DCNOnline - Helping Home and Small Business Owners Rebuild After the Storm is Over

Founding Members:
	Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) is a national association representing 23,000 merit shop construction and construction-related firms in 79 chapters across the United States. ABC's membership represents all specialties within the U.S. construction industry and is comprised primarily of firms that perform work in the industrial and commercial sectors of the industry.
	FRSA's purpose is to foster and encourage a high standard of business ethics among its members and to inform the general public of the importance of doing business with competent and ethical firms. FRSA encourages quality through research, education, and recognition of competence.
	Florida AGC Council
	Florida Homebuilders Association
	The Center for Disaster Risk Policy (CDRP) provides technical assistance and emergency management related program and information system development to government organizations. CDRPs continuing mission is to identify, develop, and promote best practices in emergency and public management. CDRP is a public service organization within the College of Social Sciences at Florida State University.
	The people of DCA are dedicated every day to making Florida a better place to call home. Our mission is to assist Florida communities in meeting the challenges of growth, reducing the effects of disasters and investing in community revitalization.
	FEMA's continuing mission within DHS is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration.
	The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) is a $1.5 billion agency regulating one million professionals and businesses across some 200 licensee categories.

Partners:
	The FBMA represents construction material suppliers and many of our members assisted in getting products to areas of the state that were experiencing shortages after last year's wave of hurricanes.
	This Association is organized to promote the interests of contractors who are engaged in the industry of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration in the state of Florida.
	The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is a national nonprofit initiative of the insurance industry to reduce deaths, injuries, property damage, economic losses and human suffering caused by natural disasters. Its engineering team has recommendations for rebuilding and retrofitting homes to improve their resistance to natural disasters. IBHS also sponsors the Fortified for safer living program, which specifies construction, design and landscaping guidelines to increase a new home's resistance to natural disaster from the ground up.
	The Florida Swimming Pool Association serves as the coordinating organization for the 17 chapters of The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals in Florida. Member companies consist of swimming pool/spa builders, service companies, retail stores, manufacturers, distributors and firms allied with the aquatics industry. Florida Swimming Pool Association Mission: To improve the quality of the professional pool industry in Florida.
	AIA Florida involves its members in a unified, organized statewide effort to benefit the architecture profession. Its mission is to "unite, educate and position architects to lead the shaping of Florida's future." AIA Florida members are dedicated to helping Florida meet growth challenges and mitigating the effects of natural disaster for Floridians.
	The Federal Alliance for Safe Homes - FLASH, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization dedicated to promoting disaster safety and property loss mitigation. Our missions is to promote life safety, property protection and economic well-being by strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and manmade disasters.
	The mission of the Alarm Association of Florida is to promote professional standards for the low voltage and alarm industries through education and training; to maintain a code of ethics protecting the public and public safety; to enable policies reducing alarm dispatch.
	The goal of the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) is to preserve and promote the art of roofing application through continual education, professionalism and adherence to the highest standards. NRCA supports professional conduct and encourages open competition and the free enterprise system. NRCA mission is to provide information and education necessary for its members to run successful businesses and to provide consumers with the best available technology and business practices. Our philosophy is that members of NRCA serve the profession best by serving the public first. NRCA serves members and consumers in all fifty states as well as Puerto Rico.
	NAHB is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association whose mission is to enhance the climate for housing and the building industry. Chief among NAHB's goals is providing and expanding opportunities for all consumers to have safe, decent and affordable housing. As "the voice of America's housing industry," NAHB helps promote policies that will keep housing a national priority. Founded in 1942, NAHB is a federation of more than 800 state and local associations. About one-third of NAHB's 220,000 members are home builders and/or remodelers. The remaining members are associates working in closely related fields within the housing industry, such as mortgage finance and building products and services.
	The Florida Small Business Development Center Network (FSBDCN) supports Florida's small business owners and entrepreneurs through one-on-one, confidential counseling covering financial, managerial, operational and other business functions at no cost to the client, training in every business function and sub-function, and by providing on-line and off-line information sources.
	The purpose of The Construction Licensing Officials Association of Florida is to promote the protection, health, safety and welfare of the public, by the development, maintenance and adoption of local construction licensing laws, including but not limited to testing, insurance requirements and financial responsibility.
	The Florida Wall & Ceiling Contractors Association promotes the free enterprise systems with the construction industry in Florida; promotes the full wall and ceiling industry in Florida; advances honorable relationships between and among businesses in the wall and ceiling industry in Florida; and takes such steps as shall be necessary under the law to encourage, develop, and protect the building industry, especially the wall and ceiling portion of that industry.
	The mission of the Florida Air Conditioning Contractors Association follows: To foster, promote and protect the interest and welfare of its members, the industry, and the public, which it serves; To promote and support local, state and federal legislation which will be mutually beneficial to air conditioning contractors and consumers. To use every reasonable effort to be sure that the interests of air conditioning contractors and the general public are given proper consideration in the drafting, enactment, and enforcement of all laws and regulations which may affect them; To use reasonable precautions in an endeavor to protect the general public against the sale of misbranded merchandise and to eliminate misleading advertising; To accumulate and distribute trade information, encourage better business methods and generally to advance the interests of air conditioning contractors and the successful operation of their local chapters; To cooperate with schools and colleges in expansion of courses of education training specifically designed for the air conditioning industry; To serve as a statewide clearing house for the accumulation, exchange and dissemination of information and data, ideas and suggestions and services of all types which may be helpful and beneficial to individual air conditioning contractors and their local chapters; and To discourage and oppose on a state level all fraudulent, fake, illegitimate solicitation schemes.
	The Florida Association of Electrical Contractors is the voice of the electrical industry in Florida. Made up of Electrical Contractors and Industry Allies, FAEC represents the needs and concerns of the electrical contractor, not only as they relate to the trade, but also as a businessperson.
	The mission of the American Society of Landscape Architects is to lead, to educate and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.
	The purpose of the Florida Section of ASCE is the advancement of civil engineering knowledge and practice; the cultivation of friendly relations with all engineers; the maintenance of high professional standards; and the cooperation with other engineering societies with a view to promoting the general welfare of the engineering profession and the American Society of Civil Engineers.