The Impact Series: Tim O'Brien

Mike and Tim talk about high-performance homes, workforce development and a whole lot more on the Impact Series. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello, and welcome to the Impact Series and the Green Builder Media Network. I'm your host, Mike Kalignan. On this podcast, I'll have one-on-one conversations with leaders and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines. We'll talk about how they got into their field, the reasons, the lessons they've learned, and advice they have for future generations of leaders. Today I'm joined by Tim O'Brien. He entered the home building industry in 1994 just after earning his master's degree in civil engineering and construction engineering management. From the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hence the red. He has served on the boards of NHB, the Wisconsin Builders Association, EBA, and the Green Builder Coalition. Tim started Tim O'Brien Homes in 2007, and his company has gone on to win numerous local, state, and national awards. Tim O'Brien Holmes also runs home building programs in conjunction with five Wisconsin school districts where high school students work side by side with their trade partners during the fall semester. Tim, welcome to the Impact Series.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Hey, thanks, Mike. Great to see you again.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yep, good to see you too, sir. Always good to catch up with you. Uh really appreciate it. I know that uh, you know, spring building really starts to get uh hot and heavy. So I appreciate you taking the time to uh to spend a little bit of time on the podcast with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, my pleasure. Happy to happy to contribute and support.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Well, this is the beginning of your 32nd year in the home building industry, and you operate a regional production home building company now, but you started out working for a national production builder. Tell me a little bit about what the young Tim O'Brien was striving for when you were a project manager in 1994. What were kind of some of your early career goals?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah, so like I really wanted to find a way to apply um, you know, a lot of what I learned on the technical side in the civil engineering. I really enjoyed the science of building. And um, and of course, I had some experience um in commercial construction actually before uh getting into residential. And I was geared really my whole um, I would say, high school and college to go towards commercial construction until I found this opportunity, which I never thought existed uh for residential to actually have a career in residential outside of where I grew up with in a small community in Wisconsin where, you know, uh the the builders were really really uh framing contractors, which became home builders. And I didn't see uh that as much of a entrepreneurial or business opportunity until I stumbled across this public uh sector home building market. And I've always been interested in residential. So I took that science-based approach that I I learned through civil engineering and those applications, kind of that critical thinking. And it really aligned well with my first um experience in the residential uh construction world at that time was with Poulty Holmes and Scott Saddam, who uh was their director of of uh kind of quality and construction part of it, and kind of overseeing a lot, all of the uh divisions, all the markets, and helping them understand building science. I learned a tremendous amount. And it just it really uh resonated with me. And that was an that was uh my first time I met Joe Steebrook, um, which was great. And like just being in that space and and learning more about how building science applies in the residential aspect, um, just got me engaged, energized, excited, and just just went all in embracing that element of the residential side. And so I really learned that building science component um at uh Pulti Homes and really enjoyed that experience. Um so then I I actually started kind of troubleshooting some of the problems with some of the homes. And uh what I learned, which at the time I wasn't sure, you know, here's where I'm starting in kind of a warranty type of role. But what I've found out is that's the great place to start because you're dealing with failures in the home. Some are simple things like a door adjustment and such, right? Some are bigger, like moisture-related issues or uh leaks, water leaks, or or uh something related to moisture transfer in the home or improper uh ventilation. And so once I started getting back out into the field and actually building homes, I was able to build out those problems by really focusing on the process of construction, applying the principles that I got that I learned from Joe, Steebrook, and and the Poulty group, and really started to focus on how can we start building better homes, more high performance homes. And at that time, there really wasn't building paper that was used on the exterior of the home, which is crazy to think about it now. Um but once I started to get more in understanding about that moisture movement, it's like, okay, we need to really bring some building paper into this. And that's when we started to partner with Tyvek, and then we continued just to kind of develop those details. And, you know, it was just a wonderful learning experience uh with that group. And and so we did that for four years and then just continued to grow. I I would just wanted to learn more about it and still kind of followed, you know, Joe and and his speaking and where he was, whether it's NAHB or um through other green building conferences that he spoke at, and just continue to absorb that material and use it and apply it in anywhere that I can to improve and build a better home, and not look at it as just pieces and parts, but totally as a whole system, um, which was just fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Well, and Joe, uh, we've had him on a couple webinars with Greenville Media, and he's just a wealth of knowledge. He is incredible. And he does his summer camp every year, and uh just really informed guy, really educated guy that just uh loves to share knowledge. And I think it talks too about the importance of the design phase, right, Tim? Like how important the design phase is to what you do.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Right. So when we when we look at the design elements of the of the home, we're also taking a look to make sure that we don't create any details that are gonna have some uh problems again as it relates to especially bulk water, um, but any type of uh conditions that might be present in our particular climate zone. So we're always looking at um, you know, the freeze thaw components of it. Uh we also have uh sometimes we have a lot of uh clay soil that doesn't move water very quickly. So, you know, really dry basements is another important element of it. So how can we keep these basements dry? We use a waterproofing element on the outside of the home. There's there is a lot of design criteria that we use when, especially ventilation in the home, you know, moving air around effectively around the home is a is another important thing for comfort for people. And then just what wall systems, you know, we experimented with so many different wall systems and different details for thermal performance and and and thermal brakes and minimizing areas for air infiltration. Um we strategically use uh a closed cell foam component in the home just in strategic areas where we have the biggest opportunity to seal up uh specific areas of the home would typically carry uh you know conditioned air out of the home or bring uh unconditioned air into the space. And so we had a great energy raider that uh helped us model it. And we both learned from each other, which I think the energy raider is one of the most important elements besides HVAC and the insulator uh in really building a high performance, uh, energy efficient, indoor air quality, comfortable home. Um we had a great person that was willing to help experiment with us, try different things, and we were able to kind of dial in the different uh ingredients, if you will, the different materials that work best together and still offered value to the customer without you know, there there is a little bit more cost to do it that way, but we were able to dial it in that we could easily quantify that not only the financial aspects of what it's gonna save them, the but the the in the um the part that they can't quantify in dollars, which is comfort, uh peace of mind. Um there's basically the elements that are taken out of older homes that they've lived in that have created problems for them, right? Like even ice damming. We get a lot of ice damming up here, and a lot of people get a lot of leaks coming through there. So we really focused on, you know, making sure that we have well-insulated attics that don't lose a lot of heat. Air sealant is a big part of that. And and we really, you know, you'll still have some level of ice dam, but nowhere near uh what people have traditionally experienced.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

