NAWIC Tri Cities

Guest Speaker Eilidh Wilson - Human Performance

2010-06-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

Our July 20th meeting will be held at the HBA office. Our Guest Speaker will be Eilidh Wilson from Bechtel. The topic -- Human Performance. We will also be welcoming members from AACEI to our meeting.

See you then!

Upcoming Speakers

2010-05-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of what's to come...

JUNE
Speaker - Kelly Abken from Domestic Violence Services

JULY
Speaker - Eilidh Wilson from Bechtel
Topic - Human Performance

AUGUST
Summer Social
Location to be announced

Ann Romeike, Risk Manager for Western States

2010-04-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

Our guest speaker for April will be Ann Romeike, Risk Manager at Western States Insurance. The topic of discussion will be the proposed three way option for Worker's Compensation for Washington State.

The HBA office isn't available this month. Our speaker Ann, has graciously offered to host this month's meeting at Western States' office. The address is 390 Bradley Blvd, Richland (next to the Shilo Inn). Ann will meet us at the front door and then escort us to the conference room for the meeting.

If you have any questions or need directions, please contact Erin Repp at 509-844-2381 or erin.repp@wellsfargo.com. Please RSVP to Erin for the April 20th meeting.

Hope to see you there!

Hayden Homes Seeking Customer Service Manager

2010-03-24T18:53:00.001-07:00

Customer Service Manager for Residential Home Builder

High energy position to facilitate the Customer Relations with the homeowners, construction, sales and sub-contractors on newly built homes.

Our mission is to provide each one of our homeowners with a new home buying experience that reflect exceptional service and quality. We view each home a success when every interaction that our home buyer has with our team members is a positive experience. We strive to set ourselves apart by our service, our communication, timeliness, and personal attention.

Team performance expectations and goals, providing individual self passed position. Ensuring and improving customer satisfaction, monitoring real time service levels and schedule adherences, and serving as leader and point of contact for escalated customer service concerns with homeowner.

Overall responsibilities include:

Currently seeking someone who is skilled and very knowledgeable in construction. Understanding from the dirt work, through framing, drywall, trim, to final grade. Must be willing to crawl a floor crawl space to confirm that the infrastructure has been installed correctly. Same with the attic area.

• Quality control on each and every home to encompass a quality home inspection, from the under floor access to the attic, confirming that all items through out home are in working condition.

• New Home Orientations to be completed with each new homeowner, explaining our warranty policies.

• Leading by example, acting as a role model, and ensuring a fun, respectful, challenging, and positive work environment

• Understanding and correctly utilizing resources provided by internal systems, budgeting, legal processes, and policies
• Managing down stream employees in a professional manner, being able to communicate how various processes should be completed.

• Working with sub contractors, to ensure that the warranty work is completed to homeowner satisfaction.

• Willingness to utilize the tools that may be necessary to complete a specific task

• Negotiating with the subcontractors on price point per job required

• Must be self motivated

• Knowledge background and confidence to work independently on projects

• Ability to multitask in a dynamic, evolving work environment

• Ability to prioritize, follow through, and stay on track

• Ability to effectively communicate and convey ideas to a diverse range of clients

• Ability to find reasons and causes for results

• Ability to quickly assimilate and synthesize new knowledge

• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables.

Helpful Experience:

BA/BS degree

2-4 years relevant supervisory experience

Strong communications and leadership skills

Ability to be flexible in assignment scheduling

Absolute passion for ensuring a great customer experience with every contact

Computer skills with excel, Microsoft, Warranty watcher.

Please respond to this email address: gnorens@hayden-homes.com or fax to (509) 241-0331

Futures Fair

2010-03-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

Our chapter has been invited to have a table at the Futures Fair for High School students, Thursday, May 6th from 4:00 to 6:00pm. We will need some volunteers to man the table and pass out brochures. For those interested in volunteering, please contact Cathy Brady at cathy@americanrockproducts.com.

Health Care Update

2010-03-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

The guest speaker for our March 16 meeting was Nancy Taylor-Babcock with Wells Fargo Insurance Services in Spokane. Nancy shared the results of a Wells Fargo's National Survey outlining the strategies and actions employers are taking to deal with rising health care costs.

