Elevator Contractors of America – ECA – Annual Meeting – 2026 – Fort Lauderdale, FL

 

The Elevator Contractors of America (ECA) is a group of independent elevator contractors that have gotten together to work with the International Union of Elevator Contractors (IUEC) to have a better working arrangement and relationship. Once a year we get together for our annual meeting to go over internal business, education and to hear about the IUEC’s state of affairs and different programs. This year we had the meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was great to see some old faces, old friends and meet some new signatory members, as well as some of the IUEC faces. Colley Elevator has been going to this meeting for the last 16+ years.

The ECA is a great organization that we are proud to be part of; it has over 52 different member companies from coast to coast. ECA companies have a separate CBA (collective bargaining agreement) than other IUEC member companies. All IUEC mechanics and apprentices get the same pay rate in all agreements. The ECA agreement is tailored to the independent contractors and the different needs we may have from Otis, Schindler, Thyssen, Kone, etc.

Sunday

Sunday evening is a reception for everyone to see each other and say hi.  Some of us only see each other once or twice a year after talking to each other on the phone throughout the year.  It’s a great time to reconnect before we get to work on Monday.

Monday

We started with the keynote speaker Steve Gilliland. Steve is a great motivational speaker and while we had him back in 2018, it was great to see his high energy and comedic take on motivational speaking. 

Here are some of my notes from his talk:

• He asked us to think about the 5 people who most influenced your life and what you learned from them. 
• Surround yourself with people with a positive mindset. 
• Don’t give people permission to ruin your day.  Cut out the noise(news channels, social media). 
• Create a ripple – you don’t need to make a big splash, making an effort will create a ripple that can make a big effect.
• Pride – Personal Responsibility In Delivery Excellence.  When no one is watching – do better than anyone else and put your autograph on it.

Our ECA safety consultant Ed Hoeffliger spoke about:

• Aging workforce  and the importance of stretching, proper lifting, use helpers
• Osha enforcement direction is:
• Still active
• Still issuing citations for:
• Dangerous activities
• Dangerous jobs
• Report injuries
•   Fatal four
• Falls
• Electrocution
• Struck by incidents
• Caught between hazards
•  Typical high risk activities include:
• Work inside the hoistway
• Elevator modernization work
• Machine room maintenance
• Electrical troubleshooting
• Work on cab tops
•  Osha's Alliance Program is working on training Osha inspectors
•  Osha regulatory priorities that are being discussed include:
• Heat Illness prevention rule(probably a fed rule)
• Expanded injury data reporting
• Hazard communication updates
• Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and worker protection that fits – not one set of gloves, glasses, etc)
•  National emphasis programs include:
• Heat exposure
• Falls in construction
• Machine guarding and amputations
• Electrical hazards
•  Regarding state OSHA plans:
• 22 states operate OSHA programs
• Heat illness regulations – States are taking lead
• Workplace violence rules
• Ergonomics initiative
•  Written plans include:
• Hazard assessments and monitoring
• Free potable water (not Gatorade, energy drinks, etc)
• Rest breaks and cooling measures
• For really hot conditions:
• Mandatory breaks
• Pre shift heat briefings
•  Active monitoring of symptoms
•  Signs and symptoms of heat issues:
• Heat straining; thirst fatigue, irritability, heavy sweating
• Heat exhaustion, headaches, cramps, dizzy
• Heat exhaustion gets worse(shock) – Pale skin, nausea, confusion, rapid heartbeat, poor coordination
• Heat stroke – High body temp, hot skin, cognitive impairment, seizures (call 911, cool them off)
•  What to do when ICE comes to town and how it pertains to:
• Work place violence
• What if ICE comes to a job site?
• What if the issue is Anti-ICE protests
•   Osha Alliance
• Ongoing work project – elevatorindustrysafetypartners.com
• 2025 Fall protection, suspended scaffolds and false cars, lock out tag out (LOTO)
• Seems slow due to back and forth between experts
•  The OSHA Elevator Industry Overview meeting at Local 2 will take place May 20-21^st, 2026
• In summary he discussed:
• Workers are getting older
• OSHA and the states are still in place
• Prepare for summer
• Think about “what ifs” that do happen – work place violence
• Check out the Alliance work product

Our attorney Ken Richmon talked about work environments from 2020 to 2026 and making sure what we do outside of work is not entering our employment due to social media.

