Greetings!

 

Here’s the link to your November edition of the ICC Government Relations Monthly Update. In it you’ll find:

 

• Share your insights on our member survey for zoning and permitting processes
  • The survey will close November 14th
• Review the ICC election results and recipients of ICC annual awards at Cleveland
• Send in your communique today to your Congressional team to support the Pro Codes Act
• Take a photo tour of the 2025 Summit of the Native American Code Officials in Arizona
• Learn about the ICC and Sustainable Minds, LLC, strategic initiative

…. and much more!

 

Remember to please forward this to colleagues and stakeholders to keep them updated on the Code Council. Thank you!

It’s October and the countdown is running for the 2025 ICC Annual Conference in Cleveland. Check out the events and other Code Council news with this issue of the ICC Government Relations Monthly Update. Here’s what we’re featuring:

 

• Key events and tours during the Annual Conference.
• Take the brief survey on best practices in zoning and building permitting processes.
• Public comment opens on ICC 605, Standard for Residential Construction in Regions with Wildfire Hazard.
• Obtain a copy of FEMA’s annual Building Codes Adoption Tracking Fact Sheet.
• Get the latest on the new Municity NextGen, the transformative cloud-based platform. Sign up for the webinar!

 

Lots going on. Just click here to open the October GR Monthly Update. And forward this email to colleagues and stakeholders to help them keep up!

 

Ever wondered what it’s like to be an inspector with DC’s DOB? Here’s your chance to find out and even start the process to become one!

Join them on Wednesday, October 29, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., in the newly opened Marion S. Barry Jr. Conference Center at 1100 4th Street SW (second floor) for their Inspector Interest and Information Session.

Hear from Director Brian Hanlon, meet representatives from DOB’s inspection units, learn about open positions, and take part in on-site interviews for current and future vacancies.

Register today at tinyurl.com/DOBInspectorInfoSession

Welcome back!

 

You hopefully had a relaxing Labor Day weekend and are ready to get back to work. To help out, here’s your September issue of the ICC Government Relations Monthly Update. In this month’s edition:

 

• How enforcing the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code reduces fire losses.
• Louisiana’s leading role in building safety on the 20^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
• Share your on-the-job pics and videos with the ICC Annual Conference in Cleveland.
• FEMA’s new guide to help code enforcement officers with daily tasks.
• The Code Council’s growing relationship with the UA.

 

Click here to read and download your September Update. And please make sure you forward this email to colleagues and stakeholders.

 

Take care,

Avi

Summer Greetings!

 

Click the link to read and download your August issue of the Government Relations Monthly Update. Get the latest on:

 

• Pending federal legislation of concern to every ICC Member.
• FEMA’s Earthquake Hazard Reduction Grant applications.
• Updates you need to know about the 2025 ICC Annual Conference in Cleveland.
• ICC’s comprehensive report on “The State of the Building Safety Industry.”
• The NIBS report on proactive disaster mitigation strategies.
• How code officials form the first line of defense for hydrogen industry installations.

 

And there’s much more news. As always, please forward your August GRMU to fellow ICC members, colleagues and stakeholders.

 

 

 

 

Off-Site Construction CE Class

When: September 30, 2025 8:30 to 4:30

Where: The VHC Conference Center (4224 Cox Road, Glen Allen, VA 23060)

This class is offered at no cost

8 hours Continuing Education Lunch Provided

The off-site construction continuing education training (OSC CE Training) class offered by DHCD is designed for Building Officials, Inspectors, Technical Assistants, Installers, and other professionals whose tasks may include but are not limited to design, licensing, permitting, installation and inspections of manufactured homes and industrialized buildings. The course includes training related to:

• Federal guidelines
• Installation and Safety regulations
• Licensing requirements
• Technical aspects
• Permitting
• Inspections and Enforcement
• Virginia’s role (including local building departments)
• Current and upcoming changes

 

Instructors:  

Brian Hilderbrand, CBO – DHCD    he***************@***********ia.gov

Chad Lambert, CBO – DHCD           ch**********@***********ia.gov

Thomas King, CBO – DHCD             th*********@***********ia.gov

 

For planning purposes, food, refreshments, etc., please RSVP with number of people in your group to Brian Hilderbrand at the email listed above.

It’s time for July’s ICC Government Relations Monthly Update.

 

First, please take a couple minutes to protect your efforts and your colleagues’ efforts, time and expense to produce the world’s leading building safety codes and standards. Your members of Congress need to hear from you to pass the bipartisan  Pro Codes Act, H.R. 4072. Click here to ask your member of Congress to protect your work and co-sponsor the Pro Codes Act (H.R. 4072) today! 

