June 1, 2006, San Francisco, CA - California Building Officials (CALBO) announced today that they have teamed with Building Media, Inc. (BMI) to develop a customized building science and code education website. The new site will help CALBO to educate the code enforcement and development communities on a variety of subjects pertinent to the building industry.
The CALBO website will become a flagship addition to Building Media's Code College Network (www.CodeCollegeNetwork.com). BMI developed this national online code and building practices training program to educate code officials, builders and others about the growing building code, energy code and building science training needs of America's building industry. Users include state agencies such as the California Energy Commission (CEC), membership associations such as CALBO, builders, contractors and others across the nation.
The Code College Network's state-specific websites present objective, on-demand educational content from national experts. BMI's unique video-training approach brings the audience into the field with "online jobsite" presentations. Content is available 24/7 to meet the needs of busy building officials.
To date, BMI has developed customized sites on the Code College Network for 20 U.S. states.
CALBO's educational arm, the CALBO Training Institute (CTI), has become the premier provider of classroom and onsite training in California, fulfilling the statutory continuing education needs of California's local building departments. As the educational needs of building department personnel continue to grow, innovative training solutions, such as those offered through BMI, offers a natural fit.
CALBO and BMI will partner in a variety of ways, with a shared goal of producing viable and affordable training to meet the growing needs of California's building and code enforcement industries. As a starting point, a series of video shorts will be produced and aired online, available at no charge to three distinct stakeholder groups; consumers, the building industry and the code enforcement community. Three videos will be produced at a time covering the same subject area with each video tailored to meet the instructional needs of the distinct stakeholder audiences. Topics already in the works include HVAC change-outs, disabled access regulations and Title 24 energy regulations. BMI and CALBO look to air a new threesome of videos quarterly. Videos will be light and topical, covering current events and new practices and regulations within the building industry.
"The video shorts are a great way to launch CALBO's partnership with BMI and the Code College Network," stated CALBO President Sheila Lee. "Once our membership and industry colleagues get comfortable with online video viewing, we will launch the next phase of our partnership. That phase will include the online availability of full CTI courses, which will offer students CEU credits. Such online opportunities have the potential to save local governments thousands of dollars, not to mention a great deal of time."
"We are grateful to have access to CALBO's established network of industry colleagues and students," commented Darren Harris of BMI. "I am confident that BMI has the technological expertise and innovative touch that will bring CALBO and CTI's educational arm to new, unprecedented levels. We could not be more pleased to share in this partnership. California's code changes are far-reaching and the Code College training platform will provide the state with a quick and easy-to-access means of providing information about proper compliance."
CALBO and BMI look to launch the first video threesome in the early summer months of 2006.
About CALBO: CALBO (California Building Officials) is a nonprofit 501(c) organization dedicated to promoting public health and safety in building construction through responsible legislation, education and building code development. Founded in 1962, CALBO has more than 500 members.
About BMI: BMI (Building Media Inc.) is an industry-leading multimedia education, marketing and production company. They combine their professional construction expertise with industry-connected sales, video production and content distribution capabilities to provide on-site and on-line training and education for the residential and commercial building industry.
To learn more about the Code College Network, contact Tami Svarfvar at Building Media, Inc., (802) 476-8584 or tsvarfvar@buildingmedia.com.