And so it seems so simple to say, but just thinking of the house as a system, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Thinking of the house as a system. You know, that's what most manufacturers do, right? The automobile industry, appliance that everything is looked at as a system, but somehow still in the housing industry, we still look at it as sometimes as pieces and parts. And so that's where that performance testing, the modeling in the beginning, and matching that up with the performance testing in the end, really help us to design a better system in the home with parts, pieces of parts that actually work together and not operate independently of one another.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah. Uh clearly it it sounds to me like you know, Joe Steebrick was one of your early mentors. Um interactions with him, is that when the kind of the interest and the passion and sustainability started to arise, or or did it start earlier in your life?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Well, that's that I would say the the sustainability element um, you know, uh had had been a part of my life, but I really didn't know how to apply it uh in a real world situation until I really started to get into the the construction aspect of it. And I saw some of that in the commercial side. Um but when when I was introduced to Joe, I really could feel how I could truly apply it in a residential setting. Um the engineering side, you know, in a commercial setting, everything is is engineered unique for that project. On the home building side, you know, you're you're kind of doing there's different each home is kind of different, right? And so you don't have an engineer doing your HVAC design in so much as you have um uh somebody sometimes just using the rule of thumb that this square footage needs this tonnage, right? And you might yes, right? And you might use a and you might use a simple heat calc, but you're not using what we use now as a manual J calculation to really take a look at every room in the home and how it performs based on the orientation. Is it facing north? Is it facing east? Is it how many windows it has? You know, that's the science part of it that really started to resonate with me. And we made that uh very early on. Um, that is a standard in everything that we do as we design uh each home. We look at each home as an individual um uh product versus something we've built before and we do the same thing. So, you know, it's really every project is unique, just like kind of like a commercial construction. And that's one of the things that I took from that commercial construction is don't just repeat the same thing over and over again. The orientation of that home, where the front's facing, where's the rear and the windows, it changes the dynamics of the air that's required inside and could change the dynamics of the of the building envelope sometimes too.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah. And one of those components of of what you do is energy efficiency. Um, you know, you build, as I mentioned in the intro, award-winning homes, uh incredibly energy efficient. They're either net zero or very near net zero. So the big question I need to ask you is why can't the vast majority of new homes in the US be built that way too?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

