YEOVIL, England – Recent research by leading supplier, Screwfix, has revealed that technology is fast becoming one of a tradesman's most valuable business tools, along with the traditional power tools (http://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/power-tools/cat830692), screws (http://www.screwfix.com/c/screws-nails-fixings/screws/cat840008) and safety boots. With four out of five UK tradesmen having now purchased trade goods online, it seems tradesmen are taking full advantage of all that multi-channel ordering has to offer.

The year 2011 was a busy one for Dr. Kit Miyamoto, CEO and president of Miyamoto International. In April, Miyamoto kicked off Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief, a non-profit dedicated to saving lives through engineering, which Kit had conceived, founded and created. In August, Kit was appointed to the California Seismic Safety Commission by Governor Jerry Brown, and in October, he was awarded the prestigious Jerry Allen Courage in Leadership Award by ZweigWhite.

CHICAGO – LonMark® International, a non-profit association for the certification, education and promotion of interoperability standards for control networking, today announced support for an expanded interoperability model to deliver increased value, improved energy efficiency and advanced capabilities to building owners and operators.

CHICAGO – Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) today announced a suite of new tools and products for building owners, specification writers, integrators, and energy management application developers.

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. – The concrete industry’s Strategic Development Council, a Council of the ACI Foundation, announces its new Chair and Board members.

PLEASANTON, Calif. – Simpson Strong-Tie announcesits entrance into the concrete repair, protection and strengthening business with the acquisitions of Baltimore-based Fox Industries Inc. and Switzerland-based S&P Clever Reinforcement Company.

ATLANTA, Jan. 18 – U.S. Lumber is adding Georgia-Pacific engineered wood products (EWP) to its already broad specialty-oriented building products offering.

CHICAGO – Royal DSM, the global Life and Material Sciences company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding between its US-based Business Unit DSM Functional Materials and Empresa Brasileira de Biotechnologia (Ebrabiotech) of Brazil for the launch of a new line of DSM-branded bio-based materials targeting the concrete floor coatings market.

SILVER SPRING, Md. – The Concrete Industry Management (CIM) program – a business intensive program that awards students with a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Concrete Industry Management – is pleased to announce the release of their 2010 - 2011 Annual Report. Compiled by the National Steering Committee (NSC), the report will be distributed next week at World of Concrete in Las Vegas, Nev.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Metal Building Manufacturers Association (MBMA) approved a new Executive Committee at the MBMA Annual Meeting held in December 2011 in Atlanta, GA.

PLEASANTON, Calif. – Simpson Strong-Tie has recently acquired the majority of the assets of Automatic Stamping, LLC. and Automatic Stamping Auxiliary Services, LLC. to launch its truss plate offering. Automatic Stamping is based in Edenton, N.C., and is a family-owned business with a long history in the truss plate industry. Former owner Bill Black will continue to lead manufacturing and plate innovation operations in Edenton.

An amazing time-lapse video of a prefab 30-story hotel going up in China in just 15 days has gone viral on YouTube. The five-star T30 Hotel at Dongting Lake, Hunan province, opens on January 18. To see the time-lapse video click here. Press coverage of the project can be found here.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A new building on the Quisqueya University (UniQ) campus in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, provides some of the most powerful evidence yet that Haiti’s engineering community, with international assistance from the University at Buffalo and MCEER, is undergoing a dramatic transformation.

TAMPA, Fla. – The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) today released a new report which provides an analysis of residential building codes in the 18 hurricane-prone coastal states along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast. Building codes are intended to increase the safety and integrity of structures, thereby reducing deaths, injuries and property damage from hurricanes and a wide range of other hazards.

HOUSTON – Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. (NYSE: "KRA"), a leading global producer of styrenic block copolymers or "SBCs," tested performance properties of an industrial coatings starting point formulation made with Kraton™ FG1901 using the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards. The testing was performed on bare, cold rolled steel panels with a coating thickness of 2 mils and included salt spray resistance, adhesion, and impact, which all showed outstanding performance results.

FRANKLIN PARK, Ill. – The Hill Group Executive Team is pleased to announce the addition of three staff members as part of the launch of a new line of business: Hill Architectural Systems . Joining Hill as part of this new venture are Mike Ivanovic, Vice President – Engineering; Marc Ribar, Vice President – Operations; and Ryan Stojkovich, Vice President – Business Development.

MOUNT VERNON, IOWA – The Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) – a non-profit international organization that serves to expand and improve the use of Tilt-Up as the preferred construction method – has announced the release of The Construction of Tilt-Up.

ROCKVILLE, MD – Shapiro & Duncan, dedicated to providing cutting edge mechanical solutions – including pre-construction, engineering, construction, design-build, fabrication, installation and maintenance services which provide and promote every step of the building process announced today that they have been selected to serve as the design-build mechanical contractor partner on the build-out of the Design- Build Institute of America’s (DBIA) new national headquarters, which is scheduled to be completed by March 2012.

SAVANNAH, GA – Oldcastle Precast, currently working with Hunt/Mills, a Joint Venture, is providing unique rear-chase precast concrete prison cells and modular building components for the new $71 million expansion of the Chatham County Detention Center in Georgia.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – D. C. Taylor Co. is pleased to announce that its Meridian Vineyards project was recognized by the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing (Center) as the winner of the 2011 RoofPoint™ Excellence in Design Award for Excellence in Materials Management.