You can read about it here in the July GR Monthly Update. Other highlights include:

• Passage by the Illinois General Assembly to require all newly built warehouses in the state craft a tornado safety plan and build storm shelters.
• Details on how Hurricane Helene and other disasters reshaped strategies for building codes in Florida and the South.
• What you need to know about the 2025 Annual Conference in Cleveland this fall.
• Tips on career development and succession planning for code officials and their offices.
• Global Membership Council’s insightful (free) webinar July 8.
• What you need to know about the EPA’s Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap.

And much more! Please forward this email to colleagues, stakeholders and chapter members to keep them current with Code Council news

Link to Article

Maryia Lackansingh, Code Specialist III in the Commercial Building Division of Land Development Service for Fairfax County, Virginia, has received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career, including Fairfax County’s Outstanding Performance Award in both 2020 and 2023 and was voted the City of Alexandria’s Most Valuable Team Player in 2016.

In 2024 she took home the Virginia Building and Code Officials Association (VBCOA) Jack A Proctor Meritorious Service Award for her work with Women in Code Enforcement and Development (WICED) both nationally and in Virginia (WICED of VA). She serves the National WICED Chapter as Vice President and is the immediate past president of WICED of VA, which received the 2024 ICC Chapter of the Year Award, thanks to Lackansingh’s hard work and commitment. And, earlier this year, Lackansingh was among the Northern Virginia 40 Under 40 Honorees.

She is also the proud recipient of the International Code Council’s 2024 Emory R. Rodgers Leadership in Building Safety Fellowship.

The fellowship was created to honor Emory R. Rodgers, who devoted more than 40 years to building safety. Recipients receive up to $20,000 to cover the cost of an educational program and any associated travel, allowing them to learn and grow as they advance their careers.

“This award means a lot to me and honestly it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time in my life,” said Lackansingh. “While I was looking at the award and the past recipients, I was thinking about what I wanted to gain from it if given the opportunity. Immediately I thought about a women’s executive leadership program. Leadership looks different for women, and I wanted to participate in a program that highlighted those differences while also helping me to navigate my leadership style.”

Lackansingh found what she was looking for in the Women’s Leadership Program at Yale School of Management, a week-long on-campus leadership program designed to invigorate women leaders. She is scheduled to attend the next program in September 2025 and hopes that it will help her prepare for her first managerial role.

“I believe I am more than ready for that next step,” said Lackansingh.

A Design Professional by Training, A Code Official by Fate

With a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering and an associate’s degree in interior design, Lackansingh didn’t plan on having a career in building safety. Her college internships were with architecture studios, and she assumed she would work for a typical design firm after graduating.

While applying at design firms, another opportunity caught her eye: Assistant Architect in the architecture department at Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA). The job would allow her to improve accessibility for veterans, and as someone who had a passion for improving accessibility for those who need it, Lackansingh eagerly applied for the role.

This job gave Lackansingh her first taste of code enforcement.

“I traveled across the country to review existing federal structures, mostly VA medical centers,” Lackansingh recalled. “We would walk the spaces, make sure they were fully accessible to those that needed to frequent the facilities, make sure there weren’t any barriers. If needed, we would come up with plans to eliminate barriers found in the field. It was like a mixture of review, design and inspections.”

In addition to VA medical centers, Lackansingh inspected D.C. monuments to make sure they were accessible. She also completed drawings for accessible features that needed to be implemented in existing buildings.

“PVA staff were also tasked with reviewing Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority stations to make sure the space between the trains and the platforms were accessible,” she said. “I actually visited every single metro station in the D.C. metropolitan area and measured along the platforms where the trains are to make sure that gap wasn’t too big and there wasn’t too much of a height difference between the train and the platform.”

Lackansingh also had the opportunity to attend the ICC A117.1 Committee meetings as a representative of PVA, which was a voting member. This experience taught her more about the code development process and all the people and resources that feed into regulations and standards.

“I knew the PVA job was about accessibility, I just didn’t know what that meant until I started doing the job, and then I learned I loved it!” said Lackansingh. “I also learned so much about myself and that I have this constant need to help people. I learned how much of the built environment is inaccessible to people with disabilities and I gained a profound level of sensitivity for those individuals. That experience not only shaped my career, but it shaped who I am as a person.”

Lackansingh’s heightened awareness about accessibility, and the challenges some people face in navigating the built world, served her well as a commercial plans examiner. She has become the go-to person for accessibility issues and accessible code interpretations and is committed to finding solutions to any problems that may arise.

A Background in Architecture Propelled Lackansingh’s Career

There aren’t many design professionals in building safety, nor are there many design professionals who possess a high level of code expertise. This gives Lackansingh a distinct advantage over her peers. She said that her education gave her a “foundational understanding of how buildings are designed,” which helped her in code enforcement.

“Most people that come into code enforcement do so as a second career or retirement job; where they started their careers as contractors, tradespersons or inspectors,” she explained. “I don’t have that background. But my ability to draw floorplans definitely aids in my ability to thoroughly review and read construction documents.”

