How Hurricane Damage REALLY Happens | Steven Browner

What if the biggest problem in your home or building is something you never even think about?

In this fascinating episode of the Gold Coast Podcast, host Eric Winegard sits down with Steven Browner, VP of TSSA Storm Safe DAC, Inc., to uncover the hidden world of forensic window investigations, hurricane damage, glazing systems, and building failures.

Steven shares incredible real-world stories from investigating catastrophic storm damage, working on high-rise buildings across Florida, testifying in major lawsuits, and solving million-dollar mysteries involving leaking buildings, failed window systems, mold issues, and structural damage.

This episode goes WAY deeper than just “windows.”

You’ll learn:
• Why one failed window can destroy an entire building
• The hidden causes of water intrusion & mold
• How hurricane pressure affects high-rise buildings
• The shocking mistakes contractors make
• Why insurance battles over windows are exploding
• The science behind impact windows & glazing systems
• How forensic experts investigate storm damage
• Why some buildings leak for DECADES without fixing the real issue
• The truth about quality assurance in construction
• The psychology of high-pressure testimony in court

Steven also shares his journey from competitive golf and martial arts training to becoming one of the most respected forensic glazing experts in the country.

Whether you’re a homeowner, contractor, business owner, property manager, attorney, real estate investor, or just someone fascinated by how buildings actually work — this episode is packed with insights you’ve probably never heard before.

Guest:
Steven Browner
VP of TSSA Storm Safe DAC, Inc.

Learn More:
www.tssa-stormsafe.com

Hosted by Eric Winegard
Gold Coast Podcast

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Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to another episode of the Gold Coast Podcast. Today I got a real cool, well-rounded dude here by the name of Steven Browner. He's a partner of TSSA Storm Safe, and you're gonna learn a whole lot more about Windows today, and you're gonna learn a little bit about something called glazing as well. But a very, very uh down-to-earth, very well-rounded person, very sharp business person, and uh almost played professional golf at one point. Hey, welcome to the show, man. I'm excited to have you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. So where where'd you come up from, Steven? Um my office in Margate. Okay. So it's not too far, but but it's uh we're we're nationwide. I mean, I'm a mobile forensic testing agent. So we wherever there's problems, wherever there's an issue, that's where we'll go. Okay. So it's uh yeah, what we do is very unique. Yeah, we are a unique organization. It's it's a small industry, it's a very kind of closed industry, but it touches a lot, a lot of the population. So I don't know if you want to do like a little, you know, background on what we do. Yeah, no, definitely. We're we're already we're rolling. Okay. No, we're rolling. So TSSA storm safe. What are some of these? Uh, you know, it's obviously a firm that specializes in glass and glazing failures. Describe glass and glazing failures. We're building envelope specialists. So, you know, you have vertical structures that the whole building is wrapped in glass. You have single family homes that have individual window systems. Yeah, you have commercial commercial uh uh Do you mean like this building? Is this wrapped in glass? This is like this is actually a storefront type of system. Okay. But uh, but yeah, this is what I mean. So we we are building envelope specials, and our specialty is glass glazing and building envelope. Okay. So anything that has to do with how glass and window systems are affixed to a structure, that's where we come in. So it's uh and we're in South Florida, you know, so it's a funny thing. Everybody we have a saying, people look through windows, they don't look at windows. So we look at windows, and that's that's a specialty, we've been doing it for over 20 years, and uh we're useful in different verticals. So we're expert witnesses, we testify in large loss litigation. Here we have hurricanes and all kinds of issues. So when the building leaks, we do the testing to determine what happened, how it happened, and in some cases who's at fault. Who's well was it the storm? You know, was it installation? What what caused the problem? Okay, you know, and the forensic type of work that we do, there it's a it's solving a mystery. Because you have if you could have a 20-story building and the people on the third floor are complaining about water coming in, the problem could be on the 17th floor or 15th floor or 10th floor. Okay, so there's a forensic nature to our investigations, you know, and it's it's a very scientific study, yeah, but it's also an instinctual study. Okay. And that's the that's the cool part about it. Uh in many cases, where you see the water, it might not be the cause. And where the water's coming through the system, it may just be a symptom of the cause. Right. So when I say we're a forensic mobile testing lab, we perform investigations that are based on nationally recognized testing standards. We're the fact finders, and we're there to not not guess, but to create clarity. Yeah. So it's a it's a very interesting thing, and it touches a lot of lives. And it doesn't seem like it does, but we're in nationwide. I did I drew some statistics. Every year, there's about 67 million windows that are installed. Okay, it's a big number. Florida's about 10% of the US, in the U.S. In the US. Florida's about 10% of that. How about that? You have 50 states, we're 10% of that. 7 million. Okay. So you get 7 million. And it breaks down in an interesting way, and this is a cool thing. 3 million of that 7 million are new windows, new construction, buildings going vertical, etc. The rest of it, you know, the 4 million, they're all retrofit. They're all old windows being replaced. They're all buildings being brought back up to code. So when I say it touches a lot of people, that includes commercial building owners, property managers, uh hospitals, like soft and hard infrastructure buildings, police stations, prisons, okay, and and residential single-family homes and condominiums. So it you don't you don't think about it. Like I said, people look through windows, but they don't understand what what that really is. And we're window geeks, okay. It's you know, it's not a like I I'd love to be knowledgeable in other areas. This happens to be the one that we have passion for. Yeah. Uh but in some regards, it's a very complex study, in other regards, it's it's a very necessary and instinctual study. Why did you not call the business TSSA storm safe windows? Well, it's funny. So over the course of our career, okay, and it's funny, my my my brother, Ivan, he's he's our testifying expert. He's truthfully one of the top window and glazing experts in the country. Uh he's our technical guy, and I'm more involved in the business development. I'm more involved in the the running the running the day-to-day operations of the business. Okay. Uh but between the two of us, we are we have one brain and we think totally opposite to each other. So we kind of solve problems in a very in a very interesting way. It's a very uh it's a hard thing to be in business with family, but it's also a good thing when half of your brain is in that other person. Yeah, identical twins. Identical twins. Literally got two different brains. Two different brains, and we start and we start and stop right in the middle between logic and consciousness. Okay, it's a real really kind of strange thing. So, and it's and here's a weird, this