That's a that's a great question, Mike. And I think um you know part of it is uh a lack of understanding or or really looking at as a as a um as as an operating entity that has to focus on the the the margins. And I'm not saying you as a business you don't focus on the margin. I get that. But there's a value component in it that you can if you could communicate it effectively to your customer, you can build better quality homes, more resilient homes. I think that speaks to the reputation. We're starting to see some production builders, uh public builders, move in that direction, but you're right. The the majority of the homes built in the in the US are by large production home builders. So they have the ability to make the biggest impact one way or the other, right? And so it's great to see um, you know, companies like Beezer and and others like taking that step forward and making that commitment towards sustainability. They see it as this is who we are as an organization, this is the culture we want, this is the image we want to uh not only project to uh our consumer, but to our team, to our trades. And there's some pride in that. And I'm not saying again that there isn't pride in the other element of them not looking at it. I get it. But I think sometimes we get blinded by um the the element of the dollar that the that goes to the bottom line or the quarterly reporting that we need to do or shareholders that we need to report to. I think you know, we've been able to demonstrate that it's not that significant more to build an airtight. That's really what we focus on first. That's the most cost-effective thing to do, seal up the holes. You know, and if you can identify where those are and you could train your trades, it doesn't cost that much more, it becomes standard operating procedure. And so it takes time and uh it takes commitment to uh not uh swap out trade partners all the time. You know, we have we have relationships like our insulator is the only insulator we've ever uh used, and and they have it dialed in. They know where our holes are and they go after it. Um we have the same HVAC partner that we've had uh pretty much since day one, and they understand the design and what what we're looking for. They know how they all know how to work with our energy radar. Our energy radar works directly with them now rather than through us. So if there's an issue, he reaches out directly to them. And then, of course, you know, the product testing in the end helps us dial it in even more. We don't sample test every home. We are uh we don't sample test seven homes or ten homes, we test every home. But back to your original question is why don't more people do it? I think part of it is a lack of understanding, and part of it is just it's it's it's not built into their strategy yet. I hope at some point it does, and I hope that they can understand that there's not it's not a significant amount of things that you need to do. You don't need to go all SIP panels, you don't need to go all renewable energy to try to drive that down. There's some simple steps that we can take and still comply with a lot of what might be our state energy programs, which we use here as well as Energy Star in Zero Energy Ready Home. But there's a lot to be learned and gained from just reaching out to an energy consultant to see what you can do to build a better product at a nominal additional cost.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, it's it's felt over the past decade and a half like we're trying to drag the horse to the water on some of this sometimes. And I think the shareholder value is a certain influential component to this too, you know. So you bring you bring up some good points there. And I just hope that, like you said, Beezer Holmes is one of them. Um there's a couple others too that are Meritage. Yeah, Meritage. I was gonna say Meritage was the other one I was thinking of. Yeah. They're starting to kind of move in that direction without having to drag them there.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

And so you know what and what's interesting about that, Mike, is as as they move in that direction and some of their competitors in that space and that in that scale of operation uh start to see the success that they're having either through uh velocity of sales or even incrementally uh better margins. Um, I would hope that that would demonstrate. I'm sure they're doing competitive evaluation. I would hope that that would demonstrate is hey, maybe there's something here that we need to look at.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Right. Right. Because you've got a differentiation element until everybody follows you, and then you don't have that differentiation anymore, but they do now. And uh I'm I'm reminded of a of a different industry, different situation where uh it was a situation where nobody wanted to go first, but everybody wanted to go second. So I'm glad that we're starting to see some of these companies kind of go first.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Well, and the cool thing about it is if you start to lose that differentiation, uh, in my opinion, that's where innovation comes in.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

I welcome it only because it helps us be stronger. Yeah. You know, and I'm happy to share uh, you know, uh kind of some of the elements of what we do to get there because I think it challenges us as an industry to build better housing stock.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah. Well, and and and the other thing too that uh I'm gonna go into a few things that our audience may or may not know about you, but one of them is that you're always striving to learn more. And and I saw that firsthand um when Sam and I were doing some of the Housing 2.0 action groups, and you brought you uh yourself and your team to that action group. And here you are winning awards, but at the same time still trying to refine what you do and figure out how we can do it even better than we already are. And I think that just is a huge credit to you and your company and just the way that your employees all kind of look at it and think about it.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, thanks, Mike. I appreciate that. I mean, uh, you know, and it is, it's it's constant communication to the team, um, especially our field team, continuing the trade, what we call our building professionals in the field, referred to as superintendents, construction managers, to really help them understand the big picture of why we do what we do and then dive into the details. Because I think it's important for them to understand, you know, why we do what we do and the passion that comes from it to ideally they embrace that level of passion and they bring that into the field with the trade partners. And like I said, it's a lot easier when we use consistent trade partners to learn from each other. And that's one of the great things about our HVAC provider and our insulator, um, and also our plumber too, is that we continue to learn and we continue to dial it in. And as we do that, and here's the speak I have towards the bigger builders, as we continue to do that, we lower our cost of doing business together.

unknown 18:59

Right?

