In this issue of its bi-monthly Modular Advantage magazine, The Modular Building Institute celebrates its 2023 Awards of Distinction contest, where over 130 entries from around the world showcased their talents – from permanent retail storefronts to relocatable workforce housing!
An Economic Outlook for Q2 2023
Despite aggressively increasing interest rates since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has yet to meaningfully soften America’s labour market, which has emerged as a principal source of ongoing excess inflation.
In February, the nation added another 311,000 jobs. Unemployment stood at 3.6 percent
that month, precisely where it stood when the Federal Reserve began to ratchet rates higher.
Mike Bollero, Sr: A Leader in Modular Construction
Location” is crucial for real estate, as we’ve all heard. It’s also a big factor in careers, as Mike Bollero shows. Thanks to its status as the recreational vehicle and modular building hub of the United States in the 1960s, Elkhart, Indiana, attracted plenty of local talent
like Bollero.
Coming out of school in 1972, Bollero started a consulting business servicing the local modular office builders in Elkhart, such as Cliff Industries and Markline. Cliff Industries was launched by his uncle, Otto Miller, in fact.
Bollero also benefited from good timing, as the modular construction industry was growing and starting to transition from the standard (for the time) 10×40 portable classrooms into
construction camps and other uses for modular buildings.
2023 World of Modular Annual Conference and Roadshow
MBI’s 2023 World of Modular conference and tradeshow was held in April at the luxurious Bellagio Resort & Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
World of Modular has long been the industry’s best chance to meet new contacts, learn from industry experts, and reconnect with old friends, but this year—as MBI celebrated 40 years of serving the commercial modular construction industry—the excitement
was palpable. And with over 1,500 attendees, it was MBI’s largest event ever.
Over four days, participants attended multiple keynote addresses, chose from dozens of educational breakout sessions, got leads and contacts from over 160 exhibitors, taught and inspired dozens of visiting high school and college students, and were entertained with parties, golf, and numerous networking opportunities
Roland Brown Looks Back at His Story of Success With Ramtech and His Career in the Commercial Modular Industry
Roland Brown never imagined his life would turn out this way.
He retired from a nearly 50-year-long career, starting off as a draftsman in the mobile home industry to becoming the VP of Design and Development at Ramtech Building Systems, Inc., a design/build construction company in Mansfield, Texas with its own modular manufacturing facility.
His career journey—all the more illustrious thanks to his dedication to hard work—led him from drafting table to the structural design of modular structures. It also led him to meeting rooms as part of the Texas Industrialized Building Code Council and MBI’s Board of Directors. He believed with an unyielding conviction that if he studied and learned, he could eventually build a career.