is the the odd part about it. And I'm I'm saying this for a reason because it's kind of humorous. Yeah. In in our industry, we're known as the twins. Okay, it's probably because there's not other twins, and other, and for other reasons, when we're on a deployment together, we think out loud the way you would have a conversation in your head. Right. Reasoning through something with logic. Uh it becomes, and and people stand back and watch us and they say, What the hell are these guys doing? But we're we're solving a problem. We're performing the beginning of the forensic evaluation that we're doing. Uh it's a kind of a very cool thing. So, going back to your question, TSSA storm safe, okay? Why are we going to call it TSA Windows? Well, before we were forensic experts, we cut our teeth in this industry in glass and glazing. So we did have a firm that marketed, sold, installed windows, we did a lot of education for window manufacturers, and we also exported a lot of building products uh to the Western Indian Islands, to the Caribbean, to Latin America, to areas where even though we do get hit by a lot of hurricanes, when we're almost getting hit, ultimately one of these islands are getting hit every year. Okay? So there was an edict that was given by the government of many of these islands, and that is we have to strengthen our soft and hard construction infrastructure stock. Uh every time there's a storm, they're rebuilding. And they said this is this is not sustainable. So we went to many US manufacturers, to many uh people many very smart industrial leaders who were creating code-rated and compliant window systems. And we said, how can we help them? So there were many young window companies. I mean, everybody's heard of PGT and you know the big ones, and you know, we'll get into them in a minute. They're all they all have their pluses, they're all good, they all have their minuses. They're all could improve in certain areas, but ultimately they all passed the Miami Date Building Code, which is the which seemed which has been the the benchmark since Hurricane Andrew. So originally there was the the Universal Building Code, which was actually a code from Australia. Then after Andrew, they said we got to do something, this area got decimated, and they created Miami Dade Building Code. And it was a lot of it was was kind of taken off of the Australian model. Uh it's so what we did is we went to these window companies that were young and innovative, and we said, How would you like to help out the Caribbean? How would you like to help out these smaller markets that could create a co-op buying opportunity? And we've some of these window companies needed to get their Miami Date approval, so we helped them go through that process, and then we presented those systems to the governments in certain countries, to you know, the the developers, to the contracting teams, and we said, look, we're this is what's going to help you. So we got our education by really getting to know and getting the information from all these manufacturers because they wanted their windows to be the best windows. So it was a lot of give and take. The engineers in those organizations wanted feedback, they wanted to test their windows, they wanted to get make sure they surpassed the building code to be useful to the industry. So we started back then, we were installing, we were manufacturing, but we were in the marketing end, we were in the export and import side of things, and we took this whole body of knowledge. And well, I mean, I gotta tell you, these are heavy systems, and I we get tired of lifting 300-pound panels of window systems. So we started helping other people we know in the industry with answering questions that they had. So flash, you know, we're gonna flash forward to Hurricane Wilma. Okay, we're all familiar with Hurricane Wilma. It was a major storm, the Iowa went right over Broward County, you know, northern case. I've been here since 2005. Okay. Okay, okay. And so we had a situation there that a lot of our neighbors suffered great damage. Okay. And up until that point, in what's known as first party litigation, uh, there was a lot of attention paid to roofing systems. There was a lot of attention paid to other structural components of a building envelope, and everybody assiduously stayed away from windows. Yeah. So you might ask why. And that's it's kind of an interesting thing. You look at a single family home, you have one roof. You have, you know, you look at a typical Florida home, three-bedroom, two-bath, fit, you know, 1800 square foot, single story. You could have 20 windows. 20 windows, yeah. Okay. You could have a combination of sliding glass doors and you know, different things, and but but every opening in that building, what's called a masonry opening, that has a window in it, a failure of a one-window system could be as catastrophic to that structure as a complete failure of the roofing system. Okay. So I was helping a friend who is a public insurance adjuster, and that's a those are that's an expert that's hired by homeowners and business owners to defend their rights and help to negotiate with the insurance company and create what's called a proof of loss and help them solve the question of how much does it cost to fix a building. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and this one particular adjuster had a claim in Jupiter, Florida, and it had 112 townhouses. Now, these were four townhouses combined together, it's like a quadplex, and it was a nice, very nice community. It wasn't the wealthiest, it was it was just a real solid, you know, community with a lot of retired people who just enjoyed the lifestyle. And he was going to help the whole community, the board of directors, not just one homeowner. He said, Can you come talk to me about these windows? And so when we went out there and we walked around and we looked at the property and we said, This is gonna take a little time because what he was asking for was a window by window kind of assessment. Okay. We stayed out there for the whole summer. I mean Oh, the whole community. The whole community, every window in the community. I mean a house. Okay. No, this was a whole community. Wow. And my brother and I said, we need to create a way to collect this data in a logical way, to create statistics from it, to really create some clarity. And we came up with an inspection model where we went through each window. And I mean, these people knew us by name, we were having dinner with them. They were, you know, like the window guys, the window tweeting. Totally, it was I mean, I wanted them asked me if I would take their you know, dump around for dinner and everything. It was, I mean, it's just a fun thing. Did you take her up and I did, I didn't, I did, but uh, I was flattered if I did. Uh so we went through there, and what the data ended up being these four three-inch binders filled with information, and it was kind of to us, it was simple. We tried to make the whole process simple. Now, at the time I had some investment property, and one of my tenants had a water, like a leaky sink or something, ceiling like that, and said, Hey, could you come over and look at this? And I just left that project. I came in, I had the report in my trunk, and he met me in the driveway, and I opened the trunk and he said, Oh, what's that? I said, Oh, that's just so project we're working on. He's and he asked, Can I see it? He looked at it. Turns out the guy's a roofing expert, and he was an expert in first-party litigation lawsuits. He was support in what we do for Windows, he was doing for roofs. And he kind of thumbed through it and he said, Could you do this again? I said, Yeah, I I think we could. I said, This is just one project, we're