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And so they preserve their margin. I preserve their margin, but I don't see the increases because they're getting more efficient with us, they're building a better product. They can then take what they learn, what we all learn together, and they can start building that into um some of the other homes that they build for other builders, provided you know, the other builders are willing to embrace that as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yeah. And going back to the innovation part that you talked about, you know, this is it pushes us to innovation. Um I know this of you because I've known you for quite some time, but uh some of our audience might not know is uh the fact that your homes are also very water efficient. Now, uh as I stated before, you build in Wisconsin, you're you know surrounded by Great Lakes. Um Wisconsin has more Great Lakes than Minnesota, which is the land of 10,000 lakes. So why did you decide to innovate and care about water efficiency?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, because uh, you know, a lot of some of the stuff, honestly, Mike, you know, you've brought to light by what's happening in the Southwest and the Words program, right? And and so as, and this was more than a decade ago, that I started understanding, you know, yes, we live right next to the Great Lakes. I mean, I am I am less than 30 minutes to Lake Michigan, and and a lot of our communities around here get water from Lake Michigan. That in the basin, as long as you're in the basin, we'll they'll give you water. But the com concept is that that's becoming so much more valuable. And you see it in areas like the Southwest, you see it in California where people are struggling uh to get water. We uh I have a builder friend in Salt Lake, uh in in Salt Lake, Utah that has to get water rights uh for their developments. And, you know, so so I know this is coming, and I think it's important for us to build the homes today that are going to be able to be more water efficient when water becomes a much more valuable resource in the Midwest as it is so down in the Southwest. Um so we really focus on trying to minimize, especially the distance from hot water to the fixture. Um that's where a lot of water waste comes from. People turn on the shower and they wait and they wait and they wait for it to get hot. Or the faucet, they wait and they wait for it to get hot. So, you know, we want to minim focus on minimizing that distance. We want to try to stack um, you know, uh bathrooms uh near one another, keep that water heater and the uh ideally as many plumbing fixtures as we can in short distances. Um, you know, that's the what that's another design element you were talking about, the design element of uh when we look at design in the homes, is how can we kind of minimize that that distance. And then of course, nowadays most everything is is water scents, uh, you know, faucets and shower heads. You know, there's I don't know the many out there in a residential space that aren't. Um, but a while ago, there that you know that was something that you really had to specify. And then we got to look at other items uh dishwashers, energy star rating. Dishwashers. And again, most of those are that way now. It's amazing. I mean, you know, just even in an older home, like an Energy Star dishwasher, I think it's somewhere around 3.2 gallons per wash, where the old dishwashers are anywhere from 10 to 15. I mean, it's crazy when you think about the multiple of five, you know, four to five difference. Um, and then washing machines too. You know, those are those are another area where we consume a significant uh clothes washing, where we consume a significant amount of water. Um, I think the appliance industry is getting better at it. I know dishwashers are almost forced to, but it's great to see wash clothes washers starting to come out that way too. Um so there are a lot of different things we can do. And then, you know, again, especially in the Midwest, we love our grass. Um, you know, so um, you know, common sense don't water on hot on really hot days. Um, you know, so some of that common sense has to kind of apply too, but we try to educate our buyers because they have new grass coming in and they're gonna they're gonna need to consume a lot of water. Um so we want to have them be smart about it because we we and we pitch it as you know, supporting you're gonna your water bill be really high if you don't manage your watering efficiently. Um so we really try to have that education with them too, give them a pamphlet about when they should water, how often they should water, that type of stuff, and when not to water.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

But it's education.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

And did your team work at all with Gary Klein on some of the uh plumbing designs?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

We we did on um a home that we did. Um, gosh, I'm trying to think how long ago that was. It was probably about a decade ago. We did this home that was built for really kind of showcasing uh sustainability in in the marketplace. And um he had helped design kind of a manifold system and really try to minimize the amount and we've taken water uh that it takes to get to a fixture, and we really kind of though we don't emulate that exact uh system in our homes, we emulated a lot of the technique and uh and the concepts that he helped uh us in that particular situation.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Yeah, yeah. And some of his stuff has now found its way into the energy code too. So um he's had influence there too. Um going back to a comment I made earlier about you, you you're you're constantly striving to refine and learn more. You did it with the Housing 2.0 Action Group, but you've also been a longtime member of a Builder 20 club. And it's not something that a lot of builders do. Uh they don't they don't want to make that commitment. I think maybe they feel that it's too much of a commitment, but you have not only made that commitment, but you have consistently and continually made that commitment to your club. So why was it so important for you to join one in the first place? And how has it benefited your company?

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Well, that get that gets back to kind of what you said earlier, um, you know, and this is kind of reinforced from my parents, continuous learning. Um, you know, the and I love the quote by Albert Einstein. Um, you know, the a student took a test, uh, had the class in the fall, say, and took a test in the spring, uh uh and the questions were the same. And they said, Hey, why why are you giving the same test? And he said, Well, the questions never change, only the answers. And so enough innovation happens that you know doing it the right doing it the same way over and over doesn't continue to work. It might have worked uh five years ago, but it's not gonna work today. It might even work a year ago, but it's not gonna work today. So what I love is that collaboration and that open book kind of concept that you get with the Builder 20 Club because you're not competing with them, that you you learn and you share resources, right? Um so like if something's and I love traveling to their market when they host, because I can see what they're building, how they're building. You know, nobody builds the same home the same way. And so I might say, wow, I wouldn't do that, but I also might say, holy cow, that's a great idea. I love what you're doing there, or that specific detail, or whatever they might be doing. We can bring that back and incorporate it into our home design or a process that they're using to become more efficient. That's the great part of the learning. We also share financials so we can benchmark truly against one another. I I can't do that in my local market. Nobody's gonna share their financials with me. Right. You know, and nobody's gonna tell me how they did that specific detail or some trick that they found that that that can build a better home or or make their home more efficient. I don't get that there. I get that through the Builder 20 Club. And unfortunately, I think it's one of the best kept secrets at NAHB. I I wish we could have more builders in it because there's a tremendous amount of learning. I've been a Builder 20 Club member since 2009, 2010, somewhere around that time. So for me, you know, that's uh 16, 17 years now. And it's it's very invaluable to me. It's very valuable to me. It's it's it's something that um I'm starting to bring a couple of our team members to because as I uh as I work myself out of some of the day-to-day, I want to be able to have somebody um like my son uh is gonna be going, and our CFO goes the financials now too. So there's a great learning just outside of what I can do there. Um, but it's it's it's something that I think is so uh beneficial for others to get involved with because you just can't do that in your own market. You just can't get that information.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Right. Yeah, you run into issues of either collusion or antitrust, that sort of stuff when it's well, or or or they're like, Well, you're gonna steal my ideas.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Right. You know, or you know, I'm not I can't share that with you. I might compete with you one day.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

