If you know me you know I am not a fan of Las Vegas. That changes when the door and window industry heads there for GlassBuild America and shows off its latest offerings. It’s also a great way for me to get caught up on all the industry news and trends. So here is just a sampling of what I love about this year’s show which just wrapped yesterday.

Most positive CEO: Filip Geeraert, president and CEO of Deceuninck North America. It’s always great catching up with Filip and that’s why he pretty much makes my top list in my blog anytime I see him at an event. This year was no different.

“Everything is contagious,” he says. “You can never go wrong being optimistic.” His only complaint: That there are only 24 hours in a day. His optimism obviously pays off. The company had tons of news to share. Stay tuned to our September newscast for one of its new products. The company also made a big announcement about heading West. Click here for more on that.

Great way to enforce change: I was talking with Rolland Petersson, senior director, sales and marketing, Amesbury/Truth Hardware, about the successful integration of the two companies. But let’s face it, change is tough when employees are accustomed to a certain way of doing this. So at the new Amesbury/Truth whenever an employee says, “This is how we do it,” or “this is how we used to do it,” they have to add money to a jar. Love it so much I may steal it and make a few adaptations. Note to my employees: beware.

Demand “problem”: After years of company closures and bad news, I am glad the new “problem” I hear from manufacturers is meeting demand. But yes it is a problem and hopefully suppliers are ready because it doesn’t seem like the winter slowdown is coming anytime soon.

Kudos to Ashland – the company is stocked up for the increased fall demand.

Way to be prepared. Speaking of above, Dean Pettit, Ashland Hardware, told me the show has been “Awesome … It’s going to be a very busy fall.” Kudos to Ashland, as Petit told me the company has stocked up so they will have the products when demand continues through fall.

Small market, doesn’t matter: I talked with Joe Peilert, president and CEO of VEKA about a variety of things but one thing we briefly touched on was passive windows. “We are getting a fair amount of calls and more interest in that,” he says. “The volume is still low but if you don’t have an answer you are out of the market.” Well said.

Money savers. I loved when father and son duo Barry and Brandon Lawrence told me about their product pre-bar which removes unnecessary rebar from the profile. “It can take up to $2 out of the window,” says Brandon. “One company said it will save him $200,000 when he switches over.”

Michael Braeul from Aquasurtech showed me a new machine for lineals which can paint 20 windows per hour which offers some “pretty significant paint savings.”

I am sure there were others so kudos to those who are looking out for their customers’ bottom line.

Is it true? One vinyl extruder told me the prices of krypton are coming down which is weighing into the decision making process for some window manufacturers. Do they add krypton into their window design mix? I would love to hear if this is factoring into your window design plans.

It was a great show and I loved catching up with everyone. See you at the next one as the fall trade show season is officially kicked off!