Our joint ECA/IUEC safety committee met in the afternoon.

Tuesday 

Tuesday was IUEC day where we got brought up to speed on what each branch was up to and progress they have made over the year. It gave each group time to explain some of the successes, challenges from last year and where they are going this year. The meeting kicked off with General President Frank Christenson talking about his ideas moving forward. The collective message was of continuing the 3 years without a fatality and “all of us together” on work place safety.  IUEC will be focusing on healthcare and education

Jim Chapman – Assistant General President talked about a few things but what stuck out to me was:

• Wants to stress – Changing the culture of safety because we are talking about it
•  Next piece of culture – education
•  Highest standard of education
•  Highest standard of craftsmanship
•  Not a penalty, it's an opportunity

Larry McGann – General Secretary and treasurer – talked about giving our retirees more opportunities in the industry to use their domain knowledge to benefit the industry.  We have a great healthcare reserve and all financials are doing well.

Allen Spears – Elevator Industry Work Preservation Fund (EIWPF) – Allen is one of my favorites.  I have been working with Allen for over 15 years, maybe longer.  He's a great ambassador for the EIWPF cause and went over our programs and talked about the 2025 use of them. He mentioned they are working more on the mental health aspect of the elevator industry.

Remember 988 – Mental health hotline/suicide hotline

John Caughhey & David Morgan – National Elevator Industry Educational Program (NEIEP)  - They talked about the new hire program, welcome center and other initiatives NEIEP is working on to separate them as the gold standard in the elevator training programs.  It's always great to see what they are up to.

Safety committee –  We discussed a recent situation they encountered and our current challenges; Fall protection and caught between.

Code development - 

2022

• 2.26.2.38 Ladder electrical device
• 2.1.7 Illumination of hoistways
• 8.14 Cyber security

2025

• 2.2.3 guards between adjacent pits
• 2.26.1.4.2(i) Approaching hazard warning system
• 17.1-2005 Supplement
• 2.3.2.3 guarding of the counterweight in multiple elevator hoistways

In general, we are 1,209 days with out a fatality

Rigging 2 – machines flipping with big block ups

Organizing talked about their recent activity.

Director of Codes discussed aging elevators.

Benefits Department talked about health of financial plans and health plans. This is always a great one to listen and look at.  There is a lot of time and care taken to make sure there is a healthy program.

The biggest take away is how close the ECA and IUEC are together with our safety expectations for membership and making our industry involvement better than all other alternatives.

I always take a lot away from these meetings. We learn a lot during the sessions but it is the conversations we have during the reception, lunch, breaks, breakfast that I take away the most. While we are in different geographic locations, we have the same challenges and it is great to get a chance to talk about what is working for other companies across the country. 

Among the great things we get to do is to have some face time with the IUEC leadership and informally talk about what challenges each side of the table has. Everyone’s goal is to have a harmonious relationship and go to work in a great trade, doing great things, safely. If you work for a company that is signatory and is not a member of the ECA, I would strongly encourage signing up, the cost is minimal and the benefit is huge. Thank you to the ECA leadership for putting on another great event!

If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107.

Also check us out on Instagram @Colleyelevator see what we have been up to.

Paused - A17.1 2022 Adoption With Door Lock Monitoring

 

If you're a Colley customer, you have seen all the warnings. We've been talking about the adoption of the ASME A17.1 2022 code for almost a year and a half - ever since the State of Illinois started moving forward with it. 

LATEST UPDATE - The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) was set to vote on the code’s adoption on December 17th, but that did not happen. In the meeting minutes, the vote was postponed by 45 days. 

Our understanding is that some of the language concerning how the code will be implemented, including annual inspections, is being rewritten. Once complete, it will go back to the Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Elevator Safety Review Board before returning to JCAR.