You know, and that's what you don't have with these builders. They're they're a hundred plus miles away from your market and they're very open. And the other great thing about it too is like our director of sales, if will connect with their director of sales. So it's not just me learning from it. We can connect the leaders on our teams together to learn more about how are you selling in at this pace? How are you getting your traffic in? What kind of AI tools are you using to do market data? That's one of the things that we just talked about, market analytics. How what kind of tools are you using? So we connect our our brain trusts on our team together and they share information and we get better, right? Iron sharpens iron. That's the old saying, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Right. Yeah. And you know, you you just alluded to the kind of this transition that your company's going through. Uh I I talked about it with Nathan Good on a different episode of this podcast, but you're transitioning your business to your son. And uh uh I want to make sure everybody knows it's it's one of three children that you and your wife have. Um, so it's uh it's going to one of the sons wants to kind of run the business. So talk a little bit about how that process has been going for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Good. I mean, we we I would say, Mike, we just started, he made the commitment about 18 months ago that he this is really where he wanted to stay and this is really what he wanted to do. Um we engaged uh with kind of a succession planning consultant who um you know kind of gives us homework um to work on, and and so we're continuing to kind of plug away at that. Um it's not, you know, I I'm not in uh what's nice, I'm not in a big rush because that's where you make mistakes in your in in the succession transfer, um, whether it's tax-related, estate related, or wrong, people related, people not ready. Um, you know, my son, um we're he's uh going back to school now, he's getting an executive MBA. Um, you know, we're we're having him uh uh work with other developers to kind of uh learn more about the development side of the business. I could teach him the operation side, but I really love for him to learn more about the development side, which I I haven't had a lot of experience in. But um the succession planning, you know, they say it takes about five to seven years, and that's kind of the path we're on. And um, you know, it'd be a lot easier if I if I just said, hey, I I'll I'll just sell uh, you know, or or do an ESOP, but that's not what we want to do. So we want to make sure, and our leadership team is involved in that too. We want them uh involved in it. We have a couple of our leadership team members that are uh minority owners in the company, and so we want to make sure that they're involved in the process too. Um but it's a it's exciting, and uh, but at the same time, it's it's work. And so we got to engage, you know, all of our different uh unique specialties, like our tax advisor, financial planner, attorney, estate planner, all of those different players come in, and you know, we have one kind of general person that helps us, you know, make sure that we're asking the right questions and um keep moving the ball forward as we can. But it takes time. It takes time. And and he's excited about it, and I think the team is embracing him. That was the other part of it is is is you know, he's spent he's been with us now full time um for let's see what it is. He graduated so six years uh full time with us, but he had been working summers since he was 14 years old um with the group. So um he's you know, he's got that uh trust and uh respect uh from the team that doesn't come from saying I'm the sons or the son of the owner. It's his work ethic, right? His work ethic, his contribution, um, which has helped him uh gain that gain that trust.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

And I've got the chance to meet him at an EBA event. Um and so uh I can I can let our audience know that the uh the company is gonna be in good hands. The yeah. Uh thank you. It was it was it was great to meet him and great to talk with him. And I could just I could see that he had a similar uh uh yearning for education, for information, and uh and a passion for it. So um you should be you should be proud too.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

I appreciate it. Um I want to go back to one other thing too, and that is your involvement, not just in the Builder 20 Club, but also in uh different organizations. Um you've served on the boards of NHB, uh the Wisconsin Builders Association, EBA, uh Green Builder Coalition, which is my organization. Um you've taken some advocacy stances, though, that weren't all too popular with some of those organizations in that list. And I imagine there was probably a certain amount of risk in sticking your neck out there and speaking out. But why did you feel so compelled to do so?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Well, I you know, one thing is um our state is on the still on the 2009 uh IECC International Energy Code, and and um we're I think we're one of the few states that is that is that low in in in terms of the code. Um I feel that there's there's things that we can we should be as an industry uh promoting uh building a better home. And um although I am I am not an advocate for legislative and government uh control and regulation in the business, I feel, however, there are some certain elements of it, specifically building better energy efficient homes, which are gonna help us not only build a better home, but also help us preserve, you know, get off of a lot of the carbon-based uh fuels that we've been using uh in homes and and such. And so I I want to see us get better as an industry. I don't feel that when you look at all of the other industries and manufacturers out there embracing a lot of um technology and productivity measures and trying to build, like say, the few more fuel efficient cars and things like that, our industry is historically, it's nothing new, but historically has always been behind uh on that part of the curve. And and and I and I would hate to see us get further behind. So I I understand uh the position sometimes of of NAHB and local HBAs of um you know forcing um trying to reduce the amount of of regulation. I get that. But there's certain elements of it that I think just build a better home. Um there's certain elements that I agree that maybe don't have place in our industry. But when it comes to the energy efficiency component of it, those are not really hard things to do. Those are things I feel we should do. So it is a delicate balance of of saying, I know we can be better, and I think we should move. You know, I'm on a committee right now with um uh on the Department of Uh Safety and Professional Services, which is looking at the energy code. Um they want to take a significant jump. I I think that would shock our system, but I think we do need to move up, and I think we need to move up to start to catch up. And so that's the position that I've been trying to to push with with our legislat with our builders association and hoping they understand. But I also just believe in my heart that's just what we should be doing. We should be, we can be, I don't want to say should, we can be better at what we do without significant costs, like I mentioned early on. Uh it's just really knowledge and the best way to do it. But I also think it's on us as stewards of building a product that people are going that's gonna be up for you know 75 hundred years. Build the right product now. It's not something that turns over quickly, it's not something that is um it's it's not a consumable.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

