Rick Vognild, retired Director of Technical Services for
the legacy organization Southern Building Code Congress International
(SBCCI), was the recipient of the Bobby J. Fowler Award during
the Annual Conference Awards Luncheon.
The Fowler Award, the highest honor given by ICC, is presented
to an individual whose contributions to the building safety
industry advance ICC's goals in achieving a safer built environment.
Vognild was honored for his work in the late 1990's to help
merge and mesh the collective works of the legacy organizations
into a complete and compatible set of model codes-the International
Codes. He was involved in virtually all aspects of the code
development processes and, in particular, served as Secretary
to the International Building Code (IBC) Coordinating Committee
and as a member of the Codes Scoping Committee. Vognild also
served as the liaison between the technical staffs of the
legacy organizations and the ICC Board of Directors.
Vognild was unable to attend this year's Annual Conference
and former Fowler recipients Paul Heilstedt and Jim Sealy
accepted on his behalf. Heilstedt read comments that were
sent by Vognild, who wrote, "When a person receives an
award like this it is customary to thank those who made it
possible. Since that includes hundreds of thousands of individuals
from code enforcement, design professions and allied industries
who attended meeting, after meeting, after meeting, individual
recognition is impossible, so I thank them collectively."
Vognild began his career with SBCCI in 1983 as manager of
the newly formed codes department. He has more than 30 years
of engineering experience and holds professional engineering
and structural engineering licenses, and is a Certified Building
Official. During his career at SBCCI, Vognild was honored
as the organization's Employee of the Year in 1990, and received
the President's Award in 1999.
In announcing this year's Fowler honoree, Awards Committee
Chairman and Board Director Ed Berkel said, "Throughout
his career, Rick Vognild has displayed the qualities of vision,
focus, integrity, professionalism and compassion, and never
were those qualities more apparent than in his work for ICC."
