and the EU's efforts to unify standards for building design, construction, and materials across the European Single Market (the Eurocodes). All these developments caused American construction professionals and manufacturers to push for a nationwide building code in the United States, so that they would not need to waste so much time and money complying with different provisions of the regional codes and could instead focus on compliance with other countries' building codes in order to compete internationally for construction projects. After three years of extensive research and development, the first edition of the International Building Code was published in 2000. A new code edition has since been released every three years thereafter. The code was patterned on the three legacy codes previously developed by the organizations that had formed ICC. By the year 2000, ICC had completed the International Codes series and ceased development of the legacy codes in favor of their national successors. The word "International" in the names of the ICC and all three of its predecessors, as well as the IBC and other ICC products, despite all 18 of the company's board members being residents of the United States, reflects the fact that a number of other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America had already begun to rely on model building codes developed in the United States rather than developing their own from scratch. Thus, ICC from its inception was well aware that it was writing model codes for an international audience. "Calling it 'international' keeps it from being called the 'U.S. Building Code.' explains Bill Tangye, SBCCI Chief Executive Officer. "Some U.S. Model codes are already used outside the United States. Bermuda uses BOCA, and Western Samoa uses ICBO." Legacy codes BOCA National Building Code (BOCA/NBC) by the Building Officials Code Administrators International (BOCA) Uniform Building Code (UBC) by the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) Standard Building Code (SBC) by the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI) Competing codes and final adoption The National Fire Protection Association initially joined ICC in a collective effort to develop the International Fire Code (IFC). This effort fell apart at the completion of the first draft of the document. Subsequent efforts by ICC and NFPA to reach agreement on this and other documents were unsuccessful, resulting in a series of disputes between the two organizations. After several failed attempts to find common ground with the ICC, NFPA withdrew