The Association Junkie

This year's Lifetime Achievement Award winner, MM “Mike” Weiss has helped raise the level of professionalism in the remodeling industry.

The main thing Weiss is passionate about in the remodeling industry is education. “This is going to sound corny,” Weiss says, “but it's an unbelievable high to see the lights come on.” His pursuit of a well-funded and substantive Certified Graduate Remodeler (CGR) program through the Remodelors Council (RC) of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is well-known. He is also a prolific teacher and works countless hours helping to revise, rewrite, and keep up-to-date dozens of courses — from design/build to contracts, project management, scheduling, and estimating. Since 2001, more than 25,000 builders and remodelers have taken these designation-related courses through the NAHB's University of Housing.

Yet, no matter how much Weiss has accomplished or how many people he has helped, or the number of goals he has fulfilled — and he has the awards to prove it — he is still self-effacing, still saying he is “flabbergasted” at winning this current award. This dogged determination to complete a job beyond expectations and his relatively low-key manner — “he's not an egomaniac like the rest of us poor bastards,” jokes friend and fellow remodeler Tom Swartz — is what defines Weiss and endears him to others.

Up until the 1990s, whoever wanted to be a CGR was sent a 16-page profile. Each profile was then scored by the 7 to 10 people on the NAHB's national board of governors. Weiss, who was on the board at the time, suggested dividing up the profiles — a huge timesaver. (And eventually the form was shortened to four pages.)

The score determined how many courses an applicant would have to take to obtain the CGR designation. Then the applicant would decide which courses to take. “So if you didn't like accounting,” Weiss says, “you'd shy away from that.” But he — and the others on the board (Weiss is adamant about crediting everyone he works with) —wanted remodelers to demonstrate some level of aptitude in each aspect of the industry, and they wanted the designation to have substance. Weiss and his RC colleagues know that education is the key to professionalism. “Mike wanted to make sure it was meaty,” says Sherri Gillette, who was then on the board. “He didn't want to cheapen it so that it was easy to get.”

In the late 1990s, Weiss came up with the idea of what he calls a “business SAT for remodelers,” what is now called the PREP (Professional Remodeler Experience Profile), which covers sales and marketing, business administration, risk management, production management, contracts and liability, and estimating. The profile was shorter and was weighted so applicants wouldn't have to take more courses than in the old system. “You could test out of everything, but if you didn't meet the standard,” says Weiss, “you'd have to take the classes.”

Getting funding and support from the larger organization was the challenge. “I once lost a job because my presentation was ordinary,” Weiss says, “and I swore I'd never lose another job because of the cover. So we made a great presentation and formed a task force.” They hired a consultant to write the PREP based on existing courses, and then pilot-tested it.

“Mike fought hard for the integrity of the CGR program at a time when there was a real push for people to get involved in the Remodelors Council,” Gillette recalls. She adds that the tension between those two needs “was a dilemma in some ways,” but Weiss was able to get what was necessary to put PREP in place. Eventually NAHB's builder side patterned its Certified Graduate Builder (CGB) designation after it. Since PREP was instituted in 1999, more than 800 remodelers have gotten their CGR designations, and more than 1,600 people have taken PREP since 2001.

By all accounts, Weiss' ability to get funding for his projects comes from his determination and passion. But he doesn't just barrel into a situation, guns blaring. As Gillette says, “He's a bulldog. But a pretty gentle bulldog.”

“When Mike comes upon an idea, he works it through before he presents it,” says Bob Bell, current chair of the CGB board of governors, who had helped Weiss establish PREP. “He knows the pitfalls and the positive aspects of it. Then he refines it and goes after it. It never ceases to amaze me how he can get things done.”

He works as well with volunteers and staff as he does with higher-ups. Weiss is “good at building relationships and making people feel obligated to meet their commitment,” says Brenda Sanders, NAHB staff vice president, joint venture education and designation programs, who worked with Weiss on NAHB's Home Builder's Institute in 1991. “He's direct in his approach with people, and he knows what he's talking about. He has a certain level of credibility and honesty and he's very loyal. Once he sees you're committed to the industry or project or job, he's loyal about defending and supporting you.”