helping them out. Can I show it to somebody? And I said, No, well, it's part of an active investigation. Then he said, Well, would you have lunch with me tomorrow? And maybe we could bring in, I could show it to somebody. Okay. We show up there the next day for lunch. There's an attorney, there's a general contractor, and he's there and we show him the book. And the attorney says, Can you do this again? I think we can. Yes, we can. And he says, Okay, this is what I'd like to do. And he gave me an address and said, Can you meet me at this address on Tuesday? That was maybe next the next week. So it's Thursday, next week on Tuesday. Okay, we'll meet you there. We go there, we pull up. It is a I'm I'm dating myself because this is a little while ago. I think it was a 32-story building on Galt on the Galt Ocean Mile and in uh Broward County. And we pull up in the parking lot, and this parking lot is dripping in Armani. Okay, there's 20 lawyers there, and the representatives from the insurance company and representatives for the association, and representatives for the building, and they're all there, and they're having a big powwow, okay? And there's a retired judge that's there as well, who was the umpire between these two parties. Okay. Now who are the two parties? The attorneys and it was the it was the building, the homeowners association association, okay, and the insurance company. Okay, gotcha. Okay, and this place got I mean, this place got hit by Hurricane Wilma. They had a micro burst, a tornado go right through their parking garage. Wow. I mean, we saw videos that the security guard's desk in the lobby, the security video was showing the floor was raising and lowering and buckling, and the tiles were popping and hitting the ceiling when the storm was going through there. Okay. This place got rocked pretty good. It took a hard hit. And so we show up there and we were wondering what the heck is going on here. And they took us up to a unit uh to look at a couple of windows. Now, the attorney that we met for lunch introduced us as his window experts. Okay, didn't tell us he was gonna do that, just take a shot in the dark. And on the other side was an engineer for the insurance company, and this engineer was there to opine on what his belief was the cause of damage, okay. Uh and you know, engineers have a right to their opinion. Uh it's called causation, and engineers had can talk about causation. And his statement was they were old windows, that they were in poor condition, and none of the damage in the building was from the storm. And that was his opinion, that was his position. And he says the attorney said, Browner, because he didn't know which are names, so that's my last name is Browner, and he said, uh, take a crack at this. And I look at my brother, he looks at me. This is the twin telepathy thing happening. And my brother Ivan steps up and shreds this thing. There was so much storm damage. What we saw, signatures of wind pressure on that window. And he went through it system by system, attachment by attachment, fastener by fastener, and talked about the load path and what's called a cascading damage profile and all these things, and proved what was wrong with the window. Wow. And was this, and and and just so I'm following along here, was the prior work you did in that community the intel that you collected to be able to understand that it was it was our pre our practice run. Okay. Okay. Because we already had the knowledge of window systems and installation and but without that, would you have been able to answer this the same way? We would have been able to answer it, but not collect the data to create statistics and a report off of it. Okay. So when we did that, and this actually this case actually went to trial eventually, and we testified, our company rep testified in the trial. Uh it's actually case law, that that particular trial. It was uh it was an interesting introduction into what we do now. Uh but what we created at that point was the ability to discuss how wind pressure affects a building specific to the glass and glazing and how it's in the structure. And going back to the analogy about one roof and 20 windows in a single family home, now multiply that in a 30-story tower. Right. Okay. Uh it's a lot of money to replace these windows. It's and the rule is if you can't bring the window back into pre-loss condition by repairing it, you have to replace it. Right. Okay. So now we talk about what is a window. And I know it's I'm like I said, I'm a window geek. To me, this is very exciting. To most people, this is really kind of I'm following along so far. It's good. I'm interested. So a window is, and this is gonna, you know, this will bridge off into certain other, you know, discussions that we could have together, but a window system is not just a piece of glass. The insurance company's state statement and the edict they lived by prior to this time in first party litigation, which was Hurricane Wilma in that time, is if the glass is broken, they consider the window damaged. Uh and they may or not pay for it, you know. But they can then they'd agree this is a broken window. But what they didn't take into consideration is a window is a complex system of uh building materials acting in contour with each other. Okay, I'll go through this quickly and we can kind of it's not just the glass, it's everything holding the glass. It's the building surround. Yeah. It's the fasteners that go through you know the different materials of the bucking and the concrete. Okay. It's the sealant, it's the gaskets, it's the aluminum or vinyl of the frames, it's the glass, it's the butyl holding the glass in the frames. It's a lot of things. These are all engineered, engineered uh tributaries to a window system. And when a when a building Gets acted on by force and the building is buffeting, it breathes. You have concrete walls or try and window systems that are trying to stay true, plumb and square. They're trying to do their job, but they're cycling and they're flexing, and as they move and the windows flex, the screws are dislodging, the frames are breaking, the stucco is breaking. All of these things are all of this is happening. And once the storm passes, the window are left in what's called a degraded state. Now, can you put it back together? Well, that trial that we were involved in, our our we actually helped secure a very sizable verdict with a paperclip. Okay? Interesting thing. And it's a funny story because this was in federal court and the judge liked experts, but hated lawyers. Okay. And he wasn't afraid to let everybody know. But we stood up on the stand and under cross-examination the attorney, the opposing counsel, had said, It's your statement that once this window has now been through a storm, you cannot fix it. And we said, Yes, that's true. And he pulled out a paper clip and started to un unbend the paper clip. And we've all done that, you know, it's kind of a funny thing. And this attorney freaked out and said, Why I object! I object. And the judge said, Sir, what are you objecting to? This expert is not an expert in metallurgy. He doesn't what's he telling us about paperclip? And the judge said, You don't have to be a PhD in metallurgy to talk about a paperclip. Overruled. I want to hear what he has to say. Wow. We gave the paperclip to the jury. The bailiff gave to the and the instruction was try to make it a paperclip again. It's an aluminum piece of metal. Just like the windows were aluminum. And they're trying to, and it's gonna have all the wrinkles in it. You'll never make it into what it once was. Right. And this has become this crystallized the concept for the jury that if this piece of aluminum, once it's bent and deflected, could never be what