We recently received word confirming that the code adoption is on hold and there is currently no anticipated time frame for adoption. The letter from the State Fire Marshal that arrived at our office earlier this week is posted on their website and appears below.

We aren't usually this vocal about updated versions of the safety code, but this time around it would have had large financial implications. Usually a code update affects new installations and modernizations. As initially written, the A17.1 2022 update would have no grandfathering of older equipment.

As we receive future updates from the state, we will be sure to share them.

In the meantime, feel free to reach out to our office with any questions or concerns you may have.

Elevator Picture Hall of Fame 2026 – Superbowl of Elevators

 

The Hall of Fame posts are typically some of the more popular blogs in the Colley blog history. We get to see a lot of elevators during the year on our initial visits for pricing or while engineering projects. Of the hundreds of elevators, and thousands of pictures, these are some of the gems we've seen this past year.

 

Lots of wires – now that we are involved in internet and phones, we need to work with the buildings on getting us a good internet connection.   This is a telecommunication area we were pointed to.

 

Bad packing – This is the state of a cylinder gland packing we found when changing out the seals.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one like this.

 

Alarm Chaos – I have 4 year old and 7 year old boys, it looks like they were sent here to investigate the fire alarm. 

 

The Streets Where I’m Living – There was/is a band called the NY Citizens and they had a song called “The Streets Where I’m Living”.  I missed the part of the song where they said they installed the street in the elevator pit.

 

Pool party – I coach a girls travel softball team and we wanted to have a pool party, but ran out of money.  I got this picture from one of our mechanics and decided we can save some money and have the pool party in the elevator pit.  We did have to pay for shots and antibiotics after the pool party. 

 

No problem here – From time to time we go to buildings that do not have power outages, and find out that they really may have had a power issue.  That or my 4 and 7 year olds have been moving wires around on the door operator.

 

I haven’t seen this before – Not sure I’ve seen this solution on a pump/dump before.  It is creative, like putting a tarp on your driveway with a pully system to avoid shoveling, only to find out that when it snows too much you can’t pull the tarp up so you borrow your neighbor’s snowblower.  After you are done snowblowing the tarp and getting it stuck in the snow blower, you return it to your neighbor and pretend nothing happened.

 

Too much greenfield – There are other piping options than using greenfield all over the car.  Just say NO!

Disclaimer – We see hundreds and thousands of pictures over the course of a year. While we don’t see as many great pictures of maintained elevators, we do see them, which is fantastic. We have a lot of very dedicated and talented elevator people in our area. The reason we don’t see a lot of buildings getting great elevator service is because they are happy with their mechanic and the mechanic is probably cleaning and taking care of the building. Those buildings are not calling us to get pricing for elevator work because they are being taken care of. Be the great mechanic or helper, don’t be these people. We should all take the time and care we would like to have people who work in our homes to have. Do great things! We have great jobs! We have a great industry! If you are doing great, Keep it up. If you need to improve, no other time than now to start! Lets do it!

If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107.

Traction Elevator Modernization - Schaumburg, IL

 

We did a super cool modernization in Schaumburg, IL last year and wanted to share it with you.  We got to work with a great design team and great owner to put everything together. 

New equipment providers 

Controllers – MCE

Door operators – GAL MOVFE

Fixtures – Innovation Industries w/Ktech camera

Machines & safety equipment – Hollister Whitney

Visual communication – CAT 5 line[building supplied & Towne Monitoring]

Cab interior - Cabworks

 

Elevator controller – The existing control system was a Swift and was having reliability issues as well as issues with competent techs knowing how to work on the platform.  We replaced it with a bullet proof Motion 4000 traction elevator controller with Iso transformers to clean up the power.  

[Old Swift Controllers]

[Old Swift Controller]

[New MCE 4000 Elevator Controllers]

 

[New MCE 4000 Elevator Controller] 

Elevator door operator – The elevator had an old GAL door operator.  We replaced it with a GAL MOVFE linear operator. 

[Existing GAL Operator]

 

[Existing GAL Operator]

 

[New GAL MOVFE Linear Door Operator]

Elevator fixtures – The existing fixtures were the Fixture Company/Dupar.  We replaced them with Innovation Industries fixtures with a Ktech camera.  We integrated their existing security system into them. 