It's something that's gonna be there for a while, you know. So you don't build it as cheap as you can. There's good there's a balance between uh the value base of what a customer is willing to pay and what is basically a good quality, high performance home. And it doesn't need to cost an arm and leg to do it. It's just us allowing ourselves to uh get better at what we do.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah. Uh do you think sometimes builders get caught in the trap of thinking I'm building this home for this person instead of this person and the next and the next and then like the future generations of people too?

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Yeah, I I think w we sometimes get caught in that trap of we're living month to month in our building cycle or year to year in our building cycle without thinking about the impacts of it in say, you know, 2040, 2050, 2060. Um, you know, that's what I love about the Zero Energy Ready Home program. You know, you're building to a future code. Um and and that so when you, you know, as the house ages, you're getting there and it's ready to take that on. Um which we all, I firmly believe our utility costs, especially electricity, um, are going to continue to grow at a much faster rate than what uh income levels will grow. And so we uh it's on us, I feel, to help mitigate that um what will be a much larger ex monthly expense for our consumers in the future and for us to do a better job of building just a more energy efficient, more resilient home. Um that's the other part that's gonna be a burden for the customer, besides utility cost, is the resilien resiliency component of it. Um I don't think windows should be a consumable either. So, you know, good quality window um versus what is the cheapest window you could buy. Um but, anyways, back to your point. I think the code challenges us to get better, and the energy code specifically challenges us to get better. And I think that's a good thing. I I really do. And again, our state being so far behind. Um gosh, I'm almost you know, almost kind of embarrassed by that. I mean, we should be able to build to at least a 2018 or 2021 code.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Um, you know, and and continue to move ourselves to catch up. To your point, you know, nobody wants to be first, um, but everybody wants to be second. I get that. Um so somewhere in between, you know, 2024 and 2009, you know, we we need to get to and and continue to kind of close that gap.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Yeah. Yeah, and you're right. It's it's a shock to the system if you take that enormous jump. And it it to me, this is just my opinion on it, it speaks to the importance of incrementally continuing to update your code as opposed to just forgetting about the code for a decade and then going, oh, we probably should update this, because um that that's that's a little bit of a tougher challenge. And it doesn't allow, I think the building industry to to make those incremental adjustments, it just makes them make a bunch of adjustments and then they grumble because nobody really enjoys change a whole lot. And now you're asking to change a whole lot of things all at once.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Well, and some part, some of that, Mike, too, is not understanding how those uh new pieces of equipment or details interact together, pieces and parts. So the the cost will their fear is the cost jumps significantly. Um, but with with time, they'll learn to do it better and and that drops down. That's why I'm a proponent of stepping into it. Give them time to learn, move to the next one. Not every three years, you know, maybe it's every two years until we catch up. Maybe we skip, you know, 2012 and we go to 15, or we go, or maybe we 15, maybe we go right to 18. We hang at 18 for a couple of years, you know, and then we move to 21, hang at 21 for a couple of years. It's not, you know, we don't have to wait every three years to move up, but how can we start to at least in Wisconsin, how and there's other states, but how can we start to kind of close that gap?

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, you talk about resiliency, we talk about, you know, uh thinking about this long term. Uh, one of the things that your organization has done is worked with high school students. And and you've done that for quite some time now. Um so talk to us a little bit about the the the programs that you're you're helping, the schools you're helping with, the uh number of graduates that have gone through your program. Uh give us a little bit of insight into what all goes into that because I think this is something that other builders need to hear about um and potentially emulate.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

