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Board Profile: James Brothers
"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."
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Jimmy Brothers likes to think big when it comes to ICC's
goals, but when it comes to who he thinks about as a member
of the ICC Board, he tends to think smaller…about the
smaller jurisdictions, that is.
 "I'm
from 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 has 23 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 is also grateful to Decatur for the
support it has given 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 here on a local basis
and expose myself to other ideas and approaches on a national
level. And I've brought many things back to the city of Decatur
as a result of those experiences that have made code administration
here 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 here."
 He
is fully behind the Code Council Board President's initiative
to bring 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, its 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."
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