Marble Institute and Building Stone Institute Seek 2-Year Consolidation Agreement

MIA BSI logo comboThe boards for the Marble Institute (MIA) and Building Stone Institute (BSI) voted to ask the memberships to consolidate their operations for two years. A vote is anticipated toward the end of the year. This action concludes a year of discussion between the two organizations about their similarities and duplication of efforts to serve the stone industry. The recommendation to enter into a two-year joint venture came from a task force including representation from both organizations.

“The threats we face each day and into the future are not from the natural stone industry, or its many associations. It is from well organized alternative materials with huge marketing campaigns focused on our markets,” said Coldspring’s Dan Rea, 2015 MIA president. “It’s time to create a unified effort to not only defend but actively promote natural stone.”

“Most importantly, we need to become preemptive as it relates to competing products and our own threats in not taking action,” added Dee Brown Company’s Rob Barnes, 2015 BSI President.

After two years, both memberships can decide to fully integrate or remain independent. The combined group will be called: “MIA + BSI – the natural stone institute.” “Uniting resources creates enormous leverage that, simply put, gets things done,” said Rea.

“We believe this consolidation is additive, and strongly feel the combined equity will provide additional value to the industry and our members with continued relevance as the world’s premiere natural stone association,” added Barnes.

Both organizations have created web pages to inform their respective memberships why they believe the consolidation should take place.