We're so we're going into, I believe this is our 15th year um uh doing the program, um specifically with one high school. The other high schools, I want to say one is um around eight years we've been with them, and other ones, the other ones are like six and four. Um, but we're what in the one that we've been doing it the longest with, we just started doing two homes a year. So typically, because of our climate, we we would start in the fall and we would finish, you know, in the winter. So at least we get heat in the house before it starts to get really cold. And then the teacher said, Well, I'd love to start one in the winter. And I'm like, the kids are gonna be cold. And so he goes, I don't care, it'll make them hard, make them tough, right? So I'm like, okay, all right. And he goes, Oh, give them a real experience. So so we just started, uh, this is our second year uh building a spring home with them. And the concept is is you know, they get in um around foundation time, so we get the foundation in, and then we'll find, you know, that because that takes, you know, it takes 10 days to two weeks for that to cure, so there's downtime. We want to get them ready to start framing. We'll fall back to another foundation that's in place and they'll go see how that works. But really, we're getting it ready to start framing. So they'll start framing in September and uh in the fall, they'll start in September. They'll fin it, we'll usually finish around end of December. Um, what we do is we we we want to make sure we give them the time to be involved in it. Um, the home does go a little slower because they're involved. We don't stop it every day, but we kind of slow it down so they don't miss pieces. Um they come out every morning around uh they start at like 7:30 and they finish around 10:30 in the morning. The school gives them that time. Teacher's always out on site. Um that's a requirement of ours. The teacher is there. When the kids show up, the teacher's there, and the teacher's there until the last kid leaves. The populace or population, if you will, of students on site are about 12 to 15, no more than 15. Um, and uh they are involved in, like I said, every working with almost every single task. Drywall is a little different that goes really fast, and uh so they'll they'll be involved in some elements of that, but usually we let the drywall crew go in, knock it out, and um they might get involved with some repairs later, but then they're they're touching everything. Um and and it's really um what we hear from the parents is how engaged that their child is in in this program. We invite the parents out at the pre-drywall stage to kind of get them because some of them have never been in a framed home before with the seeing the walls and the mechanicals and all of that stuff, and the kids going around and and talking about what they do. What's also been great is the school district comes out. So um not only do we see the principal of the school, but we see members of the school district out, um, people um uh uh it just everybody that's involved in the school, in addition to the parents. Um, and sometimes we get grandparents and uncles and stuff that come out too because they want to see it. And the kids get a chance to show what they did. And so we give a kind of a brief overview of uh the teacher does of what the students are doing. We talk a little bit about um the industry in general and the need for skilled trades. Um it's such a low barrier to entry to get into most of these skill trades. You know, foundation and excavation are the are the exceptions. Um but you know, it's just a it's a it's a van or a truck uh and a few tools, and you and you can get started. Um we bring owners in from some Some of the companies that talk about you know them starting uh with a with a hammer in hand or or pulling wire in a house or sweating, well, they don't sweat pipe anymore, but you know that's what they did, that's what they did back then. And and then and then talk about like how you know they did that for you know, whatever, three, five, six, seven years. And then they started, they went out on their own. And what also is kind of really cool about this is we have a couple of those that started early on in the program, like 10 or more years ago, that actually do own their own business. And they say, I was doing the same thing you did uh 10 years ago, and now I own my own business and those are paths. So we talk about not only the great American dream is homeownership, but it's owning your own business. And so we get that message out to the parents so they can see that there's something beyond um, you know, um, working in an hourly job or having to go to college or what have you. You can actually own your own business at some point in this industry and how much demand there is for the skilled trade. So that's really what we focus on trying to get the message out. Um, our trade partners get, you know, usually a typical class might produce anywhere from it's it's it could be three, it could be seven, uh, students that actually come out and go into some specific element of the trade, whether it's through an apprenticeship program, uh, whether it's working with one of our framers, rougher siders, things like that, trim carpenters. We see a lot of them. Uh they want the structure, so they go for the plumbing, HVAC, and uh and electrical because they have good apprenticeship programs. Um, but every every class uh yields some kind of students that are going into the skilled trades. But even if they don't go into the skilled trades, Mike, they learn a valuable life skill, and that is how to take care of your home. And to know when something does come up in your home, you have some kind of idea. You may not be able to fix it, but you have some kind of idea what might be going on. And that being one of the largest investments that most people in their life will ever have, that is a valuable life skill. So those are some of the elements that kind of come out of it.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Do you do you is that kind of the biggest takeaway that you hope they come out of your program with? Is just that kind of general like knowledge whether they go into the trades or not, that they at least have an understanding.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I think the the goal really is to show them that there's something more beyond what they might have thought they could do or what their parents thought they could do. Okay. Um, that there's demand for this uh uh types of skilled trades in in in its in its uh and and you're changing people's lives. I mean, we we talked to them about, you know, uh how some of the students and what some of the sometimes we'll get some of the students that come back that built a home three years ago and like drive through the neighborhood of the home that they built. And they see, you know, they see a family engaging and living in home, and they feel that pride of that they were a part of that. They may not know the family, but they're contributing to somebody who's having experiences, creating memories in a home that they had a hand in building. And that level of pride and excitement, um, that feeling uh is something that's a lot harder for people to really understand when you build a product and you don't see it. Or you build a piece of a product and you don't see it. So there's that pride of ownership that comes from it too. But if at the at the least, uh if what they take away is that life skill, that's awesome. That's incredible. Ideally, we'd love to see them go into the skill trades. And so and I would say, you know, Mike of that three to seven, they go into skill trades. There might be three to five that are going to school for some kind of construction management program. Okay. So they might be coming back, you know, and being professionals in some building organization. Ideally a residential building organization, but some kind of construction organization. So that's kind of the group. And then and then so it's it's almost like a one-third, one-third, one-third kind of component. Then the other third is really life skill. But but they this is a program that they actually have to, it's not something you just enroll in. You have to go through three other semester two other semesters of classes, and then you gotta apply to get in this program. So it's not just wide open, it's really kind of dialing into people that are really gonna get the best, the teacher believes are gonna get the most out of it. This is something that this I could see this kid, this child uh really engaging in this program and taking it past um beyond just the completion of this home.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Right, right. And I think it's I think it's really smart on your part to to have some of those alumni come back, right? To have that moment of inspiration of, hey, you know, this this person was just like me, but now they've made it and uh they're they're doing well. Um and that's just that's really cool. So I'm glad you do that too.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah, it's especially when you could bring back people that were in the program that now own their own business in the construction industry and say, hey, look, this is what I did, and they share their story.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Yeah, it's very impactful. Yeah. So if if you were the grand ruler of the home building world for a day, uh what is the top thing that you would have every home builder do?

