International Builder's Show - Wednesday

We have had a very productive two days at the IBS. On Tuesday Bob and Jim met with a few vendors at the show, the ones they talked to were interested in marketing that their products were used in the first Gold Certified Home in the Nation or they were interested in donating free Green products to Bob to try in his next home in the hopes that he would use their product in the future.

In the afternoon, Bob gave his talk to about 100 people, mostly builders. The host of the discussion from NAHB introduced Howard by saying that there was a very important person in the room that he wanted to identify, Howard stood up and got recognition. Bob did excellent with his talk and after the session we talked to many people. NAHB asked Bob if he would be interested in giving the presentation to other builders in other parts of the country and Bob agreed. They also invited us to the NAHB Research Center.

A builder in Texas asked us if we could help certify their homes, Howard asked how many per year and they said about 250. Also after the talk another verifier from the West Coast talked to Howard and I and asked if we would be interested in teaming on a potential project for Wells Fargo Mortgage and he also said that he didn’t know the science and environmental aspects like we did but that he was more focused on the building end and there may be opportunities to help each other out.

On Tuesday evening Jim and Jacki attended the Build-PAC event as invited guests based on my help with the fundraising this year as a Build PAC champion. At the event, Kevin Kelly from Leon Weiner and Associates introduced Jim to one of the National Officers and after talking for 10 minutes he asked Jim to serve on the National Environmental Committee.

On Wednesday morning Jim went to an Associate Member Awards breakfast. He met a lot of Associate members from all over the country. After talking to the chairman of the NAHB Associates Advisory Council for a while he asked Jim if he would join the Council and represent Delaware. Several of the Associates that Jim knows from his Build-PAC Peer to Peer training won awards and it was a good morning.

After the breakfast Jim walked the show and met the head of Beam Sales (Central Vac and HEPA filtration), their focus is on indoor air quality as it relates to Green Building. We have worked closely with their Delaware rep, Randy Ciafre, who serves with Howard on the Green Building Council. Jason from Beam is coming to Delaware in two weeks and wants to meet with Howard and Jim about teaming opportunities for Green Building.

Howard and Jim also talked to our contact at Pella (we put on a green building seminar for them in Lewes) and he introduced them to their green building person Pat O’Brien. They talked to Pat about assisting them with getting their products Green Approved through NAHB and they are interested in our help. We will be talking to other manufacturers tomorrow about helping them with this new program.

Howard and Jim also met a green building expert at the Green modular home. He was a wealth of knowledge on green building as far as energy efficiency, construction best practices and water conservation measures. We talked for a while and he is interested in talking more after the show about how we can help each other out. He is also lacking the Science and Environmental knowledge that JCM can provide. He is on the west coast and does not feel threatened by helping us out as we don’t compete in the same markets and we definitely would like to tap into his building knowledge.

Howard met the owner of a modular homebuilding company at a Green Building talk this morning and he asked Howard if we could help them write homeowners manuals for their green built homes.

I think I have walked about 20 miles in the last two days.

We are going to the Membership Event tonight and hope to make some more contacts.