it once was. If there's an aluminum window system that ultimately did the same thing, how can it be what it once was by trying to fix it in these these I guess these fashions that they would think would bring the window back to its operational capacity? And that was that was the aha moment for the jury. So it's kind of a a cool story. Um yeah, for sure. No, it's fascinating. But that's that's where we got our start. And you know what they say, be careful what you what you wish for because you might get it, because we thought that you know, oh boy, we were gonna do this. We've been through so many trials and many, you know, situations where we have defend our findings. Wow. And what's what happens through the course of of time is everybody gets smarter. Everybody tries to figure out how to do a better job than they did in the past. But when Hurricane Wilma hit in those times, insurance specialists, adjusters could sit down on a you know at a at lunch and just talk about it, write a number on a napkin, pass it back and forth. It was it was much easier to come to an agreement. Today, flashing forward to today, you need to prove your findings with science, with forensic analysis. That's where TSA became a forensic company. Wow. Okay, because we've that's we have to do testing and stuff like that now. Is that because of the amount of losses insurance companies have taken and and they're fighting it harder? Absolutely so the napkin deal doesn't work anymore. They're like, hey, this napkin deal's not working. Sure. You know, these are catastrophic damages. Is that why this stemmed to be it 100%? But now and and just as a you know, a caveat, as a forensic expert, we speak for science. We speak for this following the correct testing standards, nationally recognized testing standards. So if I'm a forensic expert and someone else is a forensic expert, and we both follow the same standard, we should technically come up with the same data, right? But what you're saying is is absolutely true. It became a much bigger fight because now everybody was including windows in their in their claims. Because they realized that the cost of replacing a thousand windows in a vertical building, a high-rise building like we have here in South Florida on the coast, is so far will will, I guess, from a fiduciary standpoint, it far exceeds the cost of the roof. So people in the past, these actions were they were giving the windows up to get the roof. Now they realize I gotta get these windows. I want to make sure my windows are are correct. That's this the the legal thought about it. Yeah. Our thought about it is let's make sure the homeowners are safe. Yeah. Okay. So there's this separation. We and and I love the the purpose of your podcast, because your audience are business owners, homeowners, you know, uh uh people who live in South Florida and they want to enjoy this lifestyle. They don't want to have to think about mold in their house or their business or having to have a business interruption claim because every time it it rains and there's wind, the building, the office gets flooded. Yeah. So our focus is help is that's that's my concern. We we do not, when we testify, I never talk about one dollar because I talk about what happened and how to fix it. So, and this is something, this is why I say what I do and what my company does is very important to people who don't even realize it. Because you have, you know, Mrs. Smith, who has a vacation home here, a condo on the beach and stuff like that. She just wants to come here and you know, enjoy her life. Instead, she comes here and she has she gets an upper respiratory illness because there's mold behind her walls, you know. So that's what we like to, what we are really excited about is helping the is helping the people. Yeah, you feel a duty, a real duty to do it. Uh, this is just my uh business brain. I know an orthopedic surgeon who built up a heck of a practice, and now he testifies in all of these personal injury cases. So these personal injury attorneys pay him a pretty hefty amount of money, and that's actually become a bigger side of his business than his own practice. Is that what's happened with you two, or is it still primarily the the homeowners, the communities, the business owners? Who's your number one client? So that's a great question. Our number one client, I mean, we we have different verticals that we operate in. So you have the first party litigation side, which we kind of touched on, which is and in that vertical, it's mostly attorneys. Uh it's mostly, and you know, as a a caveat, we're we are non-biased. I work for insurance companies as well. So insurance companies, attorneys, uh property management groups, building owners, and people who have large real estate portfolios, you know, that's kind of our that's that would be our client in that area. Okay. Uh another vertical that we deal with is construction defect. Okay. And remember the number I gave you about how many windows are installed in Florida? Yeah, 7 million, 6.7 exactly. So so you get so construction defect. You have all these projects happening, and you have these glazing companies with the best intentions to do a great job, but you could have the greatest window system. If it's not installed correctly, it's never going to perform its function, and you're probably going to have problems down the road. So, in that instance, it's homeowners' associations, it's the property owners themselves, it's the residents that we talk to in that in that capacity. I still don't understand what glazing is. I go, nobody, you know, it it's yeah. So glazing, when we talk about glazing, it's you know, it's funny that the same judge I'm thinking like glazed donuts. I'm like, oh, they put in some glazing. See, you're you should be a judge. Okay. Because the the we were talking about glazing systems, and the judge said, please explain this because the only glazing I know about is on my crispy cream donut where I have coffee in the morning, and I was like, Yeah, I said, Yeah, that that's the best kind of glazing. But glazing system is is a glass system, okay? Okay. So it's really a fenestration system, is what it's called. Okay, and fenestration is anything that you put into an opening in a building, a masonry opening in a building. So a glazing system is that complex system of parts working together to create it it creates congruent design pressure. Okay, so it could be a it could be a window, it could be a glass block, it could be different things. I mean in windows glazing always involves windows, though. Glazing is is a term that involves a window system. Okay. Okay. And it's uh it's you'd be now that we're talking about this, you're gonna draw you'll drive around and look around and see how many freaking windows there are in the window. Oh no, that's crazy, yeah. And how many types of windows. So, and they perform lots of functions. So, you know, they're for it's for beauty. There's architects that love to design with glass, okay? It's for energy efficiency because the windows are designed to create a thermal separator between the the ambient heat of the sunshine and the internal temperature, the comfortable temperature inside. Yeah. It's for safety and security. You know, there's bulletproof glass, there's impact glass from hurricanes that your coconut flies off a tree, bangs into your window, the glass doesn't break and create a safety hazard. Well, and aesthetics too, obviously, right? I don't know if you mentioned that. I mean, I me personally, I'm from Rochester, New York. Yes, which is um it's a fine community, but it's old, you know, the the winters, it's impossible to make every building look beautiful over the course of you know a hundred years, you know. Detroit, Chicago, Boston, like all those old cities. The buildings are just not gonna stand the test of time. But I love the modern look of glass down in Miami. I was in Aventura yesterday. Oh, yeah. I can't believe all the stuff that's going on there. So I there's obviously I think it looks really cool. You know, I definitely think there's an aesthetic to all of this. Absolutely, you know, for sure. Well, and the the interesting thing about that is, you know, as they create much better design systems with the science of how they do it, the architects and developers. Look at the guitar hotel that we have. It looks like a guitar, it's all curved. That's beautiful. All glass. Yeah, it's crazy. And there's you, I mean, these buildings are in. You're getting me excited about glass right now. Glass and glazing. What are you doing to me? Well, but it but I mean, we live in a great area for this because you know, we get 24-7 sunshine, you know, and and our sunsets are awesome, and and you know, looking at the beach or looking at a you know golf course or looking at the intercoastal, whatever. And and the idea about having indoor and outdoor living space feel the same. