibited at the event, drawing a great crowd. Attendees took the opportunity to talk one-on-one with vendors in an intimate setting that often cannot be achieved at large trade shows.
“The Tech Fair is an excellent event. As always, I learned a lot and made some great networking connections as I walked the floor,” said Richard Steltzer of Merlin Steltzer Services, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri.
For only the second time in the association’s 45-year history, the CSDA Convention & Tech Fair will be held outside the continental U.S. in Puerto Rico in March 2017.
The Concrete Sawing & Drilling Association is a nonprofit trade association of contractors, manufacturers and affiliated members from the construction and renovation industry. Diamond tools for projects requiring sawing, drilling, selective demolition, polishing and imaging offers the construction industry many benefits including lower total project costs, precision cutting, maintenance of structural integrity, reduced downtime, reduced noise, dust and debris, limited access cutting and the ability to cut heavily-reinforced concrete. Founded in 1972, CSDA has 500 member companies worldwide.
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