ICC Raising the Profile Award: Larry Nichols

Each year, the International Code Council recognizes peers and colleagues who are a reflection of what the association stands for: dedication to developing model codes and standards used in the design, build and compliance process to construct safe, sustainable, affordable and resilient structures. The Code Council honored several outstanding individuals and organizations for their accomplishments and contributions to building safety and resiliency in their communities during the 2022 Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky.

The ICC Raising the Profile Award recognizes an individual or organization for acts or contributions that raise the public awareness on the importance of building safety codes or of accomplishments by code personnel that improve public safety in the built environment. It also spotlights the character and professionalism of those who enforce codes. Larry F. Nichols, director and building official of the Community Development Department for the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, is the recipient of the 2022 ICC Raising the Profile Award.

Larry Nichols has only one photograph in his office — it’s the Lone Ranger on horseback, with a red circle and slash overlaying the iconic Western hero and the words NO LONE RANGER — TEAMWORK.

“Whenever I hire somebody to come work with me, I tell them, ‘We’re very proud to have you here and we’re going to have a great relationship but you need to know your success here depends on you not being a lone ranger,'” said Nichols. “‘You’re not going to do this on your own, you’re going to work with us as a team. And that’s how we get things accomplished here.'”

Nichols Personifies the Raising the Profile Award

Nichols’ emphasis on teamwork in his life and career embody what the Raising the Profile Award is all about. He has been involved in the construction industry for more than 30 years and has spent 22 years as a code official, working in Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, before returning to Las Cruces, where he graduated high school. Throughout his career, Nichols has focused his considerable energy and skills in eliminating inefficiencies in building safety programs, dismantling barriers to ineffective customer service delivery, expediting plan review programs, and overseeing the building of safe and sustainable structures for present and future generations.

In response to an order by the governor of New Mexico at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep building safety programs functioning as essential operations, Nichols established the Interactive Video Inspection and Customized Plan Review programs — both of which enabled the city to continue providing building permit processing services to its 110,000 residents despite challenging circumstances and limited staff.

Along with being a dedicated and innovative building official, Nichols serves as president of the Southern New Mexico Building Officials and is a member of the board of directors for the ICC Region XI Chapter. A decorated military veteran who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Nichols also worked with the U.S. Peace Corps, building schools for a year-and-a-half in Afghanistan; while he was there, he even took the time to teach Afghan boys and girls to play basketball.

Nichols: Be a Change Agent

According to Nichols, one of the most effective ways to raise the profile of the building safety profession is to demonstrate that your organization is responsive to the needs of the people who rely on its services. Sometimes, that means taking a long, hard look at the way things are being done and identifying opportunities for improvement.

“I regard myself as a change agent,” Nichols said. “Wherever I work, I look at the existing practices and ask, ‘How can we accomplish something better than this?'”

For example, when he became director of the Las Cruces Community Development Department in 2017, Nichols began by scrutinizing the department’s services through the lens of its mission statement, which is to “build a safe environment for people to work, play, invest, and enjoy.”

To address complaints that plans approvals were taking too long because the review process had too many steps and key information was not readily available, Nichols instituted the practice of pre-application meetings. “We get together with the applicants in a room, they lay out their plans, and we go over everything right there,” Nichols said. “We point out changes that need to be made, the architects make corrections, and we can sign off on them right there. And at the end of two or three hours, we are ready to issue a permit.”

The Interactive Video Inspection program that Nichols instituted at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven popular not only with builders and architects but with his staff, who save a tremendous amount of time that used to be lost driving from one project to another across the state’s second-largest city. Whereas before an inspector could accomplish between 10 and 12 in-person inspections in a day, now they can complete up to 35 in the same amount of time.

Plus, the online inspection process allows for real-time immediate re-inspection. “Say you’re doing an electrical rough-in inspection and find that some wires going into an outlet have not been stapled at the right distance,” Nichols said. “The contractor can have a journeyman fix it while you continue on with the inspection, and then later you can go back to review the fix and sign off on the work right there, without having to schedule a re-inspection a few days later.”

Coupled with the online processing of plans, permit applications, and reviews, Nichols’ process improvements have met with overwhelming approval. He sees it as just keeping up with the times. “We live in a digital age,” Nichols said. “When people want to find something, they are used to being able to Google it and find it instantly. That’s the kind of response that customers are looking for from building departments. We want to be able to offer that kind of service to them — fast, but safe.”

People who know and work with Nichols agree that he has been a force for positive change. “The Community Development Department is highly proficient in applying the ICC codes and analyzing problem situations,” said Dr. Tim Pitts, one of the department’s deputy directors. They always explain their views very concisely and give supporting arguments that are both clear and persuasive.”

“I have firsthand knowledge of the creative and innovative accomplishments by the department over the past five years,” said David Weir, a deputy director who is also the city’s planning manager. “They have a great sense of ambition to further ICC best practices.”

Raise the Profile by Improving Efficiency

Another way to raise the profession’s profile in the community and among stakeholders, Nichols said, is by identifying and correcting inefficiencies that can cause delay, redundancy, or error — all of which generate mistrust and misunderstanding.

Nichols requires his inspectors to be qualified in multiple trades or building types. He encourages his staff to take advantage of the Code Council’s Combination Inspector Designations to enhance their credentials.

“Say a site is ready for a framing inspection, but it’s also ready for rough-in electrical and plumbing inspections too,” Nichols said. “I can assign one inspector to do all three of those inspections in one visit instead of having to assign three different inspectors at three different times, which is just inefficient.”

Nichols believes that up-to-date technology is crucial for ensuring efficiency; otherwise you end up getting sucked into what he calls “technology warp.”

“The wrong software, unused data files, outdated equipment — all of that is inefficiency,” Nichols said. “We’re all used to having to update our personal phones and laptops; if we don’t do that in our building departments, we’re not offering the best service that we could be.”

Raising the Profile of Building Codes Around the World

After college, when Nichols spent time in Afghanistan with the Peace Corps, he worked with the Afghan Ministry of Education to teach building codes and with the U.S. Agency for International Development to build schools in villages across the country. The agency used the International Building Code as its standard, and the experience was eye-opening for Nichols.

“The number-one export for the United States is our building technology and our building skills,” Nichols said. “You go to other countries and see these magnificent structures, and more likely than not they’re built by America contractors that understand building safety codes, and they’re built using the I-Codes.”

“Building safe and sustainable structures for present and future generations means designing for operational safety, energy efficiency, and sustainability,” Nichols said. “And our building codes ensure that we are able to do that. To my mind, that’s the value of having them.”

Nichols Provides Leadership by Example

Prior to becoming a code official, Nichols ran his own general contracting business in New Mexico for 14 years. When he was getting ready to launch it, he asked his father, a successful small-business entrepreneur, for advice. “He told me, ‘Whatever you do, make sure you have a point of difference. Because if you don’t, then when it comes time for customers to decide who gets their business, it’s going to come down to one thing: who is the cheapest. And you do not want to be known for doing it the cheapest.'”

The examples set by his father, and by the many master craftsmen he has worked with over the years, have helped Nichols to hone his personal philosophy about the best way to raise the profile of the building safety profession: raise the profile of its professionals.

“How do you encourage people to go into the building safety profession and retain them?” Nichols asks rhetorically. “I try to accomplish that by communicating to an individual so clearly about their talents and capabilities that they see it in themselves.”

Like his philosophy about teamwork, Nichols’ approach to raising the profile of building safety and its professionals is simple, robust — and proven effective.

The International Code Council congratulates Larry Nichols as the recipient of its 2022 ICC Raising the Profile Award.

View past recipients of the ICC Raising the Profile Award.