Walls & Ceilings magazine has selected its Contractor of 2022, Washington-based Alliance Partition Systems. This year’s winner was chosen by a panel consisting of W&C’s publisher, editorial staff and editorial advisory board. The goal of the award is to honor a contractor that employs the best industry practices, provides a good working atmosphere for employees and excels at both quality workmanship and customer service.

In this last installment on our series on Fraud, Kyle Rea of Adams & Reese reviews a case study of a contractor in Texas. This contractor’s hard drive was hacked and ultimately the company raced to come up with a solution for the ransom the hackers demanded. How did it end? Rea outlines this horrific story in detail and outlines some practical advice for contractors that experience such a situation.

W&C would to thank Kyle for his commitment to this series.

Non-compete clauses are already one of the highest litigated areas in employment law, and it could be getting busier. The Federal Trade Commission is considering a new rule that would ban companies from issuing non-compete agreements with their employees. The impact for business owners could be profound, said W&C Legal Insights Expert Trent Cotney, of Adams and Reese.

“This is good for employees and mobility, but if you’re an employer paying top dollar for a C-level employee with access to a lot of different information, it’s going to be very interesting,” Cotney said.

Social media can be an important tool in a company’s image. Anna Anderson, CEO of Art Unlimited, shares some advice for contractors to incorporate into their LinkedIn activity. Her advice touches on how much to post, what to post and more in her discussion with W&C Publisher Jill Bloom.

Welcome to this podcast of If Walls Can Talk. Kyle Rea, of Adams & Reese, chats with us about fraud. Today we’re going to talk about the importance of having an Accounts Receivable Team or Accountant to help avoid fraud.

Kyle chats about what listeners can do in order to address the fraud we’ve been discussing in this series. What’s one major thing that can help them? Rea says having a reliable AR system and Accountant

How can an accounting team help you, and what are same major items of concern they should be focusing on?

What should listeners think about when hiring an accountant or AR team?

Ned Monroe, President and CEO of the Vinyl Institute, sat down with WC to talk about the Vinyl Institute’s petition to the potential EPA ruling on regulating PVC as a hazardous waste. Listen in as Ned discusses the background of the EPA's potential ruling and what this means for businesses in the construction industry if they rule PVC as hazardous waste.

W&C is joined again by Tom Harris, of Tom Harris PUR Consulting, for this latest installment of If Walls Could Talk. This podcast theme is on Off-Site Construction. Harris explains on how modular construction has really started to make waves in North America. In Europe, modular design and construction have been an accepted construction technique for over 50 years and it’s truly a market leader in many countries.

In North America, there’s a stigma attached to modular that the designs are “cookie-cutter boxes” staked on top each other with limited curb appeal. They may be good for temporary housing or relocatable trailers, but not for the mainstream. As a result, modular took its place in smaller, retirement communities, low cost housing and trailer parks. That’s all changed now, Harris says.

The concept of a pre-manufactured building assembly—a component of a design—has opened up modular thinking to off-site. Complex designs, with architectural features, are now pre-fabricated under controlled conditions and shipped to the job site for placement. These building components are complete wall assemblies, complete roof assemblies, and foundations with all the architectural features of site built, but without the impact of weather, trades and having to construct them piece-by-piece on site.