This week, Melissa Morrisette, showroom manager for member company Best Plumbing, shares how Best Plumbing can help make your next project a success. Plus: you're invited to Wine Wednesdays in their Seattle showroom!

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Painting a Better Tomorrow is a one-day experience unlike any other. Join us Nov. 10 to help us paint and change someone’s life forever—maybe even your own.

Few things feel better than closing the books on a successful project. Especially one fueled by kindness and compassion.

Whatever your designation in the world of residential homebuilding, you have a calling. Sometimes that calling extends beyond the job site or office. Because, at the end of the day, our collective job is to provide housing for the millions of people who make the Puget Sound region home.

Shoreline Veterans Center

We are the lucky ones. We get to give people a place they can call their very own. Sometimes this space is temporary or shared with others. But it doesn’t make it any less theirs. Take the folks who reside at the Shoreline Veterans Center, a Compass Housing Alliance property. The center is a 25-bed facility for honorably discharged homeless veterans who seek rehabilitation from drug, alcohol, or other issues. The goal of the center and its internal program is to help residents resolve their issues and learn to live on their own as contributing citizens to their communities. Upon graduation from the two-year program, veterans are then moved into their own apartment, but return to the center for ongoing counseling.

This year, MBAKS is proud to partner with the Veterans Center for Painting a Better Tomorrow 2018. Painting a Better Tomorrow, or PBT, is an annual one-day service event where association members and community volunteers add fresh paint to the walls and surfaces of a local nonprofit organization. This is where you come in. Even if you’re not a painter by trade, we want you to volunteer! There are plenty of tasks to keep you busy throughout the day and we can all but guarantee that you’ll have a fantastic time helping out a few of our well-deserving neighbors in need.

Volunteer—Just Do It!

Pull together a team of co-workers, friends, or family—or come as an individual and make some new friends and memories! MBAKS provides all the supplies for the event, including breakfast snacks and lunch, as well as our ever-popular, totally stylish PBT t-shirt so you look good while doing good. When you close the books on this project, your life, and those of the Shoreline Veterans Center, will be forever brighter.

Contact Michell Filleau-Maas, 425.460.8232, today, right now, to volunteer.

Step Up With Sponsorship

Over the years, we've painted hundreds of thousands of square feet of service organizations' walls. That wouldn't be possible without the help of our generous sponsors. If your company is interested in sponsoring a fresh coat of paint for the Veterans Center this year, contact Business Development Manager Ty Coleman, 425.278.0222 by October 10.

Photo courtesy Alabastro Photography

High-Quality, American-Built Skylights and Other Products

Established in 1982, CrystaLite is a Northwest manufacturer of high-quality skylights, roof glazing, sun rooms, and railing systems for residential, commercial, and industrial markets. Based in Everett, Washington, CrystaLite has additional distribution and sales locations in Spokane and Salem, Oregon, and employs 60 total employees. Materials are sourced in America and all products are manufactured in the Pacific Northwest. The company sells its products across the United States.

Lots of Hats

Cathy Hieb is Controller and Secretary/Treasurer of CrystaLite, but assumes other roles. "My background is in finance. I started 13 years ago as the company Controller and have just recently assumed the corporate responsibility as Secretary/Treasurer. I handle the company finances, like quarterly/monthly reporting, financial statements, payroll, AR, and AP. But I wear a lot of other hats. I'm also personal secretary to the President and Vice President."

Big Cost Savings From the MBA Trust

CrystaLite has been a member of the MBA Health Trust for 12 years. "Cost savings is the big advantage to being in the Trust," Cathy says. "These days, keeping health insurance costs down but still providing employees what they need is a challenge. We pay 100 percent of our employees' premiums and that's something we want to continue to do if it's affordable."

Significant Savings Compared to Other Plans

Cathy says CrystaLite goes out for bid every year for health insurance but always finds the best options with the MBA. "We've even had other insurance companies approach us for our business and then tell us that the MBA Health Trust is way better, the savings are so significant, that we should just stay with them. Only once did we go to another plan, but then we came back to the Trust."

The MBA Trust Gives Crystalite Plan Flexibility

CrystaLite employees have the choice between two plan options, depending on their personal needs and circumstances. "About seven years ago, the high-deductible HSA program came on the scene and we were the first company to jump on board," Cathy relates. "We offer our employees two programs: a traditional plan for those who use more doctor visits and the high-deductible health-savings account for those who just want to make sure they have catastrophic coverage. Now we have 90 percent on the HSA program. You can still see any doctor you want and all the major hospitals in Seattle are covered. The HSA plan is affordable for us but still offers major benefits for our employees when they really need it."

Strong Broker Relationship

"Our administrator is EPK," says Cathy. "They're very good. They know our company very well and what our goals are. If I have a question, they are giving me answers right on the first phone call. Adding or terminating employees is accomplished pretty much the same day. They are really good at that."