A Letter from USHBA President Shawn Ledig
- Ingrid Fay
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Lower Costs, a Stronger Team, & the Tools to Connect Our Industry
To our members,
When I first wrote to you as President, I made a promise: this association would work to put hemp building in front of more people, more professionals, and more building departments across the country. As we move into the second half of the year, I want to share the concrete steps your board has taken toward that promise. They all point in one direction, which is to make your membership do more for you while making it easier for the next builder, designer, or student to join us.
We have lowered our membership rates for the second half of the year.
After careful discussion, the board has set new membership rates that are taking effect July 4th:
Individual membership is $59 per year. Business membership is $275 per year. Student membership is just $10 per year.
For most of our history, individual membership sat at $99, and our student rate was a real barrier for the very people we most need. We chose to bring those numbers down on purpose. This industry grows when more builders, designers, homeowners, students, and advocates are inside the tent rather than outside of it. A $10 student rate removes the cost question entirely for the next generation of hemp builders, and a lower individual rate welcomes the curious professional who is one good resource away from a first project. Business membership remains the home for the companies ready to invest in visibility and leadership within the field. The more those companies invest in this organization, the more technical and specification opportunities we can put in front of all of you, and the more recognition our business members earn in return.
We lowered the price and added to what you receive at the same time. That is the part I am most proud of.
Your membership now includes more technical and building information.
You have told us, consistently, that the most valuable thing we can provide is reliable, practical building information. The board is expanding the technical resources inside your membership: deeper material and assembly guidance, building and detailing information, and the kind of applied knowledge that moves a project from idea to permitted reality. This builds on resources you already know, including our research database, the Architects Toolkit, and our AIA accredited Hemp 101 course. The goal is simple. When a member sits down to plan a hempcrete home or a commercial assembly, the USHBA should be the first and most trusted place they turn.
We are rebuilding our regional leadership team, and we want the right people for it.
A national association is only as strong as its presence on the ground. We are relaunching our Regional Leadership Program with a clear standard: regional leaders are local ambassadors for the USHBA who connect members, promote education, identify what their region needs, and strengthen engagement where they live and build. Going forward these roles will be vetted, given a real purpose, and supported with resources, presentations, and quarterly leadership meetings so that every leader can host events and represent us well.
This is an open invitation. If you are an active member who wants to help grow hemp building in your part of the country, we want to hear from you. The commitment is modest, roughly a few hours a month, but the impact is real: you become the face of this movement where you live, and you gain a direct line into the priorities of the organization. A smaller, more dedicated team of regional leaders will do more for this industry than a long list of empty titles ever could.
Our website is getting a full refresh.
We have moved to a cleaner home at www.ushempbuilding.org, and a redesign is underway. Expect better organization of our resources, an improved experience on both desktop and mobile, refreshed branding, a project gallery that tells the story of what our members are building, and a blog where members can share regional news, project highlights, and code adoption wins. If you have a project worth featuring or a story worth telling, that platform is being built for you. Please make sure your own profiles and links point to the new address so we keep building recognition behind one consistent brand.
A job board is coming, and it connects our industry in both directions.
This is the work I am most excited about, and it answers a need I hear constantly from members on both sides of the same problem.
Employers and builders looking for certified, capable people will be able to post what they need, whether that is full crews, trade help, or specialized roles. Professionals looking for the right employer will have a place to find companies actively building with hemp and ready to hire. And homeowners and developers searching for someone to deliver their hempcrete project will be able to find the builders and mobile build teams who serve their area. For a working contractor or a job seeker, this is the kind of resource that can return the cost of a membership many times over with a single connection.
Alongside it, we are building a national map of the professionals who make hemp building possible: engineers, architects, builders, and contractors. As that map grows, a homeowner anywhere in the country who is ready to build will be able to see who can help, and our members gain visibility exactly when and where prospective clients are looking. These tools are coming soon. We are announcing them now so you are ready to take part the moment they go live.
Our bigger goal: one coordinated team, from design to delivery.
Here is what ties all of this together: many good hemp projects stall in the gap between the people who design them, the people who specify and procure materials, and the people who build them. Our goal at the USHBA is to align the architects, engineers, procurement professionals, and builders so that projects move cleanly toward permitted, certified construction rather than getting stuck between disciplines. Just as important, we want to coordinate the systems of our industry, the standards, the resources, the supply, and the workflows, so that the experience of building with hemp becomes smoother and more predictable every year. Lower barriers to join, more technical value inside the membership, a dedicated regional team, and tools that connect every link in the chain from raw material to finished building. Each is a step forward. Together it’s a strategy: grow the membership, strengthen the professionals already in it, and make it dramatically easier for anyone ready to build with hemp to find a qualified team. That is how an industry moves from promising to permanent.
Thank you for being a member and thank you for the work you do in your own corner of this country to prove what hemp building can be. The foundation is set. We build on it.
Onward,
Shawn Ledig
President, U.S. Hemp Building Association
Soon to be: