ICC staff customer service recognized for supporting Members.

City of Minneapolis Honors ICC's Doug Sucik   Doug Sucik (left) accepts an award from Building Official Patrick Higgins for supporting the city of Minneapolis.   Last month, the City of Minneapolis Construction Code Services Department hosted an appreciation brunch for participants involved in the reestablishment of their Competency Based Testing Program. Among the honorees were contractors, tradespeople, inspectors from several surrounding cities and Doug Sucik, Test Developer/Program Manager from the Code Council. Minneapolis has a long and proud history of insuring that contractors and tradespersons are well qualified to provide quality work for the public they serve. This tradition has been insured through competency based testing. Approximately a year and a half ago the vendor that provided the testing function for Minneapolis decided it would no longer provide that service and would not allow the city to take possession of the tests that had been created over the past 10 years. Minneapolis has turned this unfortunate action into an opportunity to create a new and better system for testing. The first step was to find a new vendor that could help provide nationwide testing. So in August of 2013 Minneapolis partnered with the ICC to provide this service. This partnering gave us Doug Sucik to help develop a testing procedure that meets national standards. Starting over from scratch also gave Minneapolis the opportunity to partner with other cities and industry to produce a test and procedure that was more inclusive. This is the first time Minneapolis combined the knowledge of code officials with industry and test development experts to create a nationally recognized test. In May of 2014, new exams rolled out: the Minneapolis Plumber/Fitter competency test for both master and journeyman levels. Since that time, both levels of competency testing have been added for Mechanical Warm Air Ventilation, Gasfitter, Refrigeration and Steam and Hot Water. Redmond Building Official Recognizes ICC's Bill Corwin In an email to ICC Chief Executive Officer Dominic Sims, city of Redmond, Ore., Building Official Gary Lampella wrote: "I have always been more than happy with responses when I contact ICC staff either by phone or email. I had a new computer installed and was having difficulty reloading the free codes that ICC provides to governmental Members so I emailed Bill Corwin. Within minutes he responded back to me with instructions. I still had problems so I emailed him a couple of more times and he responded again within minutes. I was able to complete the download with his help. "I just wanted you to know that Bill provided a service to me that was well above and beyond what I would have expected. He should be congratulated and recognized for his excellent customer service he provided to me."