The American Forest & Paper Association’s American Wood Council (AWC) is offering a free Design Professional Membership to qualified building officials to help them keep abreast of progressive wood industry issues and changing building design standards. Benefits of membership include the following:

• member discounts on Technical Publications,
• AWC IMPACT newsletter,
• announcements of seminars offering CEU credits, and
• access to technical information with a direct 800 phone number to AWC.

Also, courtesy of the Canadian Wood Council, building officials will have free access to the most widely used wood engineering software in the United States, WoodWorks. Software use is limited to plans review within the building department, and should be ordered by one contact per office. Simply go to the "software demo downloads" screen at www.woodworks-software.com and follow the instructions for building officials.

Qualified building officials are those who serve as full-time employees of the jurisdiction in which they enforce a building code. Membership applications are available at the AWC website at www.awc.org.