Forty Meetings, One Photo, and a House Wrap Made by the Toilet Paper People

Five days at SEBC 2026, in order

Every year, the Southeast Building Conference rolls into Orlando, and every year I tell myself I'm going to pace it better. Every year I don't.

This year was no exception. Five days at the Orange County Convention Center and the Rosen Center, running alongside the Florida Home Builders Association's meetings, and by the time we pulled out of the parking lot on Friday I had logged at least forty scheduled meetings on my calendar. That number doesn't count the hallway conversations, the "hey, you got a second?" pull-asides, or the conversation that starts at the coffee station and somehow ends up being about your fourth-quarter schedule.

Here's how the week actually went.

Monday Evening: Arrival

We rolled in and went straight to the BEX reception. Handshakes, a first read on who was in town, and a fairly clear signal that the week was going to move fast.

Tuesday: Speed Dating for Builders

BEX itself. The Builders Exchange.

If you haven't done one, picture twenty back-to-back meetings with vendors and suppliers from around the state, each running ten to fifteen minutes. Sometimes longer if the conversation is good. Sometimes considerably shorter if it isn't.

It is genuinely exhausting. It is also genuinely valuable, which is a combination I've made peace with.

This year we brought Kleé, our purchasing agent, and that turned out to be the best decision of the week. Some of these account relationships go back years, and there's real value in Kleé putting faces to the names he's been emailing. We used the time to catch up with people we already work with and to find new products worth bringing to our clients. We appreciate the invite every year, and this year earned its keep.

Meanwhile, Seth spent the day at the JobTread regional training. Different room, same goal: the tools and the relationships both have to keep getting sharper, and you don't get either one by staying home.

Tuesday Night

Dinner with Andy Chambers of Weisenbaker, and one of the better conversations of the week. We talked through how we work together on finishes as we push deeper into the Jacksonville market, the kind of conversation that's hard to have over email and easy to have over a table.

Wednesday: The Looooong Day

The Economist Was Not Cheerful

The morning opened with Dr. Robert Dietz, NAHB's chief economist, delivering his market update. His tone was noticeably different than in past years.

He pointed to tariffs as the number one cost driver. NAHB's survey work puts the added cost at roughly $10,900 per home, on top of rapid materials inflation, scarcity, and delays. Add an indecisive Fed feeding a consumer confidence problem, workforce disruption causing rolling halts in production, regulatory costs hitting record highs, and fuel prices climbing on the back of the Iran conflict. High borrowing costs have cut average house and project size by roughly forty percent.

The one genuinely encouraging note for those of us in custom building and renovation: our segment is holding up better than production, multifamily, and the non-custom sectors, where he signaled serious slowdowns and where layoffs are already happening.

My read? Expect more builders to pivot into renovation work. Competition gets stiffer. Which means we keep doing what we do, better, because we've been doing it a long time.

The Product That Made Me Turn Around

Then to the floor, and I want to be upfront that across the entire week I managed maybe two hours out there, outside of my time manning the Florida Certified Master Builder booth. That booth, for the record, sat right next to our friends at HBNext, the company that handles safety, handbooks, audits, and compliance for MCG. Good neighbors to have.

But in those two hours, one booth stopped me cold. I actually turned around and backed up.

Block-It, a house wrap from Kimberly-Clark. The material isn't flat. It's dimpled, like a golf ball, which creates pathways for water to channel down the wrap. It's also self-sealing, so you're not dealing with button cap nails. Very cool.

My first thought, and I want to be honest here, was: doesn't Kimberly-Clark make toilet paper? I did not have "toilet paper company enters the building envelope business" on my 2026 card. But the product is impressive, and I sent it over to some of the engineers we work closely with before I'd even left Orlando. There are several projects I can think of where this would have outperformed what we used.

This is the thing I love about SEBC over the International Builders Show. Nearly everything on that floor carries Florida Product Approval, which means we can actually use it here. At the bigger national shows, the first question on any exterior product is whether it's even legal in our market. Here, every conversation ends somewhere useful.

Wednesday Night: Two Stops and a Late Dinner

The NEFBA Happy Hour in their suite at the Rosen Center, then the SEBC Bash at Howl at the Moon.

The NEFBA suite was a packed house. Great to see that many people from Northeast Florida down there, whether they came to advocate for the industry or to walk the show.

And then a late dinner with the Florida Certified Master Builder group. I'll apologize in advance to everyone else, but this is my favorite group in the state of Florida. We covered life events, how each of us is using AI, what's moving at the state level, and how business is actually going. Always good laughs, always good food, always worth losing the sleep over.

Thursday: Politics, the Floor, and Recognition

A Small Thing Worth Stealing

We started at the FHBA PAC to hear who the association is supporting heading into the midterms.

The content was useful. But what actually caught my attention was the format: they handed out a summary list of every candidate supported and the amount contributed to each. Clean, clear, one page. No digging, no guessing, no "let me follow up with that."

I'm bringing that idea back to our NEFBA PAC, because transparency shouldn't require a records request. Sometimes the best takeaway from a conference is just watching someone else do a simple thing well.

The Moment That Mattered

Next was the FHBA Government Affairs Committee meeting. I don't sit on that committee, but I wanted to hear the priorities for the coming year.

They were all important. But one thing was missing: nothing on the list addressed the growing workforce strain our industry is feeling.

During public comment, Seth Kelley stepped up and made the case. He laid out the challenge and asked that it be treated as a priority. What happened next was the best part: a real conversation broke out, and a number of people in that room agreed this is one of the largest issues facing our business right now. Maybe the largest.

It became an FHBA Government Affairs priority by vote.

That's what showing up looks like. Not a press release. One person standing up in a room and saying the quiet thing out loud.

Thursday Evening: The Awards Ceremony

More time on the floor in the afternoon, and then the FHBA Awards Ceremony.

We watched Jackie Rowland of Russell Rowland receive the Women of Distinction award, alongside several other honorees. The evening also brought two inductions into the Florida Housing Hall of Fame: Bill Truex of the Charlotte-DeSoto Building Industry Association and Joe Belcher of the Hernando Builders Association.

Good night. Well-deserved, all around.

Friday Morning: And Home

We closed out at the FHBA board meeting, watching business get conducted and hearing updates from around the state. Then we drove home and collapsed, which is the traditional final event of SEBC and the only one nobody has to be reminded to attend.

Two Regrets and One Very Dumb Oversight

I couldn't get to two sessions, and both were led by fellow NEFBA members, which somehow makes it worse.

The first was How to Build a Marketing Blueprint for Success by Mindy Lepp. The second was The New Construction Playbook: Digital Marketing & AI You Can Use Today, presented by AJ Beson, Sarah Shay, Scott Brannock, Katy Keene, and Mike Hicks. Traveling to Orlando and then missing the sessions taught by people from your own backyard is a special kind of scheduling failure. But we had to divide and conquer. I'll be tracking down the slide decks.

The other regret is funnier. As Seth and I walked away from the Rosen Center for the last time, we realized something. By "we," I mean he. He's good like that.

We had taken exactly zero photos. All week. Zero.

The only image I own from SEBC 2026 is a shot of us walking away from the building at the very end. Which triggered an emergency round of texts to friends who'd been there, begging for anything our marketing team could actually use. All of the other photos except for this one were borrowed.

Forty plus meetings. One photo. Sounds about right. Looking forward to next year, we'll get pictures next time...maybe.