Traveling back to my home/office in Atlanta from the recent World of Concrete Show in Las Vegas, I was able to reflect on some of our company’s recent achievements. The recent World of Concrete show gave our company a platform or perfect opportunity to:

1. Show our entire suite of Fox Blocks ICF Construction Product SolutionsIt was a great achievement for Glen Klassen and Mike Kennaw to design our 20’ x 20’ footprint in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center to successfully show and accommodate our entire suite of Fox Blocks ICF Solutions. The booth needed to show and/or demonstrate many Fox Block samples, new launch products, samples of constructed walls, YouTube construction videos, live website demo’s, interactive project estimator demo’s and training, recycling program displays, construction photographs and ancillary product samples. Coupled with our typically packed booth full of; potential clients, existing dealers, ICF Builders and customers during the 4 day exhibit. This is the most fun I have had while working a show or conference during my 25+ years as a construction products specialist.
   
2. Highlight ALL of our New Fox Blocks Product IntroductionsOur new Product Introductions include; the launch of our; Fox 1440, Fox Tilt-Up, Silver Fox and we had some fun reintroducing our; Patent Approved 90 degree reinforced corner bracket “industrial strength” 90 degree Corner, Radius Block and our reinforced T-Block. The Fox 1440 is our panelized, site assembly form unit with a uniquely strong web connector. This product series was brought into our line from our acquisition of Formtech last year and now has the name Fox 1440 due to the ability to fit 1,440 form units in a 53’ Tractor Trailer. The Fox Tilt-Up was recently designed and launched giving us the ability to utilize our 2-1/2” thick EPS panels and our new polypropylene tilt-up connector to create and instant insulation board, furring strip and air/vapor barrier all in one step. Saving time and money on any tilt-up application. The Silver Fox is our highest rated R-Value Insulated Form Unit. With the introduction of graphite particles which act as both heat reflectors and absorbers causing an approximate 20% gain in R-Value reducing thermal conductivity. This product series will grow our opportunity with ALL Green Building Professionals giving them an R-27 Value.
   
3. Demonstrate our newly launched Fox Blocks WebsiteOur newly launched Fox Blocks Website will prove to be one of our industry’s greatest knowledge centers and sales & marketing tools. With easy to navigate options, this new design will give all of our dealers, builders, design professionals, potential clients and consumers all of their needed data within a click. With all of our tech doc’s easily accessible along with easy to navigate product and industry education, our new website will continue to be a work in progress….never being stale or old news. Please send us any/all suggestions you may have to continue to help us evolve with our exciting new site.
   
4. Present our newly launched Fox Blocks Marketing Materials and Project EstimatorNew Marketing Materials including product specific tri-folds, recycling program details, up to date specific technical & code sheets and builder and consumer benefit hand-outs. In my opinion one of our greatest new marketing pieces is our newly launched Fox Blocks Project Estimator Program. This slick tool (THANKS GLEN) gives you HUGE benefits by entering in your core thickness, wall lengths and heights, number of corners and specialty blocks giving you the ability to easily figure your project quantity, concrete volumes (in metric or yards), man-hour rates AND EVEN RECYCLED CONTAINER ASSUMPTIONS! Give it a test run…click on PROJECT ESTIMATOR.
   
5. Educate show attendees on our exclusive Airlite Plastics Company Recycling ProgramFrom a 2 ounce container to a 5 gallon bucket, we manufacture nearly 1.5 Billion Food Packaging/Containers a year. With that said, we do not want to waste ANY of the plastic coming from our injection molding process. So we chop, pelletize and recycle ALL of our plastic waste into our Fox Blocks Webs. Yeah 100%! Our Recycling Program and manufacturing process is ALL done in house by us to control our; quality, costs and transportation! Oh and did I mention that our exclusive web design offers a full 1-1/2” FULL HEIGHT ATTACHMENT.
   
6. Get our entire Fox Blocks team together, for the concrete construction industry to see and meetOur Fox Blocks Team members were there to meet, greet and visit with show attendees during the WOC exhibit. From our owner Mr. Brad Crosby, to ALL Regional Sales Managers to our Customer Service Manager, to our Order Entry Specialists, to Pat Gredys our V.P. of EPS, to Mike Kennaw our V.P. of Sales, to our Technical Team….we were all out to present our; company, products and show our industry involvement. Collectively our group has over 200 years of ICF Experience!
   
7. Our Fox Blocks Hospitality Night and Company ProgramOn Tuesday after the exhibit hall closed we hosted a hospitality room in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center from 5PM to 7PM. There were approximately 110 people in attendance and the food services group had a hard time keeping up with the appetizers-sorry. Among our guests were; members of the press, equipment manufacturers, vendors, customers, builders, dealers, bracing manufacturers etc. Randy Daniels –Western U.S. Regional Sales Manager, did a wonderful job as our Master of Ceremonies. Speakers included; Mr. Brad Crosby, President of Airlite Plastics Company and Mr. Pat Gredys, Vice President of EPS Airlite Plastics Company. Thanks to everyone who attended, hopefully all in attendance had a good time…….I know that I did.
   

Please note that I am not bragging about any of this…….I am just very proud of this company & product lineup and all of our people involved.

I am very blessed to be part of this team!!

By:

D.C. Mangimelli, II

Regional Sales Manager, Mid Atlantic U.S.A