"My participation in Board meetings and Board activities always is predicated on that smaller jurisdiction perspective and how ICC can relate to it as effectively as it does with a larger jurisdiction. I think our membership has 80 percent jurisdictions that are on the order of Decatur's size or smaller. I want to make sure that the balance is there."

Jimmy Brothers likes to think big when it comes to ICC's goals, but when it comes to who he thinks about as ICC's President, he tends to think smaller…about the smaller jurisdictions, that is.

"I worked for a jurisdiction that's one of the smaller jurisdictions represented by a Board member," he explains. "We need to be sure that the codes we produce as a code council can actually be utilized in a jurisdiction that doesn't have the resources from a financial standpoint or the number of personnel compared to some of the larger jurisdictions that are represented by the other Board members. My participation in Board meetings and Board activities always is predicated on that smaller jurisdiction perspective and how ICC can relate to it as effectively as it does with a larger jurisdiction. I think our membership has 80 percent jurisdictions that are on the order of Decatur's size or smaller. I want to make sure that the balance is there."

Brothers had 26 years of experience working for the city of Decatur, Alabama, so he knows the needs and problems of smaller jurisdictions. And while he seeks to be a voice for them on the Board, he also is grateful to Decatur for the support it gave him during his years of service to ICC. "I think the city of Decatur has benefited tremendously by my involvement, and I'm grateful for the amount of support I've gotten," he says. "It has given me an opportunity to look beyond the day-to-day activities of administering a building department and the codes on a local basis and expose myself to other ideas and approaches on a national level. And I brought many things back to the city of Decatur as a result of those experiences that made code administration there on a local level more effective. We get more of the reasoning and more understanding of why there are the codes and regulations and how they are really intended to be applied on a day-to-day basis."

He is in full support of bringing more attention to building code officials. "The problem is that our jobs are commonly viewed as obstacles to people in that they're having to comply with certain codes and standards that either they're not familiar with or that are perceived as being burdensome from a cost standpoint. Yet, it’s worth is validated every day that nothing happens. When something does happen, it's minimized in its impact. And that's a very difficult thing for the public to recognize, because the expectation is now with modern fire departments and modern building codes that events don't have the impact that they otherwise would have," he says.

Brothers, who was a member of a legacy organization for years prior to the consolidation, sees a bright future for ICC. "Ten years from now, ICC—in the best of circumstances—would be viewed by everyone in the public sector involving government and standards developers as the authoritative source of knowledge and research on building safety, materials testing and certification. Our members who are certified under our various programs will be of the highest quality in terms of education and training. There's no doubt we're headed in that direction."

His vision is clear, and he sees, just as clearly, what ICC needs to do to realize that vision. "As an organization, our first order of business is to make sure that the business of the Code Council is focused on the membership's needs: training and certification and production of cost effective and comprehensive codes and standards to regulate the built environment. Beyond that, I think we have an obligation to the concept of public safety to reach out to affiliated organizations and collaborate on future code development and standard development that further enhances public safety by bringing all the interests into the process of code development that have a stake in the outcome."

He knows that building officials all over the country share his vision, regardless of the size of their jurisdiction. "Having had the opportunity to go all over the country and meet code officials and interact with those from all sizes and composition of jurisdictions, I have found it remarkable that we have such a commonality of commitment to public safety and being advocates for building safety."