As I was saying ...

During October 2006, NRCA hosted three visitors from a Russian shingle manufacturing company. During the meeting, our guests made the matter-of-fact observation that The NRCA Roofing and Waterproofing Manual, Fifth Edition, is widely used by specifiers and designers in their country.

I didn't think much of the comment at the time—after all, we expect the manual to be widely used. But it's a pretty powerful statement about the effect your association has.

It's likely that 20 years ago most roof systems in Russia were built to a government specification and certainly not to any specifications coming from the free world. And when Russian designers began to have options available to them, they must have had a variety, including guidance from other countries' government agencies and manufacturers from all over the world. Instead, they looked to NRCA.

Visiting China in 2005, an NRCA delegation arranged to meet with China's minister of construction (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, we should be grateful in this country for small favors). During that conversation, the minister told the group how he'd been spending time on NRCA's Web site and was quite sure much of our technology will be put to use in the construction of the Olympic Village for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It's hard to imagine such a conversation occurring 20 years ago.

NRCA's influence extends beyond countries that once were communist.

We know we have a broad reach in the English-speaking world because between 200,000 and 250,000 users visit our Web site every month, spending an average of 10 minutes during their visits.

We know our manual has broad distribution because we sell about 250 copies every month in addition to complimentary updates our members receive.

And we know we're reaching beyond the English-speaking world because of the positive feedback we've received regarding the new Spanish-language section of our Web site.

NRCA's influence is related directly to its brand recognition and image, and NRCA's leadership is working hard to preserve the NRCA brand. In fact, NRCA's Executive Committee recently spent time with a branding consultant and has been considering the recommendations of a task force that addressed issues pertaining to better developing our brand. The results of these efforts are not always apparent. But when they pay off in Russia and China, we know we're making a difference.

Bill Good is NRCA's executive vice president.