Weiss grew up on Diamond W Ranch, about 25 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in a town called Davie. The family owned about 6,000 acres, which it drained and planted with grass for beef cattle production. “I was a young cowpoke through high school,” says Weiss, who enjoyed the farm and hoped to become a large-animal veterinarian.

There are few things that Weiss won't talk about, but legally changing his name to MM Weiss, his relationship with his father, and leaving the farm are off-limits. His father sold the ranch, and, Weiss writes via e-mail, there were no more cows in his future. “I decided to become an engineer because they got good jobs as soon as the sheepskin cometh, and I wanted to goeth.”

As to the decision to change his name, he relates a story about an accountant he employed who asked about it one too many times. Weiss fired him.

In 1959 Weiss received his B.S. in mechanical engineering and worked in the systems engineering section at NASA, Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., on what he describes as “a nucleus of Project Mercury [the first efforts at manned space flight].” When that was over, he returned to Miami to work for his father, who by then owned a chain of portrait studios. Weiss did some professional photography, learned about running a business, and also began working in commercial construction by managing the building of Pioneer City, a Western-theme park he owned with his father. It went bust in 1967 after just two years in operation, and Weiss went to work for a general contractor in Tallahassee.

The NASA years honed his engineering skills but also gave him his taste for teaching. A local steam and pipe fitters union asked Weiss to teach a course on air conditioning and refrigeration. But, he says, “The math [the students] needed to understand the subject was beyond their level.” Weiss divided the class and taught the math to those who needed it. “It was the most rewarding experience I've ever had,” he says, and it taught him a valuable lesson: He would never start a class without making sure he could reach everyone in it. That attitude, he says, helped him later in sales. “Clients don't say, ‘I don't understand,' until they're pissed,” Weiss says. “To exceed expectations, you have to make damn sure clients understand everything.”

As for the Pioneer City venture, having something like that go sour in such a brief time would make most people think twice about their business skills. Not Weiss. He believes that “risk is good for the soul — as long as you know that it may work or it may not, it's OK,” he says. “It's not like going to the craps table and trying to roll a 13.”

Weiss took what he learned in Florida and headed west to Martinsville, Ind., where, over the next few years, he opened Weiss Construction, a small general contracting business; helped form Deci-Ma Corp., as executive vice president, which developed apartments, retail space, and suburban office space; and moved to Carmel, an Indianapolis suburb, to start Weiss & Currise Home Building. That company — in one incarnation or another — would be his mainstay for 32 years.

Weiss brought the same perseverance and professionalism to building, and eventually to design/build remodeling, that he does to everything else. “I didn't ever dread calling him. He didn't ever make my input seem silly or ridiculous,” says Janet Gross, a client for whom Weiss has done several remodeling projects. “He was respectful of what we wanted to accomplish, and it felt like he was really a partner and not an adversary in getting things done.”

Fellow remodelers, such as Motsenbocker, owner of Jud Construction in nearby Muncie, Ind., enjoyed working with Weiss and learning from him. “It's easy to fall into the same trap and do what you continue to do and get what you always got,” says Motsenbocker, who early on taught Weiss in a sales and marketing class. But Weiss taught Motsenbocker about the importance of “continuing to change and stay abreast of trends. Mike had more sophisticated systems [than I did in my business]. He has helped me get through that.”

It's easy to be buoyed along by Weiss' sense of humor and easy manner. Like everyone else who comes into contact with him, both Gross and Motsenbocker have become lifelong friends as has Susie Love, executive vice president, director of sales and marketing for Emmis Publishing. “I've known Mike for 200 years,” she jokes. The two of them created a Weiss & Currise ad campaign for an Indianapolis regional magazine and have been friends ever since. “Not only did he come through as a client for the magazine, but also as someone I hired to do work in my home, and that's not easy to do,” Love says.

Having come from commercial development where he was involved in land acquisition and finance, Weiss says he began to miss “the professional interchange” and decided to attend a national meeting of the Home Builders Association. “I went to CGR and stayed there. That became my profession.”

