FOUNDED

- December 1958 in Buffalo, New York.

- Incorporated in the State of New York - Certificate issued in May 1959.

- Filed and received Tax Exempt status in 1965.

MISSION STATEMENT

To represent and advance the interests of the greenhouse industry through education, networking and communication.

AIMS & PURPOSES

The aims and purposes of the Association are to protect, foster and advance the interests of the industry; prepare and disseminate information regarding the proper construction and maintenance of glazed enclosures, greenhouses and sunspaces in varying climatic areas; promote and maintain friendly relationships between companies in the industry and between industry members and the customers; to interchange ideas for the benefit of the industry; to improve manufacturing procedures wherever possible; to explore markets for additional products which could be marketed and/or manufactured during off-season periods; to prepare informative data for the use of persons and companies interested in entering the growing field; and, to generally do such things which may be found necessary to accomplish the above aims.

STANDARDS

The original Structural Standards were written by Bill Roberts of Lord and Burnham. In order to get recognition of these, the firm of Wiss, Janney and Elster Associates was retained to put the standards in shape to present to ANSI in October 1974. This task was finally completed in October 1981 and the Standards were printed in quantity to be distributed. At that time, a heat-loss standard had been approved. The cooling and ventilating standard written by Norm Augsburger and Harold Gray had been published and copyrighted in 1962. A statement of policy on retrofit had been adopted. These were all included in the Structural Standard booklet. PERIOD 1986 - 1990. During this period considerable activity took place. Following a meeting with the Sunspace Council in the Fall of 1984, the Residential Sunspace/ Greenhouse manufacturers chose to join NGMA rather than continue a separate organization. The By-laws were changed to recognize a separate division for them. This resulted in a big upswing in the membership. With their vote NGMA joined GICC in 1986 and stayed a member through 1990 because of common interests. The first year's dues were $3300, but continually increased to $5400 the last year. It was during that period that NGMA retained BTI as code consultants to propose changes in the three model Building Codes - NBC (BOCA), UBC (ICBO), and SBC (SBCCI), to recognize greenhouses in the codes. Dave Hattis of BTI and Harold Gray spent two years traveling all over the country to present the code changes.

The NGMA worked closely with GICC since they were working on changes in glazing - NGMA supported their proposals and the GICC supported the NGMA. As a result, changes in structural for greenhouses were made in BOCA (NBC) in 1988 and in UBC and SBC in 1989. At the same time these model codes accepted annealed glass for greenhouses under certain limitations, and tempered glass in solariums and sun spaces under certain limitations which GICC had proposed.

Following the accomplishment of these, the "residential" membership began to lose interest in the NGMA. The NGMA continued working with GICC in input to ICBO which was developing an Acceptance Criteria for sloped glazing in solariums - the original of which would seriously curtail the market for solariums, some success was in evidence in the final document published in 1990 - it was strict, but livable for solarium manufacturers. With the satisfaction of the most pressing desires of the residential members, they began to depart the NGMA as evidenced by a drop in membership in 1991.

Despite dropping out of GICC at the end of 1990, the NGMA continued to work with GICC in the area of ASHRAE Proposed Energy Standard #90.2P on Energy-Efficient Design of New Low-Rise Residential Buildings. The original called for a prescriptive treatment for calculations of energy requirements which would have effectively eliminated the use of sunspaces or solariums in residential construction.

The NGMA continued to work with the GICC. The resulting Standards 90.2 published by ASHRAE in 1993 allows a "tradeoff" method of calculating energy loss as an alternative to the "prescriptive" method.

COPYRIGHTS

Following the acceptance of the Wiss, Janney Standard, the entire Standards booklet was submitted for copyright, and the copyright was granted in 1985.

GLAZING STANDARDS

In 1987, the glazing committee presented a Glazing Standard to the group which was approved - a copyright application was filed and copyright received in March 1987.

REVISIONS

Following the acceptance of code changes by BOCA in 1985, with the help of BTI, revisions were made in the structural standards to conform with BOCA. Since they were revisions, they were still covered under copyright. Heat loss standards were revised in 1989 to include the newer plastic double-skin sheet glazing materials - covered under copyright as revisions.

MISCELLANEOUS INSIGHTS

The NGMA distributes a quarterly e-newsletter to our membership. The newsletter includes information of past and future NGMA meetings, trade journal monthly editorial content, trade events and articles that are directed for manufacturers of greenhouses and their components.