[Existing Fixture Company/Dupar Elevator Fixtures]

[New Innovation Fixtures]

 

[New Innovation Fixtures] 

Machines and safety equipment – The existing machines were Thyssen Northern and we installed new Hollister Whitney Legacy machines.   

[Existing Northern Elevator Machines]

 

[New HWEC Legacy Machines] 

Turnkey – The building wanted a turnkey project and we had great partners to complete the fire alarm, generator, electrical, security and other code required trades. 

Visual communication - VAM – We had an electrician pull a CAT 5 cable to our machine room for visual communication and we engaged Towne Monitoring for the answering service.  Ktech  was our camera partner on this project.

[KTECH Monitoring & Security Integration]

Cab interior - Cabworks Chicago refreshed the elevator cab and it looks great!

[Cab Refresh by Cabworks]

[Cab Refresh by Cabworks]

[Cab Refresh by Cabworks]

Elevator pit – A pit cleaning and new paint job finishes off the elevator pit!

[Pit Before the Elevator Modernization]

[Pit After the Elevator Modernization]

Take away – We encourage building owners to take a proactive approach to equipment replacement. When equipment gets 20-30 years old, and a building’s expectations are that the elevators are to run reliably, it is a good idea to start planning its replacement.  

Team work– The sales person and the project team who finishes typically get the glory on a project. In between the initial contract sale and the final acceptance are many other people who work on the project to make it successful. From the truck driver to the engineer to the billing department to the assist when needed, 15 Colley Elevator employees where involved in the project and we had tremendous team work on it. Thank you everyone. Without you we would not have had such a successful delivery! Let’s not forget our great material supplier participation!  A special shout out to our patient building through the whole process. 

If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107. 

Also check us out on Instagram @Colleyelevator see what we have been up to.

Year in Reflection - Colley Elevator Blog - 2025 review

 

Welcome 2026!  This is our 12th year doing the blog; our first post was 2/28/14.  We had a great 2025 at Colley Elevator so this is a quick recap of our year as we move forward to the next.  For me, it is a great way to see where we came from and where we want to go. I’m lucky to have such wonderful people around as we enter our 118th year as an independent elevator contractor.  Thank you to everyone that was part of our 2025 year!

Annual reflection – This year we saw our maintenance portfolio grow from 2522 to over 2671 elevators.  Most of our new acquisitions for maintenance are 1 or 2 elevator buildings, though we had some 6-8 elevator groups come our way.  We are primarily using Alpha Elevator for our hydraulic controllers and MCE for our traction elevators.  We have spent the year acquiring more elevator door equipment and have a large stock pile of GAL, Dover, Westinghouse and Otis equipment in house at all times. In total we bought approximately 110 door operators, 80+ fixture packages, 60+ power units and a few complete packages[MEI & Canton].  We also purchased 30-40 cylinders from ITI.  All of this unfortunately came with some really challenging shipping issues. 

Colley Cares, our philanthropic outreach, gave out over $12,000 to philanthropic organizations ranging from substance abuse to food depositories.  The Colley team came together to help out Toys for Tots this fall/winter with a truck load of gifts to help those in need. 

Our own team is made up of incredible people with our average length of employment of 8.9 years. That's down from 10 years because we hired 9 new people in 2025.  I’m proud to work side by side with everyone here and am proud of the culture of openness at Colley that helps get everything done at a high level! Thank you to our coworkers, customers & suppliers for being great!  In 2025, we brought home the Best Contractor - North from the annual Elevator World Ellie award contest for a fifth time.

Post reflection – Take a look at the great catalog of blog posts in 2025, go back and read some. 

