BUILDTank / buildCAST

Sam Rashkin was my first guest on the buildCAST and he graciously agreed to speak with me again. If you don’t know Sam personally, you probably know of Sam as he has presented hundreds, if not thousands, of workshops and seminars to the construction industry that continually is interested I what he has to say.   

After a long career as a licensed architect and serving on the national steering committees for the U.S. Green Building Councils (USGBC) LEED for Homes program as well as a number of other endeavors to promote better construction, Sam becoming most well-known as the National Director, visionary, and leading influencer on the team that put the EnergyStar for New Homes Program on the map.  His fingerprints are also on the EPA’s WaterSense label and Indoor airPLUS program as well as the NAHB’s Green Building Guidelines. At the end of Sam’s career in Government Sam moved from the EPA to the DOE to help broaden the adoption of DOE’s Zero Energy Ready Homes Program.

 Sam is a thought leader in the construction industry as demonstrated in his books Retooling the U.S. Housing Industry and Housing 2.0 a Disruption Survival Guide, which is one reason it is always such a pleasure to speak with him anytime I have the opportunity.

Sam Rashkin on LinkedInSam’s Writing/Blog on Green Builder

Books by Sam Rashkin

EnergyStar

Brad Smith has now been with the City of Fort Collins Colorado for 9 years working with the building department, the municipal utility, and directly with builders and trade partners to ensure that homes built in the city meet the requirements of the Energy Code.

He is continuing a tradition in Fort Collins of goal setting but more importantly measurement and data gathering to ensure that the city gets what it expects. Brad is leading thecodes segment of the cities trek to carbon neutrality by 2030 and has helped to lay out a performance based Zero Carbon Construction Code aimed at achieving zero carbon emissions for all new construction by 2030. This involves determining energy and carbon reduction targets for each three-year release of the cities energy code and then giving builders and architects the freedom to determine the most cost-effective way of achieving the requirement.

Brad Smith on LinkedIn Current City of Fort Collins Energy Code

Fort Collins Zero Carbon Construction Code

Mary's Mountain Cookies

Kim and Juta Cinco are Baseline Design named after Baseline Road, a landmark road in Boulder County that marks the Earth's 40th parallel north. They took inspiration from this line of latitude for how rooted in place and foundational it is. 

The husband-and-wife team have recently designed and completed their first passive house in the Marshall Fire rebuild and are working on their second and third. I wanted to learn about the design process and how it may differ when striving to achieve passive house certification. Our conversation reconfirms that setting performance goals, developing design constraints, having integrated designmeetings with the construction team, and understanding the base building science are all key metrics to better ensure a successful project.

Kim Cinco on LinkedIn

Baseline Design

HammerWell

Aron Jones is the Co-founder of Big Dog Construction in Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada.

He started his career in the military which led him to become a construction technician and then ultimately a builder once his service ended. In Canada it is common to enter the trades through an organize apprenticeship program call Red Seal and although Aron was already building, he received his carpentry Red Seal in 2002.  His experience with the Red Seal apprenticeship program instilled in Aron a desire to teach and be a mentor himself, which he now is also bringing his true passion for building science too.  His desire to both teach, and give back is making the industry better and may be best exemplified through his co-founding of International Flashing Awareness Day in 2021 with his friend Mike Guertin. This annual event on Instagram is used to demonstrate why flashing is important to a building and what happens when it is not installed or used properly.

Aron Jones on LinkedIn

Big Dog Construction

Red Seal program

Canadian R2000 Program VB installation

International Flash Me day 8/26/2025

I spoke with Brent Davidson, the Creator of the US heat Pump Summit which will be held in Worcester Massachusetts on November 18th and 19th of 2025 and again in September of 2026. Brent saw an opportunity to develop a niche conference that is gaining momentum alongside the push to electrify our homes. The aspirations of this summit have grown to not only tackling the technical side of air and water heat pumps but also the business opportunities that are arising quickly from the tremendous growth and interest. The summit will have a full track for owners and managers of businesses addressing issues like growth, sales and marketing, employee training, and managing that age-old question of working in the business or on the business. The Summit will also host presentations and conversations with regulators, rebate providers and implementers, energy industry experts, members of the private equity investment community, and a full exhibitor hall.  If you are working within the world of Heat pumps or just interested, the US heat pump summit might just be the place to go this November. 

