MIA, BSI Announce Joint-Venture Plan
OBERLIN, Ohio and CHESTERTOWN, N.Y. – The Marble Institute of America (MIA) and the Building Stone Institute (BSI) today announced a proposed agreement to consolidate operations for two years.
The boards of directors for both industry groups unanimously voted at their respective July board meetings to ask the memberships of each organization to approve the two-year joint venture. Late November/early December membership votes are anticipated.
The combined group will be called: ‘MIA + BSI – the natural stone institute’. The name preserves connection to both organizations’ history and brand equity, and allows for transfer of goodwill.
Together, the MIA and BSI organizations serve more than 1900 members in 55 countries who represent every aspect of the natural stone industry, offering them a wide array of technical and training resources, professional development, regulatory advocacy, and networking events.
After two years, both memberships can decide to fully integrate or remain independent.
This action concludes 12 months of discussions about the similarity of missions, focus, and duplication of efforts to serve the stone industry. The recommendation to enter into the joint venture came from a task force including representation from both organizations.
“The threats we face each day and into the future are not from the natural stone industry, or its many associations,” said 2015 MIA President Dan Rea (Coldspring, Cold Spring, Minn.). “It is from well organized alternative materials with huge marketing campaigns focused on our markets. It’s time to create a unified effort to not only defend but actively promote natural stone.”
“Most importantly, we need to become pre-emptive as it relates to competing products and our own threats in not taking action,” said 2015 BSI President Rob Barnes (Dee Brown Company, Dallas).
Both the MIA and BSI organization leadership believe that regardless of the markets where their member companies reside, uniting resources is a first step toward accomplishing the core responsibility of a relevant association.
“We believe this consolidation is additive, and strongly feel the combined equity will provide additional value to the industry and our members with continued relevance as the world’s premiere natural stone association,” Barnes said.
“Uniting resources creates enormous leverage that, simply put, gets things done,” Rea added.
Informational web pages have been established by both organizations to inform their respective memberships of the reasons for this proposed consolidation. Updates on organizational data, new combined initiatives and opportunities for networking forums on the topic are posted.
Visit www.marble-institute.com/mia-bsi or www.buildingstoneinstitute.org/join-bsi/joint-venture-proposal/ for more information.
Get the news of the industry with Slab & Sheet, the weekly e-newsletter every Thursday from Stone Update. Sign up for free delivery here.
For the latest industry info, check Stone Update on Twitter and Facebook.
