A Taiwan Wood Mission delegation tours the ICC-ES Regional Office in Birmingham, Alabama. Pictured from left are: Lin Min-lang, Xu Fang, Cleo Fu, Rao Yu-chen, Gary Nichols, Michael O'Reardon, Christine Shi, Le Ming-Hsien. Not shown: Dr. Tao Chi-Chun. |
A Taiwan Wood Mission delegation touring the Southeast to learn more about Southern pine wood products visited the ICC-ES Regional Office on August 25 in Birmingham, Alabama. In Birmingham, the delegates met with Michael O'Reardon, Regional Manager, and Gary Nichols, Vice-President for Birmingham Operations.
Michael gave a PowerPoint presentation on "Approving Innovative Building Products" with an emphasis on preservative-treated wood (PTW). The presentation included a discussion of how PTW is approved in the United States by Building Officials, using either AWPA Standards or ICC-ES Evaluation Reports. Gary, for his part, explained how codes, standards and local jurisdictions operate in the United States.
Rao Yu-Chen, of the Taiwanese group, expressed an interest in learning about the ICC-ES product evaluation process. She is Senior Technical Specialist with the Taiwan Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI), and is responsible for researching, establishing, reviewing and implementing Taiwan National Standards (CNS) relevant to wood and the paper-making industry. BSMI operates under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and is the authority responsible for standardization, metrology and product inspection in Taiwan.
Additional delegates to visit Birmingham were Dr. Lee Ming-Hsien, Taiwan Architecture and Building Center; Dr. Tao Chi-Chun, Architecture and Building Research Institute; Dr. Lin Min-Lang, National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering; and Christine Shi, BuildTech International Co., Ltd. The group was accompanied by Cleo Fu, of the FAS Agricultural Trade Office, Taipei; and Xu Fang, of WG Consulting Limited. The visit was coordinated by the Taipei office of the Southern Forest Products Association (SFPA), the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau and American Softwoods. |