Lackansingh intends to stay in building safety, but she estimates that if she went back to the private sector, she would be “that much more valuable” because of her code experience.

“A lot of people in the design world don’t understand code the way code officials do,” she added. “Honestly, I have the best of both worlds. I can draw up floorplans and do so in a way that my permit would be approved quickly.”

Lackansingh is also committed to educating the next generation of building safety professionals. She moonlights as an instructor for the Virginia Department of Health and Community Development’s Virginia Building Code Academy, where she teaches CORE, a mandatory course for all newly hired code and fire officials in Virginia.

She is also a strong proponent of the “Virginia Way,” a philosophy that focuses on teaching building safety professionals to find a way to say yes. Instead of using the code to say no, the Virginia Way encourages code officials to be a partner in the process of helping customers achieve code compliance.

As if that weren’t enough, Lackansingh has presented at the Code Council’s Chapter Leadership Academy multiple times. Last year she participated in a panel about the White House National Initiative to Advance Building Codes, which was hosted by the Code Council and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Lackansingh currently serves on the International Energy Conservation Code® Consensus Committee and is scheduled to speak at the CodeComply Summit in July.

“I am presenting with my wonderful colleague and friend, Christina Jackson,” Lackansingh boasted. “She is a Senior Code Compliance Inspector with Newport News, VA. Our presentation is really a crash course on figuring out your leadership style and how you can tap into those strengths to prepare your involvement in volunteer organizations, such as Code Council chapters. We want to help extend your personal growth by looking at the various pathways to a successful career in code enforcement. We will also discuss leading within your family and finding the work-life balance that we all seek to achieve while also avoiding burnout.”

Applications are currently being accepted for the 2025 Emory R. Rodgers Building Safety Fellowship, you can learn more and apply here. 

Author: Louis Bedigian

VBCOA Newsletter July 2025 edition

The highly successful 45^th Building Safety Month campaign is complete, and this June edition of the ICC Government Relations Monthly Update provides some early stats. In this issue, you’ll also find:

 

• Code of Honor Scholarship news for the 2025 ICC Annual Conference, Expo and Committee Action Hearings in Cleveland.
• Work starting to create a building officials apprenticeship program at Oregon’s Chemeketa Community College.
• Info on the new Municity NextGen cloud-based platform.
• Funding available through the Fire Prevention and Safety grant program.
• Applicants sought for the 2025 Emory R. Rodgers Leadership in Building Safety Fellowship award.
• FLASH’s Strong Homes Scale connecting consumers with building codes.
• Tales from the code development world on the new Pulse Podcast.

 

Click here to read and download the June edition

2025 VBCOA Award Nominations Form

Dear Valued VBCOA Member

 The Awards and Resolutions Committee is seeking nominations for Awards which will be presented during the VBCOA Annual Conference, September 7-9, 2025, at the Williamsburg Lodge, Williamsburg, Virginia. 

 Please consider those members worthy of your nominations and submit the attached nomination form to the committee co-chairs (Patrick Hughes pm***@*ox.net and Richard Moore mo***@*****co.us ) no later than June 30, 2025.  

 Prior award winners and more information can also be found on the VBCOA Website, in the VBCOA Member Guide 25VBCOA_MemberGuide.pdf

 

 The Jack A. Proctor Meritorious Service Awards, initiated in 1982 and named in honor of Jack A. Proctor in 2011, select one of five categories of awards:  

 Richard “Rick” Witt Meritorious Service Award for Building Officials- Newly named in honor of Mr. Witt in 2022 in recognition of exceptional service, interest and commendable initiative in promoting better building code enforcement and code development and in promoting the public safety, health and welfare as they relate to construction. 

For members in recognition of long-term special achievement. 

 For Registered Design Professionals (Architect/Engineers)- in recognition of exceptional service, interest, and commendable initiative in promoting outstanding architectural and engineering design and code development in residential and commercial construction. 

 For Inspectors, Field inspectors and Plan Reviewers- in recognition of exceptional effort in promoting code enforcement, improving professionalism by participation in continuing education classes designed to enhance code knowledge and promoting code knowledge to architects, engineers and contractors in a professional manner for better compliance. 

For permit technicians in recognition of exceptional services in promoting and developing the role of permit technicians.

 

The Public Service Award, initiated in 1993, is given in recognition of extraordinary time and effort in keeping the construction industry and the general public informed of code requirements.

 

The Citizen Award, initiated in 1993, is given in recognition of responsiveness and support of building code enforcement.

 

 Thank you and we hope to see you at the 2025 VBCOA Annual Conference in Williamsburg in September!

The Awards and Resolutions Committee Co-chairs

Patrick Hughes pm***@*ox.net and Richard Moore mo***@*****co.us