1/13/25 – Year in Reflection – Colley Elevator Blog – 2024 Review 

2/2/25 – Cold Weather and Elevators – Deep Freeze 2025

2/8/25 – Elevator Picture Hall of Fame 2025 – Superbowl of Elevators 

2/22/25 – CAI – Community Association Institute – 43^rd Annual Winter Expo – Elevator

3/9/25 – State of Illinois Fire Marshal Elevator Safety Review Board Meeting 3/9/25 –Door Lock Monitoring DLM

3/21/25 – End of Life/Obsolete Elevator Equipment – TAC 20/TAC 22

3/30/25 – Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Highland Park, IL

4/24/25 – Elevator 101 – CAMICB CEU Approved Course – Morton Grove, IL

5/13/25 – Notice of Obsolescence – Schindler Elevator – HPBNA Push Buttons

6/8/25 – Information on State of Illinois Adoption of Elevator Code A17.1 2022 – Door Lock Monitoring

6/21/25 – Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Highwood, IL

8/4/25 – Vote Colley Elevator for Elevator World's 2025 Best Contractor – North

8/21/25 – NAEC Elevator Convention & Exposition – Houston, TX

9/15/25 – Elevator 101 – Oak Brook, IL – 10/7/25

10/16/25 – One Step Closer to Door Lock Monitoring in Illinois

 10/26/25 – NAEC 76^th Elevator Convention – Houston, TX

 11/18/25 – The Financial Implications of Door Lock monitoring (DLM)

 

Blog reflection – 17 posts in 2025[that is a lot of words, pictures and time], over 266,000 views, over 627,715 views in the blog’s history.  New posts here down this year as there never seems to be enough time in the day! 

Most popular blog posts of 2025

 1.    Elevator Independent Service – 1,810 views

 2.    Elevator Disconnect Auxiliary Contacts – Elevator Controller Emergency Battery Lowering – Rescuevator – 1,680 views

3.    End of Life/Obsolete Elevator Equipment – TAC 20/TAC 22 – 1,240 views

 4.    Residential Elevator Safety – Have Your Lift Inspected – 1,140 views

 5.    Guide for Elevator New Construction for General Contractors and Building Owners – 983 views

 6.    End of Life/Obsolete Elevator Equipment – Schindler Elevator – HPBNA push buttons – 860 views

 7.    End of Life/Obsolete Elevator Equipment – Dover DMC Elevator – 744 views

 8.    The Financial Implications of Door Lock Monitoring – 660 views

 9.    Schindler 330 Inverted Piston Roped Hydraulic Elevators MCP Update Notice – 651 views

 10. Elevator Cable Rouge – 624 views

Elevator resolution – This year I would like everyone to not only look at their jobs but look at their coworkers and help. When you help, you learn something new. EXPAND that mind!

FAID inspections– We finally have FAID inspections down – now something new.

DLM – We have door lock monitoring right around the corner which is going to make the challenges we had with FAID look like a walk in the park.  We will have a challenge with performing the tests and we will have a challenge getting our buildings the right solution in a timely manner.  Bombs Away!

2025 projects/relationships – We have gotten ahead of a lot of our supplier challenges by stocking extra equipment, which has been great.  We have had a lot of good fortune to work with great people on the supplier side and the customer side and have received a lot of positive feedback about our team's hard work.  

Competitive market – Since the sale of Suburban Elevator and the challenges with Urban Elevator we have seen a lot of good opportunities for us as an Independent Contractor.  Suburban Elevator and Urban Elevator were the two giants in our market that have receded in 2025.  We have seen the performance of OEMs continue to decline in our market[low to mid rise], though we have seen some positive movement from one of the OEMs.

Suppliers – We have had some great suppliers like Innovation, Alpha, MEI and Canton perform great as usual.  We met a new supplier who we didn’t ever really get a chance to get to know, K Tech, they have been a great partner with the visual communication.  Most of the consolidated companies have some great employees but it is hard to operate in an impossible box.  

If anyone is still reading – I ended the year in NYC and saw the Statue of Liberty, what a powerful symbol.  We are a divided country.  I encourage everyone to think for themselves, turn off your news station, put down your social media and think about how you got to where you are.  The United States sure isn't perfect but we all can have a hand in making it better or talking about how it is getting worse. Do something good for someone else, give more than you get and you will get paid back 20 fold.  And get your shingles vaccine.

Thank you for everyone who took the time to read the blog.  Work safe, getting better, do great things and make our industry a better place for everyone.  Much love in 2026.