How To Find & Retain a Team To Build High-Quality, High-Performance Homes
Watch Brian Pontolilo, Rob Yagid, Ben Bogie, Josh Salinger, and Paul Eldrenkamp discuss ways to establish qualified teams capable of taking on the most demanding work.
Overwhelmingly, the single most common challenge we hear when builders, designers, and homeowners take on a new project is the difficulty in finding qualified, skilled, and reliable tradesmen and women to execute the job. The issue only becomes more severe when a project calls for the latest in building-science principles to be layered into the scope of construction. This webinar aims to shed light on solutions established by architects and builders who have found a way to establish qualified teams capable of taking on the most demanding work.
Originally presented live on August 27, 2020
Presenter bios:
 Rob Yagid is the founder of the award-winning Keep Craft Alive program, where he also currently serves as executive director. He is also the former editorial director at Fine Homebuilding and Green Building Advisor, and the current digital media coordinator at Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. He has an extensive background as a journalist, photographer, and editor in the magazine industry, plus a unique perspective on residential construction, having grown up in a family of builders. |
 Fine Homebuilding and Green Building Advisor’s editorial director Brian Pontolilo has combined a few of his passions to make a career of 18 years. Brian is equally excited by multi-media journalism, print magazines, architecture, home building, and building science. He has a degree in professional writing and has worked on-and-off in landscape construction, as a painter, and as a carpenter. However, he has spent most of the last two decades working as an editor at FHB while remodeling a home in northwest Connecticut. Brian left FHB in 2018, spent the winter building cabinets, relocated to Charleston, SC, and came back to the Taunton Press as editor of GBA in 2019. In 2020, Brian became editorial director of both FHB and GBA for the second time. |
 Ben Bogie is a second-generation builder who works with Dan Kolbert at Kolbert Building in Portland, Maine. Ben has made a successful career as a builder and remodeler, is passionate about historical renovation, and is on the leading edge in the movement towards healthy, high-performance, low-carbon homes. In the last few years Ben has become involved in education and training nationally. His work has been published in Fine Homebuilding and the Journal of Light Construction, and on Green Building advisor and Pro Trade Craft. Ben is a widely-recognized thought-leader in the home building community. |
 Paul Eldrenkamp founded Byggmeister, a residential design-build remodeling company, in 1983. He is in the process of selling Byggmeister to its employees and expects the transaction to be completed in May of 2021. Since January 2020, Paul has also been a consultant with HELM Construction Solutions, helping small design, construction, and engineering firms develop their systems and improve their triple bottom lines; he hopes to be able to continue that second career indefinitely. |
 Joshua Salinger is CEO and Founder of Birdsmouth Design Build, a residential Design Build company located in Portland OR. In 1999 Josh graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in Zoology and Conservation. In 2007 he started Birdsmouth Design Build with the goal of designing and building beautiful, high performing homes that transform and improve the built environment. He has receivedcertifications from Earth Advantage’s Sustainable Homes Professional course, and is an early graduate of the Passive House Builders Training program administered by PHIUS and is an accredited EEBA Zero Energy Home Professional. He has been on the board of Passive House Northwest since 2016 and also sits on the Technical committee of Zero Energy Ready Oregon. He is currently developing the curriculum in concert with Earth Advantage for the Sustainable Homes Professional Remote Learning & Accreditation Program. He lives in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood of Portland with his wife and 2 children. He enjoys playing guitar, yoga, cooking, bemoaning the inefficiency of his house, and making the world’s best cup of coffee. |
