National Pavement Expo Conquers Charlotte

Second visit to North Carolina yields banner show with standing-room-only seminars.

May 22, 2006

National Pavement Expo made a triumphant return to Charlotte, NC, attracting more than 2,300 contractors to the 21st annual event, Feb. 15-18. This was the second time NPE visited Charlotte, and show manager Loretta Miles branded the event as successful as any venue NPE has visited.

"Our exhibitors were happy and more people attended seminars at this show than at any event we've hosted in 21 years," Miles said. "We hope this puts Charlotte on the map as a place we can return to for future NPE shows."

Miles said there had been some concern among exhibitors and even contractors that Charlotte was not the best location for NPE.

"But we had a good feel for it the first time we went there and this year proves we were right," Miles said. "The first year (2003) we tried Charlotte we ran into so many problems that were beyond our control that we couldn't even judge how successful the location was for us. So we wanted to go back and give it another try. Now we know it's going to work, which is good for contractors and good for our exhibitors who can reach people in another area of the country."

If NPE continues to visit Charlotte, it will be the third location (with Nashville and Atlanta) that will host the show.

Click here to view additional NPE photos.

NAPSA hosts successful "best practices" workshop at NPE

By Amy Allen

The North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) co-hosted a "Best Practices for Sweeping Contractors" workshop at the 2006 National Pavement Expo (NPE) in Charlotte. Modeled after NPE's Industry Roundtables, the "Best Practices" workshop gave sweeping contractors the opportunity to exchange information and develop solutions on a broad variety of sweeping industry concerns.

"The idea for the session was each contractor would join a round table and contribute information to a single topic. At the end of the round table discussions, a representative from each table would express to the group the round table findings," says Uri Ben-Yashar, East Coast Lot & Pavement Maintenance, who moderated the workshop. "The benefit of this seminar was as a contractor you would contribute to one topic but learn the problems and solutions to all six topics. We had a great positive response from those attending."

Among the suggestions that resulted from the discussions were:

Sweepers who offer inspections can be the first to let the property manager know if there is a maintenance issue that needs addressing.
Global Positioning Satellite Systems offer many advantages, including providing documentation of services if there is a conflict with a client.
Understanding profit and loss statement is essential to measuring profitability. "It's not the answer to the infamous question of 'How many sweepers do you own?'," said Gale Holsman, American Sweeping.
Paint corners of bumpers to see which employee is scraping when turning.
Install flashing beacons under the chassis instead of on top to promote light control especially in residential areas.

National Pavement Expo and NAPSA will offer another "Best Practices" workshop at the 2007 NPE, Jan.31-Feb. 3.
Amy Allen is administrative director for NAPSA. For more information about NAPSA or to become a members visit www.napsaonline.com.