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Oh, let's see. Um you know, I I think growing leaders is an important element of what we do as an operation. Um I I I'd love to see us uh get more involved in um learning how to be better home, but getting our teams involved in in the education component of how to be a better home builder. Um I'm not the one that goes to all these conferences. I want to send a bunch of our team that's engaged and interested in it, is I want them to learn. They're gonna see other things that I don't see, and they're also gonna be the ones that are gonna be applying it and bringing it back and executing it. Um so I think you know, what I'd love to see is just more engagement, whether it's through EBA, which is a wonderful organization, especially for um learning about um uh building high performance homes. You know, I get some I get something out of each one of those organizations. Builder 20, I get operational excellence and understanding of financials and just basic business practices. But EBA, you know, I learn more about how to build a better high performance home. There's such great uh information that you can get from from those groups. So, you know, I think us getting more of our team involved in that helps to promote more of, especially on EBA side and and with Green Builder Coalition and everything that Sarah Gutterman does, um, you know, that helps to that movement uh to get that message out more. So I'd love to see, you know, more um more participation, uh builders sending more people to these types of events that can then bring that information back into the organization. I don't want to say it's like a grassroots effort, but it's not far from that, that you get them excited about it and and they come back into your operation and give you some ideas that you could try and test out. I think the other part of it is just try something different. You know, find find somebody that can help you get better at what you do and share that. You know, the other thing I I said this to you before once before is I'd love to see everybody just try a blow or door test once on your house. Just really get a feel for like where am I at? Yeah, how do I measure up against a standard? Just try it once. It's so enlightening. You might say, Oh my gosh, I never realized that my air exchanges per hour are like six, which is crazy, right? Our code is seven air exchanges per hour. I'm like, oh, you know, we're we're averaging, we're averaging anywhere between one and 1.3, 1.4. And and you know, code is seven. I'm just like, whoa. So it's like understanding, do you know really how your home performs? Like, you know, do an infrared scan, have somebody test all your HVAC ducts. There's a lot you can learn, and there's just little things that could come out of that. So I don't know. I think opening our eyes to to other things that are possibilities for us to improve our product, get out, get the rest of our team involved in learning more about how to become a better builder.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

And I would second that just because experimentation is not always found in the building industry. Uh you find this, you know, well, my grandfather did it this way, my father did it this way, I'm doing it this way, rather than, oh yeah, I'm just gonna be a mad scientist on the building site.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Yeah. Gosh, I remember that when I first started out. I had a flooring guy that says, Well, this is the way I've always installed it. And I'm like, I pull out the installation instructions for the material, and I'm like, but this is what it says you need to install it. Again, remember Albert Einstein, the questions don't change, the answers do. How do I install this? Well, different than what you installed it, you know, five years ago. Right. And and so that that that element, yeah, that always the worst, the worst phrase. This is how we've always done it. Don't the other one I love is don't don't uh don't fix it if it's not broke.

unknown 53:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

How do you know it's not broke? It could have been broken all the time, and it's just something you just keep doing. It's like, uh, it's okay, it works.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

Yeah, I thought this was normal.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Yeah, right. We expect these problems and warranty.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Well, Tim, uh, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It's always a pleasure talking with you, and I always come away uh uh with with a smile on my face and a smile in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

I had fun, Mike. Thank you so much. This is wonderful, and I appreciate everything that that Green Builder uh media is doing and Green Builder Coalition is doing uh to help really kind of move our industry into some new space that helps us build better homes and and and reduces uh a lot of the harmful things that our industry unknowingly sometimes can do. So I really appreciate what you guys do to create that awareness.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

Well, thank you, sir, and thank you for just being a leading example for others to follow. And hopefully uh you all out there listening to this uh really look into what Tim O'Brien Holmes is doing because it's it's exceptional.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

So thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Stay tuned for more episodes on the Impact Series podcast on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm Mike Halignon, and I'll see you again soon.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Before you click away, make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and don't miss the daily coverage on sustainability, housing, and what's next for home building at greenbuildermedia.com. Stay informed, stay ahead.