15% changed medical carriers
41% asked employees to absorb a greater cost share
Half made change to both medical and Rx design

Nancy also reminded us about the complexity of a variety of compliance issues including:

Cobra Notificiations
Medicare Part D Notifications each year
Update CMS Website each year
CHIPRA Notices
Appropriate ERISA compliant Summary Plan Description
FSA - COBRA Eligible Benefit

If all this leaves you reeling with questions, Wells Fargo is hosting a free seminar dealing with compliance issues May 4, at the Red Lion in Spokane. If you're interested in attending contact Erin Repp at
509-783-2626.

NAWIC Scholarship Application due date - May 7, 2010

2010-03-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

We are now accepting applications for this year's scholarship. All applications must be postmarked by May 7, 2010 and should be addressed to:

     Julie Lindstrom
     c/o Dept of Labor & Industries
     4310 W 24th Ave
     Kennewick, WA 99338-1992

For an application or more information, send us an e-mail at nawic.tc@gmail.com and we will be happy to send you eligibility and requirements information and the 2010 application.

2010-03-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

We hope you and your guests will join us:

Where:       Bookwalter Winery
When:        Thursday, March 11th
Time:          5:30 PM

Help us celebrate Women In Construction Week!!

Women UNDER Construction - Forum

2010-03-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

Social Media to Grow Business

2010-02-24T20:41:00.000-08:00

If you missed our Febuary meeting, you missed a terrific presentation by Craig Sutton of Ikon Marketing Group!!

Craig's presentation gave us some great guidelines for using Social Media as an effective tool to help grow business. His best advice is to be clear about your objectives, create an overall plan to meet those objectives, measure your results and adjust as necessary. The tools we use, Facebook, Linked-In, etc. will come and go (Remember the days before Google? Not so long ago!), so focus on your plan.

If you need help devising your plan, you can reach Craig at:

Ikon Marketing Group
7411 W Clearwater Ave., Ste D
Kennewick, WA 99336

866-481-0777 - Office
craig@ikonmg.com
http://www.ikonmg.com/

Thanks Craig!!

Magic Camp!

2010-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Save The Dates

2010-02-10T16:29:00.000-08:00

February 16th - General Membership Meeting

Speaker:     Craig Sutton, Ikon Marketing
Topic:         Social Media to Grow Business

March 6th - Oregon Retreat

March 7th - 13th - WIC Week

March 11th - Membership Social

March 16th - General Membership Meeting

Speaker:     Nancy Taylor-Babcock, Wells Fargo Insurance
Topic:         Healthcare Update and Reform

Managing Risk Through Contracts

2010-01-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

Our thanks to Chad Mitchell of Summit Law Group for his valuable presentation on risk management at our January meeting. For those unable to attend, here are the highlights.

1. Hire a lawyer - Chad admits that on the surface it may sound self-serving, but an attorney can provide the "magic language" for your contract, potentially saving your company significant financial resources.

2. Integrate oral promises into the contracts. Oral agreements executable within one year can be binding as can oral agreements for goods valued under $500.

3. Include the dispute resolution process within your contract. How will it be resolved? Good faith negotiation? Mediation? Arbitration.

4. Sign the Contract!! Be sure ALL parties have a copy of the signed contratc. Include any and all changes or modifications.

5. Once the contract is signed......FOLLOW IT!! Use it as it was intended.

Welcome!

2009-10-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and welcome to our new blog. For most of us, this is a completely new way of connecting and communicating.....Uncharted territory. Blogging offers some exciting opportunities to share who we are and what we're about as an organization. I'm looking forward to discovering the many new ways this can connect us to both our members and our community.

If you're feeling like a bump in the road on the information super highway, here are a few ideas for using our blog:

Video clips - perhaps video messages from our phenomenal Regional Director, Cathy Brady or our fantastic President, Cyndie Lorenz. Short clips from networking events, Magic Camp, etc. are also an option.

Audio messages - For those who have something to say, but aren't feeling particularly photogenic. Bad hair day? No problem!

Members and other interested parties can subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up to date with current NAWIC events. Anything noteworthy to our chapter can be posted here. (Assistance with technology available upon request)

We can use this site to "link" to other sites providing info of value or interest to our members.

If you have any ideas or suggestions as to how we can utilize this site, please post your comments. If you would rather go low-tech, please feel free to call me at 509-374-9905. In the end, we are limited only by our creativity. I hope you'll have fun with this and let your imagination run wild!

Renee Inman
The Bottom Line, LLC