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're here because of this great weather that we have, and and everybody wants, when they're inside, they want to feel like they're outside. So glass gives you a chance to do that. Yeah. And yeah, it's a it's a very interesting part of an architectural design. So is your brother the CEO? He's our president. President, okay. And so, and what's cool about about Ivan is he has certain uh uh certifications that are very hard to get. Okay. He has a a a master's of fenestration certification by by AMA, the American Architectural Metals Association. And he's one of, I think it's a hundred and maybe it's 160 now in the world that have that associate that have that designation. Cool. It is, I mean, it's like taking the medical boards, you know, the test is ridiculous. And their expertise is in everything pertaining to how glass is integrated into a building. And and one of the things that we didn't touch on, and this kind of thing. So you talk about architectural features. So you and I, you know, looking at these buildings say that's beautiful. Now an architect looking at that building is looking at something very different. Yeah, a contractor is looking at something very different. So the window as a beautiful element is also has its own watershedding system. It has multiple purposes. It's keeping water that's come that that might come into the building and helping it to get outside of the building. You know, it's it's maintaining the energy efficiency of the building. So right now, the big thing, like you talk about Chicago, you talk about you know Rochester, talk about these areas. Have you been to Rochester before? I I have, I have. I uh I went through there, I played golf in Rochester. I it's a golf community. Yeah, it's it was I had a great time there. Do you remember where you played? I'm trying to remember. It was recalled. They they had fancy. Well, they had the tournament there. They had the PG tour. Yeah, they had played over the nice game. Yeah, it was really you realize if you're a good golfer or not, if you play on that course. Well, I I actually when I was younger, I was a pretty good golfer. Oh, I went to college, I played golf in college, and uh I actually I tr I thought about trying to play professionally for a little while. Oh, you're a heck of a player. I well I went I I I tried Q school and everything, and I I realized, you know, you know the saying, there's a story like the you know, the guy who has a who bought a boat, right? And and his parents come to come on the boat with him, and he they show up to the boat and he's got a captain's hat on, right? Yeah, and they say, Look, mom, dad, I'm a captain. And the dad says, you know, to your mom, you're a captain. To your dad to uh to me, you're a captain. To a captain, you're not a captain. Yeah, right. Exactly. I wasn't a golfer. I I could get the ball around the golf course pretty well, sometimes pretty. But I said, I'm gonna have to pitch a tent on the practice green for another five years to even say I could play with some of these guys out here. Yeah, and it was the best decision that I make because I say that my my putting strokes sent me back to school and and got me into the industry that we're in. So it's golf's um not not to steer too far off the window, so I'm gonna keep talking about you, but but golf golf can teach you lessons, you know. Golf is like sales to me. Oh, yeah. Because it's like the only thing that you'll voluntarily do for four hours that you're pissed off about for four hours. It's true. But the two or three real nice wins that you get really make it all worth it. 100%. You know, because nobody ever like when they swing a golf club, very rarely is someone like, oh, that was great. It's always no matter how good the shot was, uh, could have been better. Ah, could have been better. But then you get two or three where you're like, I nailed that over four hours. So it's well, in I still have maintained, I I still I still maintain my connection to golf. It's I always will. It's it's a part of my core being. I actually started uh in 2013, just not to get too far off the topic, but uh I I have a I still to this day have a golf academy, and it's called the Golf Dojo. Okay. Okay. And I was the inner game educator for Brouwer Junior Golf. So, well, I mean, a little more about our our background is kind of a little different than this, but my brother and I grew up training in the martial arts. We trained for about 30 years. Okay. And we trained under a Zen master. He was a grandmaster of a very So like Kung Fu? Well, it was Aikijutso. Okay, it's aikijto? Aik jutsu. Wow. And it's a Japanese form of martial arts. It was a samurai art. It was the so you know like Aikido, Steven Segal, yeah. So that's Aikido. You know, do means the way of. There's always a jutsu system, which means warfare. So you have jiu jitsu and judo. Aikijutso, Aikido. Okay. So there's always that kind of correlation. So we studied this art, and our teacher was, I think he wanted to kill us, and uh, didn't care if we lived or died. But I took the the practice of meditation, being in the moment, letting go of the past, and I applied it to golf. And I would teach young competitive golfers, college golfers, touring pros, you know, how to realize who they are at this moment holding a golf club, you know, and like you said, you know, that one shot. Well, what about the other you you shoot, you know, 69. So there's 68 shots that you didn't feel as great about. So, but you know, like you said, golf is a microcosm of life. For sure. And it's it's something that when you get somebody, you watch someone who has training and ability and you get them out of their own way mentally, and you watch these wonderful things that they can do, and it's it's very, very cool. Yeah, so but going back, you know, like segueing back into what we do, when you're on the witness stand or you're in a deposition, or you're being grilled by you know a room full of engineers and and lawyers who are just trying to prove that you're not the guy. Oh, they're trying to discredit you? Yeah, there's something called a Daubert Challenge where it's filed against experts where they've stated that we don't believe your your credentials, your experience, your methodology is correct. And it it's it's a death stroke to a testifying expert. Because once you fail a Daubert challenge, most people won't hire you. Okay. And that's how the that's how how on top of your game you have to be when you are involved in science that's supporting a causation model. And so I use my training from the martial