SBC Staff Transition Update

By John Foley, SBC Managing Director
Posted on July 28, 2022

Safer Buildings Coalition has assembled a strong team over the past decade. And when a team member transitions, we meet the occasion with a mix of overwhelming gratitude, and a touch of sadness to see them move on. We’d like to first celebrate the retirement of our ever faithful and reliable Operations Manager, Nancy Hoppe, and to briefly introduce some of our new team members.

Since January of 2018, Nancy Hoppe has managed and coordinated over 75 SBC seminars in 28 states (and, as of this week, two countries). She has handled all of our trade show logistics, all of our promotional materials, and makes sure all of these come off without a hitch. In addition to event management, she has led the SBC staff in the role of Operations Manager since 2019.

There are so many things about Nancy and how she does her work that go beyond impressive, but I would like to mention just a few. First, our members love Nancy. She is the Coalition’s queen-mom. Second, I have never in my life met anyone with a knack for attention to detail that exceeds Nancy’s keen eye. Third, Nancy is 100% unflappable. In event planning and management, “Murphy” is our ubiquitous co-pilot. If something can go wonky, it surely will. It is in these moments when Nancy out-shines mere mortals.

Quick story. As we headed to Las Vegas in March of 2022 for IWCE, our flight was diverted (high winds) to Ontario, CA, some 235 miles and an almost 4-hour drive away. The airline was planning to rebook us for the following day with an afternoon flight that would have trashed all our setup plans.

We UBER’ed to our hotel, and on the way we were able to arrange for the UBER driver to take us to Vegas first thing in the morning so we could keep all of our plans. Nancy never blinked.

In fact, on our way we got the idea we should have ordered swag bags for our member dinner giveaways, and Nancy said, “no worries, I have a corporate account with Party City, they have a branch in Vegas, I’ll handle it.” When we got to Vegas, the store had our bags ready and waiting for us, and we picked them up on our way to the convention center.

I’ve been witness to Nancy coaching her very capable replacement Melissa Hayes (you’ll meet Melissa next month). The transition is going smoothly, and even in retirement Nancy will be available to make sure everything goes smoothly – as she always has.

Please join me in thanking Nancy for her monumental contributions to building our industry-leading SBC Seminar program, and in wishing her a fun-filled and well-deserved retirement!

Introducing Member Advocate, Jason Jacobs
We welcome the addition of Jason Jacobs to the SBC staff in the role of Member Advocate. It is the role of the Member Advocate to welcome new SBC Members into the Coalition, and to grow and maintain engagement with our members as they experience the SBC ‘Member Journey’. Jason’s industry knowledge and passion for solving the in-building wireless dead-zone problem are invaluable assets, and we are grateful for his decision to join our team. We are also grateful to Ray Hild for the important foundational work he did in establishing this important role, and we are excited to see how Jason will expand this critical function.

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