MIA Launches Women in Stone Initiative
CLEVELAND – The Marble Institute of America (MIA) is launching a Women in Stone initiative this year, beginning with a networking event during Coverings 2014 in Las Vegas.
“An Evening to Honor Women in Stone” is set for May 1 at 6 p.m. at the Emperor Suite of the Las Vegas Mandarin Oriental Hotel. (Registration information is here.)
The event is the beginning of a “platform for engagement” for women in the industry, says MIA Executive Vice President/CEO Jim Hieb.
The initiative stems from the achievements of Women in Manufacturing, a cross-industry effort started several years ago, Hieb says.
“They’ve done a number of webinars and other events already, with topics that are business-leadership related,” Hieb explains. “With the success they’ve had, it’s something to build on and get started on here in our own industry.”
The May 1 event is a free-form opportunity to bring women in the industry together in a basic agenda-less session.
“We’ll have three or four minutes of visioning at the beginning, but this is mostly a networking engagement to bring people together,” Hieb says.
The MIA will follow up on Oct. 19 during The International Surface Event East in Miami Beach, Fla., with the “Women in Stone Leadership Summit,” which Hieb describes as a half-day leadership retreat with motivational speakers and some panel discussions on business success.
The MIA will reach out to other industry associations, such as the Building Stone Institute, the Stone Fabricators Alliance and the National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA) to participate. Future plans may include online training and leadership development programs, although Hieb emphasizes that this is going to be a self-directed effort.
“We’re treating this very much as an organic project,” he says. “We’ll be very careful to let this be guided by a steering committee or various committees.”
For Allyson Humphries, Dallas branch manager for Walker Zanger, it’s an initiative at the right time.
“Personally, I like to see a lot of mentoring,” Humphries says. “I’m at a point in my life that it’s time to give back to women who are younger than I am, and haven’t had the experience in terms of the stone industry.”
Humphries, who credits MIA’s efforts in professional CEU education in helping her with clients, sees Women in Stone as “an opportunity to get a lot of knowledgeable women in the industry together to get the creativity going, and see what happens.”
Jennifer Sayles, marketing manager at TexaStone Quarries, sees the goal of the initiative as “to get women more-involved and more-confident in what they do by getting together with others doing the same thing you’re doing. It’s a way to connect with each other and network, and learn how others have fared and seek advice.”
The initial event at Coverings, Humphries says, offers a wide spectrum, from fabricators to those in architectural work, along with people from quarries and stone producers.
“It’ll be interesting to see what we get from all those cross-sections coming together,” she says. “I think you learn so much from people that cross your path.”
For more information on Women in Stone, go here.
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