arts of calmness and being in the moment and not getting rattled by a line of questioning to help you to be a good witness, you know, or if you get emotional, it it it makes people uh doubt creeps in their mind. Absolutely. For sure. Unless that's your strategy. So but but you know, at the same time, what you're dealing with, like just like in the game of golf, just like in life, is you're you're trying to keep what's inside of here in a very logical, peaceful place where you can you can draw out the information you need, explain it in a good way. And if you do get rattled, or you do you do shank a shot or miss a three-footer or whatever, you can get it step up to the next hole and make a good swing, or you can make the next statement can be correct a good and correct statement. Yeah. So yeah, very cool. I always joke around, don't take an insult to this. This is just me busting my buddies, you know what. I always say that golfers were they look like golfers look like the guys who couldn't make the football team, who couldn't make the basketball team, and now it's just all of them fighting against each other and golf. But you on the other hand, you're a martial artist, so you're more of a a tough guy than most of them. Well, you know, it's funny that you you say that. Like all those sports, you know, growing up I played, you know, basketball, and I I mean, I I definitely wasn't an offensive or decent defensive lineman, but I mean I I was I had a little bit of speed and I could catch a ball, so you know, I'd I'd play wide out or or receiver, you know. But just like in my golf career, I got to a certain level and you know, you get hit a couple times, you're like, uh no, I don't think it's for me. I don't mean it to be insulting, I just I make a joke out of it, you know. Because it is kind of funny. It looks like like it looks like a gym class of guys versus Well, but if you ask any NFL player, okay, all these guys, NBA players, hockey players, their passion's golf. Oh, no doubt. And so you look at like these tournaments where you have all the athletes and stuff like that question. And I mean, and if you listen to any baseball player, when they're on the road and they're not in rotation pitchers, they always have their golf clubs with them. And it's kind of I've always thought that's kind of a cool thing how they've all migrated to this. Yeah, because when the I mean, you look like a strong athlete. Yeah, did you play football? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what position did you play? Uh believe it or not, quarterback. Wow. Yeah. So you were big strong quarterback. So you you could probably cover the ball and run with it pretty well and run people over, right? Yeah, a lot. Get the stiff arm out. Well, see the the cool thing is is once the cur once that career kind of winds down, they're s they're competitive in nature. For sure. So golf is a natural, natural extension. Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure. So it's fun to get out there and watch them and and they're all great athletes. Can I you're you're a pretty smart dude. And you're more than just windows, and this is why I like digging into this. Let me ask your opinion on this. Sure. The definition of sport, because there's clearly a difference between soccer and there's clearly a difference between poker. Yes. Right? We poker there's strategy, yes, but there's no athleticism, right? Soccer, clearly there's strategy, clearly there's athleticism. My opinion is I actually don't believe golf and baseball are sports. I think they're games. I'm not saying they're not wildly skilled, but I believe they're games. Because my definition of sport is if you don't have to use cardiovascular activity, it's not a sport. Am I being too insulting to golfers and baseball players? No, I don't think you are. Okay. Okay. So I'll tell you, I'll tell you this. The evolution of sport has been, I mean, it's been so interesting to watch over the last 20 years. Okay, so I'm 55 years old. So I've got to watch a cool period in sport history. Yeah. And, you know, back in the day when I played golf and thought I was good, you know, we would hit balls, we go play around, and then we go to the bar, you know, and and you know, you'd have a couple of beers and cut it up with all the rest of the guys, and you go to the hotel room and you go tee it up the next day. Now, golfers, swimmers, you name it, and name any sport, tennis players, soccer players, ridiculous. I mean, they're faster, they're bigger, they're stronger, they're more flexible, they they have their nutrition is on point. They're I mean, it's everything's elevated. Yeah, for sure. You know, but you're right. If the definition of sport is cardiovascular, okay. That's my definition. I don't know if that's in the Webster's dictionary, but that's mine. But here's something else that's kind of cool is that the intensity of competition across all of these platforms has increased. Okay. So so you know, I'll give my my my nephew, okay, my nephew Sammy. He's uh he was recruited in football, okay. He was an O-line play, offensive line player. Uh and big strong kid. I don't know where his genetics came from, had to come from his dad's side of the family. But he went to the the Combine, the high school combine, and was, you know, in the state of Florida, he was in the top ten of offensive line players. And he was just good. Okay, their high school team was always playing for state championships, and and and he was surrounded by good guys and he excelled. And uh, you know, he started getting some recruiting and things like that, and then he kind of looked, realized, and he said something so honest. He said, Oh, it's an interesting thing. He's six, five, he was like 290, you know. I mean, he's a big kid, yeah. But the coaches for SEC schools and the good D1 schools looked at him and said, He's not big enough to be in a my offensive line. They want him to play center. Okay. So for a senior year in high school, they switched him to center, which he it wasn't his position, but he tried to play center. Yeah. And he made a statement and said, I I'm as good as I think as I can get, even with all the help from these schools and the training and stuff, I know my limitation. And I'm I might play good at the college level, I'm never gonna get to the NFL. Yeah, and he was smart enough to realize that. And now he's killing it in college, in academics, and not playing and just not he he didn't take a scholarship because he didn't want to play, he didn't want to play it a D like a school that it wouldn't have done anything for him if he wasn't gonna get to one of those programs. Yeah, and Southwest McNezi State or something. Yeah, exactly. It would it, you know, it would it wouldn't have been the experience that he wanted. Yeah, you know, so but and but that's the whole thing, is like at some point, these athletes they have to look at themselves in the mirror and have to say, you know, I know who I am, I know what I know, I know what I mean. Look, you always want to see you have limitless possibilities and strive for perfection and everything else and keep training, yeah, but the world is gonna show you something as well, and you kind of have to be on par with that. So but at the same time, I love watching these great athletes. I mean, it's actually I love watching anyone who's who's really passionate about what they do. And I'll tell you, even in in our in like the industry I'm in, I get to we travel around the country going to these horrible places, okay? What I don't I don't mean horrible that the place is horrible, they just get hit by a tornado, they just got hit by a hurricane, and the infrastructure's gone, and and all the first responders show up, so we go sometimes we're