The History Channel

If you watch the Gary Lubner interviews on glassBYTEs.com, you see one sharp, very focused businessman. Mr. Lubner has impeccable educational and business credentials and is one of the sharpest guys the auto glass industry has ever seen. I also give him a lot of credit for doing the interviews. They gave many people a chance to hear his views firsthand and I would suspect that, like me, many were impressed with what they heard even if they feared what he was saying at the same time. Those who compete with him now have a better idea of what they’re up against.

If Mr. Lubner lacks anything in his ability to tackle the U.S. market it is this: he lacks historical perspective. It’s not something he would be expected to have, given his relatively recent entry into the United States, but it is something I would have thought his stateside staff would provide him.

Nowhere was that more obvious than in his comments around trade associations. He contends that the auto glass industry should have only one. If he had had such historical perspective, he would have known that years ago the auto glass industry did have one trade association. But that association, for various reasons, did not represent the interests of all auto glass companies.

Because that association no longer met their needs, other groups were formed. The National Windshield Repair Association and the Independent Glass Association are two such groups. Each developed around a common set of interests and problems. The AGRSS Standard came along because the industry had no standards and needed some. Recognizing that such standards would need to belong to the industry as a whole, and not to any one particular group or organization, the AGRSS Council formed.

Without the benefit of such historical hindsight, Mr. Lubner commented that each group maintains its separation because of egos and such. In reality, that’s not the case. They are separate because they have separate needs, not because of someone’s conceit. He’d have no way of knowing this, of course, because he doesn’t have the history.