MCAA Appoints New Executive Director

President’s Message

By Frank Campitelli

The Mason Contractors Association of America is proud to announce the unanimous decision to appoint Jeff Buczkiewicz as the Association’s new Executive Director.

Jeff Buczkiewicz has been a part of the masonry industry for over ten years. Beginning his masonry career with the Mason Contractors Association of America, Jeff worked for the MCAA for six years and was primarily responsible for the membership and marketing activities of the organization. During that time, Jeff spearheaded the development of the Architects Masonry Symposium, a three day program developed to give the design community a greater understanding and appreciation for masonry. Jeff chaired the market development committee for the Masonry Industry Council for two years and participated in the founding of the MIC.

For the past four years, Jeff has been the Executive Vice President of the Building Stone Institute and oversaw the day to day operations of the BSI. Jeff began with a budget of just over $550,000 a year and has increased the budget in four years to just over $900,000. During his tenure at the BSI, Jeff built a program called the Designer Education Series which features a full day program which highlights the many attributes of natural stone through the installation process, applications, care and maintenance and a variety of other areas.

Over the past two years, Jeff has secured grants for the program totaling $100,000 from an industry group which provides support for natural stone education activities. Jeff currently is the Secretary on the Board of the Natural Stone Council and is a former Board Member of the StonExpo Federation (which recently sold their show to Hanley Wood). Jeff also is the chairman of the Branding Subcommittee for the Natural Stone Council which recently began a branding effort with a budget in excess of over one million dollars for the next 18 months.

During his four years with the BSI Jeff has worked to forge relationships within the Natural Stone industry by being an active participant on many industry Boards and committees. In addition, Jeff was instrumental in getting the BSI to develop a legislative committee which has participated in the Masonry Industry Legislative Conference the past two years. Jeff has met with his peers at allied groups such as ASLA in order to foster closer ties and relationships with the end user and he has been active and successful in working with ASTM, creating a new active technical committee for BSI to combat a recent ASTM standard that would have put natural stone at a competitive disadvantage.

Jeff has taken an organization with no reserves that was operating at a small deficit to an organization that has over $150,000 in reserves and an annual budget that has always reflected a surplus while creating new programs and services for the members the group serves.

"The opportunity to return to work with the entire masonry industry in the capacity of Executive Director of the MCAA is very exciting to me," said Buczkiewicz. "The industry needs renewed efforts of cooperation and innovation and I look forward to working with our industry partners to help accomplish this. I truly believe our best days are ahead."