expert first responders when FEMA gets there. And I see an expert that's there who's so passionate and so credible in his science, and I'm like, this is like watching a trained athlete doing his art. Yeah, and and it's very cool because you see that human spirit of I'm gonna do the best job I can do, and I'm gonna be the credible person I'm gonna be to help as many people as I can. And yeah, it's cool. So it's kind of a new it's kind of cool to look at it from that perspective. I have a I wonder, I don't know if this would be a good contact for you, but I have a client and a friend. I can't, I can't, because of his uh NDAs, I can't say go into too much detail, but he does residential window contracting and he doesn't take a job less than three million dollars. Like these are beautiful windows for athletes, I mean, some billionaires, some and I mean, these are people that have their own exotic island. Yes, he flies out there, you know, do like a seven or eight million dollar window job. Yeah like it's wild, right? Absolutely. Is that a good contact for you? Absolutely. Okay, and here let me so so it's cool that what you're saying is is really an interesting segue. So I talked before about the different verticals that we deal with. Okay, so there's first party litigation, there's construction defect, and then there's something called quality assurance. Okay, so qual and now this is where that statistic about you know 6.7 million windows being installed in Florida, and even more impressive than that is 67 million nationwide annually. In every architectural document, so your friend is a very high-level installer of glazing systems, he's working on very uh advanced projects, and that's very cool because uh you get to see interesting integrations of design and systems, and it's awesome. In every architectural document, it's written into that document that there needs to be something called quality assurance. And quality assurance is when you when your friend starts to do his project, and maybe there's 200 windows that are going in this mansion. So, in that first 10%, they should have a third-party company come out and perform forensic testing to be able to write a document that's actually an insurance policy for your friend, that he can say to the owner, to the owner's rep, the client, whoever it is, my windows were put in correctly. I here's a third-party testing agency that's that has this document, they tested my installation for air infiltration, for water infiltration, for the system integration, for all these things. They did testing. Here's the results, here's the thing. So they're mitigating risk. Exactly. So you do that at the beginning, and the reason I do it at the beginning is because I get to pull them aside and say, hey, listen, you're doing a great job. Your subcontractor should do this a little bit differently. So let's catch it now. Because you have if you have to take it. You're gonna owe me a dinner because you're gonna meet some super famous people. Well, I'll be I'll be and some athletes. Even if I don't, you know, meet people, I'll still take you to dinner. But uh, but see, this is a cool thing because oh, this is my client in that vertical, are these contractors, general contractors, architects. Because what happens, they do the CEO, the famous athlete moves into his home, okay, and two years later, there's water coming in through the windows. Okay, now that GC or his sub has to go back out there, do remediation, whatever. That all eats at the profitability of the project. And it annoys the hell out of the homeowner. Sure. So let's make sure that we Especially this homeowner, these homeowners. Exactly, because they're so particular about what they're what they're doing, and they need everything to be perfect. So let's make sure it's done perfectly. So that's quality assurance. Okay. And we catch it early. If they're doing something that needs to be fixed, let's fix it now. The rest of the windows do it exactly the way we were talking about. We come in at the end, do one more test, sign off on it, okay, and now there's that insurance document that says, and it's not like insurance like an insurance policy, but yeah, but it's like you said, mitigates risk, and it's it gives comfort to the whole process that you know it's not the the the wolf watching the hen house. You know, uh we go into these, I mean, I'm not talking about those projects, any project. You get a general contractor, they're supposed to have quality insurance. They have one of their guys there with a garden hose, yeah, okay, spraying the window and saying, Oh, it doesn't leak. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a scientific forensic inspection that proves every component, every step was done correctly. This sounds like a really specialized like thing. I feel like you obviously can't go to school for two years and learn this. Is it just you and your brother on the team? Do you have a whole team with you guys? So we have we have a team of consultants that will that will engage based on the project. Okay. And the reason we don't have a large company with a lot of staff is a very simple reason because if someone's on my staff and their name, because we have to list and report everybody that was on site. Yep, yep, yep. So if they're an employee of TSSA Stormsafe, well, now they can be deposed. Now they have to sit for examination under oath. I never want somebody else to have to talk for what we, you know, for in a legal capacity for my protocol. Okay. So we limit that where my brother Ivan or I are the ones that are going to be on the hot seat. Yeah. So so, but these guys are they're glazers, they're retired engineers, they're stucco specialists, sealant specialists. We pull them in based on the need of the project and their expertise. Do you um and this is my business brain going here? Obviously, it's hard to scale you and Ivan. How does your company how do you grow your company if it's if you just remain, is it certain jobs? Like what can you do to scale the company? Well, you know, we're unique because we're because we're mobile testing lab. You know, it's a kind of it's that's really a great question. There's no job that's too big or too small, okay? Because when we scale up, it's for the project. I I don't think that TSSA scaling up to create a lot more of us, uh, is exactly the vision that we have right now. But what's happening in our industry as a whole is kind of the same thing that's happening in a lot of other ver other industries too. There's a lot of consolidation. You get these national and international engineering groups that have different specialties, and they're acquiring expert teams, expert groups, smaller companies, because they don't all have a testing you know department. Yeah, so they'll it happens a lot. We get asked, would you sell to us and become my testing agency? Wow. And right now, I kind of we're staying away from that. I know a lot of people in the industry that do similar work for roofs and different things. They've gone that route. And as a business person, you know, talking about it strictly as a business person, you know, you incubate and grow a business. It's like growing a child. And when you're when you're in charge of all the decisions, you get to say yes or no to a lot of these things. I get to, I we turn down more work than we accept. Wow. Okay. Because if I can't prove it, if I can't stand there and convince myself and say there's something defendable here. Oh, wow, yeah. You know, I'm not gonna take the job. Yeah. And but you get into those type kind of situations, and now they have metrics and and benchmarks that they think your division should meet. And it's based on it's based on the your invoicing, you know, and so now they