Yet, despite the hours he spent at the NAHB over the years, Weiss was able to successfully run a $1.3 million remodeling company. In January 2005 he literally turned the company over to COO Greg Woods. “Imagine [the cartoon character] Snoopy lurking like a buzzard,” Weiss says. “That's the picture that comes to mind, where the old person watches over the business. The new person needs to be able to screw up. I probably left some money on the table, but I think the world of Greg. He was more than a partner.”

As a self-proclaimed “association junkie,” Weiss has an almost insatiable hunger for knowledge, and from the beginning of his relationship with the NAHB and the RC, Weiss served on as many committees as he could —mostly those on education, training, and development. He completed his own CGR and CGB between 1987 and 1990 and worked his way through the association ranks, to become chair of the CGR Board of Governors in 1996.

And then in fall 2002, Weiss was named chair of the Remodelors Council for 2003. During his acceptance speech, he told the audience it was time for the industry and its leaders, the trade associations, and the media to work together and cast aside their differences. What he was really talking about was collaborating in some way with the other industry association — the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI). “I don't know if I made more friends than enemies that night,” Weiss says of the issue that's been a sensitive one for as many years as the two associations have coexisted.

“I really think he's the firecracker for trying to make this happen,” says Mark Brick, owner of B&E General Contracting and president of NARI during Weiss' tenure at the helm of the RC.

Both men agree that the remodeling industry would be stronger if the two associations worked together, but more than four years after their “historic” handshake and continued efforts to close the gap, no one can agree on how this can be done. “There are a lot of hurdles to cross for whoever is in leadership roles today,” Brick says. To be fair, there are many issues, such as lead abatement, on which the two organizations are currently partnering.

Now that he has retired from running his remodeling company, Weiss has more time to feed his constant need to give back and to spend time with family. He cooks gourmet meals for himself and wife Jeannie, whom he married in 1980. (He has three children from a previous marriage, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.) He continues to teach courses and write and update curricula. He formed the RCMI — Residential Construction Management Institute — to provide instruction, consulting, management training, and curriculum development. One current project being done through the Home Builders Institute is a LeapFrog platform e-book called Sed de Saber (“Thirst for Knowledge”), a program to help Spanish-speakers understand construction-specific terms for both performance and safety. Weiss is also working on his own book about how to develop and write a company manual. “He's a teacher more than a preacher, and that's what we need more of,” says Bob Hanbury, past chair of the Remodelors Council.

If there's one thing that makes a good teacher, it's his or her own efforts to learn and move forward. In Weiss' home he has a wood-paneled den with glass cabinets lit with a warm glow. Inside the cabinets, rather than plaques, golden gavels, and other evidence of a successful career, are wood-carved waterfowl and decoy ducks.

Carving is one of Weiss' lifelong hobbies, and prominently displayed are his best pieces alongside his first not-so-accomplished carving. His favorite piece is not one of his own, however, but one done by friend and well-known display decoy carver, the late Dick LeMaster. In that carving, a partially completed mallard hen seems to emerge from a breadbox-size block of tupelo wood. There is a sense of movement in the carving. It seems, like Weiss, to be still incomplete but learning, still striving while reaching out to others.

Career Highlights

B.S. in mechanical engineering, University of Miami

Worked in systems engineering section at NASA, Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Va.

Worked for father running 23-store portrait studio chain.

Developed and built 60-acre Pioneer City, a Western-theme park near Fort Lauderdale.

Worked in commercial construction as chief estimator and superintendent for multi-family housing and various commercial projects.

Joined local NAHB chapter

Moved to Martinsville, Ind.; opened Weiss Construction, a small GC office; helped form new property development firm, Deci-Ma Corp.; started Weiss & Currise Home Building, which built upper-middle–market houses (2,500 to 4,000 s.f.).

Operated Weiss & Currise Home Building; and Weiss and Co.

Member CGR Board of Governors

Remodelors Council Trustee with wife Jeannie

Nominated as Chair of Remodelors Council

Vice Chair of Remodelors Council

Chair of Remodelors Council with Kent Conine

Formed Weiss Residential Construction Management Institute (RCMI) to provide instruction, consulting, management training, and curriculum development.

Transferred interest in Weiss and Co. to partner Greg Woods.

Inducted into the NAHB America's Best National Remodeling Hall of Fame.