Topping Off 2025 in Napa: SBCA’s OQM Delivers Insight & Momentum

December 12, 2025

in Framing News, Industry News,

Originally Published by: Source Name — December 12, 2025
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SBCA members and leadership gathered in beautiful wine country, Napa Valley, CA, at The Estate Yountville, for SBCA’s final Open Quarterly Meeting (OQM) of 2025. The first day of the event kicked off with association updates, followed by an education session featuring a panel discussing the future of component manufacturing with Jason Hikel (Shelter Systems), BJ Louws (Louws Truss), and Greg Dahlstrom (US LBM), and an economic forecast from Dean Wehrli, JBREC Principal Economist. Throughout the week, committee chairs and/or staff provided updates to attendees on the accomplishments, work, and goals of each committee. The day concluded with a group dinner at the Estate’s Barrel Room, with a delicious dinner, paired with Napa wines.

Wednesday was chock-full of education sessions and committee updates, providing attendees a wealth of information from the ins and outs of the 2027 ICC code development process and SBCA’s code change proposals, a deep dive status update on SBCA’s strategic plan, and a panel covering fire testing, all of which ignited good conversation amongst the group. To cap off the information-packed day, attendees broke into groups and were challenged with creating a video about SBCA or components, channeling their inner-actor and creativity for a fun team building activity. This was paired with a happy hour where attendees could participate in a wine tasting to experience different California wines.

The week wrapped up with a productive and informative board meeting, where the 2026 budget was approved, many updates were shared, and several leadership changes took place. Joe Halteman’s (Wood Tech Systems) term concluded, and he was recognized for his dedicated service to the Board over the years. Tom Valvo’s (MiTek) Associate seat on the Board of Directors was renewed for another 1-year term. Ed Robbins, P.E. (P.E. Robbins) was elected to the Board to serve a 1-year term as an Associate representative. SBCA offers a big congratulations and thank you to all who served and/or continue to serve the association in this leadership capacity.

Overall, spirits were both high and abundant with great conversation, connections, and camaraderie amongst the attendees. It was a wonderful way to close out the year and prepare for the next.