say, okay, so we think you should do 200 jobs a year, and on an average of this cost, yeah, but what happens when those jobs are not the job they think it is? Right. You know, so so we like to be able to say, I'm concentrating on every job that we walk into with very fresh eyes, with confidence, and with with that kind of focus that the job to deserves. Yeah, we we we we have to turn away clients all the time too, because well, for us, it's more about expectations and standards, and you know, some people might want to invest this and think that this could be an outcome, right? And it's just it's not possible, you know. And and sometimes we'll see, you know, we'll find out organizations are pretty disorganized. Yeah, so it's like we can bring you the opportunity, but how are you managing the opportunity, you know, with CRMs and and your struct, you know, your your internal systems. Um, but this is this is real. I'm I'm actually more fascinated by in your business than I was uh planning because I'm gonna be using the word glazing all the time to sound like an expert. Um, are there more things you want to touch on? I'm I'm happy to well, I mean, you know, I think what's a couple of that are important are if I wasn't just talking to you, but I was talking to you as the homeowner and not as the business expert that you are, and you know, kind of that top-down view. And you know, a couple of things, and this is something I think that most people need to hear. If you have a problem in your home, okay, if there's and in my area of expertise, let's stick with windows and water infiltration and stuff like that. Okay, so you're you have a home, you walk into the third bedroom, you don't go in there too often, and and it smells musty, and and and something something's not right here, or it's just hot. It wasn't it's why is it so hot in here? Okay, and okay, well, you kind of go down this rabbit hole and you start having someone coming out and looking at it and saying, Oh, there's probably a problem with your window. Okay, excuse me. And they come out, we're gonna caulk the windows. Oh, yeah, that seems like a logical thing. Maybe that's the fix. And they go through this caulking protocol and they they do sealants and whatever, and they get a painter to come out, and the guy has waterproofing written on his van just because they had some extra space in the you know, they put the buttons. So, what happened is people try to fix and make remediations before they do an investigation to find out what the root cause is. So, my what I would say to a homeowner is invest in it, invest in an investigation. Okay, the investigation is going to give you the the origin of the failure of the problem. Fix that, and your problem will be much easier to manage. Like when we go into these high-rise buildings, so you know, like on uh Siesta Key and Sarasota, we just did two 14-story buildings. Okay, and what we did there, they had pervasive water coming in, but we looked at their maintenance history, and we're looking at the last 20 years, and they paint, they paint every 10 years. And when they painted, they had the guy come in and they stripped all the caulk and they put new caulk and seal in and stuff like that. Great, no problem. Now they have water coming in, okay? And they send a waterproofing special shot. He says, Oh, we can fix it. And instead of stripping all the old caulk out of everything and sealant, he just puts something over it, a cap bead, but didn't fix the problem underneath. So for 20 years, at every inspection, all they're doing is having these homeowners who these are, you know, the cheapest unit in the buildings, one and a half million dollars, and that's for the parking lot view. Wow. Okay. And these they're screaming and yelling, and the property manager, and he's pulling his hair out. Well, he's actually bald, so he already pulled all his hair out. And uh, and it became such a problem that we were brought in by a mold remediation team because they had to cut out all the walls that had come in with dryers and air scrubbers and everything, and and it was a huge, huge deal. People were having to move out, it was a crazy situation, and we finally diagnosed what the problem was. And we created what's called a remediation protocol, and we met with the GC that's gonna do it, and we met with a sealant expert that was gonna do it, and we all sat down and said, We're not leaving this room until we are in agreement about how this is gonna be done. And we went through it, we left a team member there who acted as the owner's rep who was there watching the process, and we solved the problem. And this is a problem that's been going on for 20 years because they kept putting band-aids on an artery that was cut. Yeah, so do an investigation. Not and and not every investigation is so cost prohibitive. If we do it right and do it early, it's a very simple process. Yeah, but at least it's gonna give you the pathway forward to to fixing the problem. So, to the homeowners, the business owners that you talk to that are experiencing problems and don't know where it's coming from, that's a very important thing. Is let let's let's fix the things before they become a problem. Not to mention small problem, maybe not even a significant problem, gets hit by a hurricane, okay? Or even a building is perfect, gets hit by a hurricane. Now we have the building under extreme force and things are moving, and you know, science digs in these nationally recognized testing standards that we follow are written by very, very smart people, okay. My brother Ivan sits on the board that writes all of these laws and codes, and they sit down together. And I mean, it's it's an interesting. I mean, you watch all these people that that are they're all alpha dogs, you know, in their in their field, I bet. Everybody's just a room of barking dogs, alphas. Yeah. And they just and it's almost like a very deservedly so, probably. But but it's like it's a it's a very I mean, I look at it and I'm like, this is like a kindergarten class. Okay. Everyone's talking and everyone's trying to get their point across. And but they ultimately come up with these standards that every forensic expert needs to follow. Yeah. And and so we do we follow those processes and we solve problems. So uh this is fun. I think uh what do we go? A solid hour, Dave? Yeah, yeah, perfect. I appreciate it. My timing's impeccable. So I I want to give you a nice little promo here. Do me a favor. Uh take a look into the camera. Sure. And just, you know, for 30 seconds or so, uh if if a business owner say who should reach out to you and if they're interested in reaching out to you for any of these preventative measures or have any questions, where can they find you? Thank you. So if you want to find TSSA Stormsafe, you can look at us and find us on the web www.tsa hyphenstormsafe.com. Uh, I'll give you the way to reach me directly is 954-592-1986. If you are a homeowner that's experiencing problems in your house, if you're a contractor that wants to strengthen your reputation as an expert in installing glazing systems and protect your projects, if you're an attorney that's representing people who have suffered a loss, and if you're an insurance specialist that that needs answers. If you're a property manager that's trying to solve your your residence problems, I'd love to talk to any of you. Call me. We we can work in many different capacities together virtually. I can help triage problems if you send me pictures of what you're talking about. Uh and we love to be a problem solving team for you. Guys, thanks again for tuning into the Gold Coast Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Weingard. Make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you again. Thank you.