 Brent Davidson on LinkedIn

US Heat Pump Summit

[email protected]

Over a 30-year career in construction, Fernando Ruiz has become a dedicated proponent of building innovations and their relationship with affordable housing. He is the author of Building an affordable house which became clear in our conversation is not the same as building a cheap or poorly performing house. Fernando’s fundamental goal is to use his understanding of the rules contained in building codes, science, and value engineering to break the norms of our traditional thinking, to build homes that are attainable yet still essentially meet the needs and aspirations of his clients. It became clear to me that our building philosophies are aligned with each other. First, set a goal for each project, develop design parameters and principals for the project, and determine the most cost-effective way to achieve the goal. My goals often revolve around how the home performs and Fernando’s revolve around affordability, but you will see that regardless, our paths intersect.

Fernando on LinkedIn

Building Affordable Website

Building Affordable on YouTubeFernando on Facebook

Farndon on Instagram

Beau Brown is the founder of C & H inspection, a family owned and operated home inspection company located in Salt Lake City Utah. Beau started his career in the construction industry with his father and grandfather at the age of 10, building houses and garages all through his teens and early 20’s.  He then gained experience leading teams as a Chemical Technician conducting waste clean-ups with hazardous spill response teams. He went to school for a business degree, and you will see that although college was not for Beau business is and he has been able to leverage his business, marketing, and people skills to make C & H inspection one of the most respected home inspection companies in Salt Lake City.

 Beau has a large presence on social media, and we spent the first half of our time together diving deep into how social media works and how it has helped his business grow. Next, I learned that Beau is a people person, with a strong work ethic and integrity is a field that can be potentially fraught with conflicts of interest.  Since I started my first company offering home inspections, I was particularly interested in how the industry is now managing these conflicts. We ended our conversation talking about a new building code reference app that Beau is helping to launch, that potentially has the power to demystify the building code by putting the answers to code related questions at one’s fingertip.

Beau Brown on Instagram

C&H Inspections

International Association of Certified Home inspectors InterNACHI

American Society of Home Inspections ASHI

Homeowners UniversityCode Pro App

Brian Shanks is the Manager of National Accounts and Governmental Affairs for Beazer Homes.  Beazer is a production home building company based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company is the 11th largest homebuilder in the United States and now operates in 13 states.

Brian’s construction career has been aligned with energy-efficient and performance building in the world of large production builders, and now he is part of the team at Beezer Homes that is continuing the home builder’s evolution from building 100% EnergyStar home to committing to build and certify DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes. 

When they had a presence in Colorado, my former companies did all the energy code and EnergyStar compliance work for Beezer Homes, so it was particularly interesting for me to learn more about Beazer’s continued efforts to build high performance homes in the production building arena. 

Thank you, Brian, for sharing your building journey with us and for explaining some of the unique issues that production builders face.

Brian Shanks on LinkedIn

Beezer Homes

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Program

Leading Builder of America

National Home Builder Association

SouthFace Institute

Lisa Morey is a professional engineer and architectural designer who starting building with adobe bricks while living and working in New Zealand in the early 2000’s. While there she worked with a design/build firm that constructed nearly 50 earth block homes that was the catalyst for her company Colorado Earth.  Lisa is now a champion for earth block construction, not only how to make the earthen block and build the house, but also to understand how the science of thermal mass works. Lisa continually demonstrates the efficiency, resiliency, and carbon neutrality that can be gainusing earthen blocks and was recently recognized as a woman making contributions to reduce carbon emissions within the building sector.

Thanks for explaining earth block construction to me and for all you do in the construction industry Lisa.Lisa on LinkedIn

Colorado Earth

Perlite Insulation Institute

Energy I-corps

Lisa’s white papers

BOOK: Adobe Homes for All Climates

How did Sam Myers become the building scientist at Retrotec? Find out in this episode of the BUILDTank / buildCAST. Like most of us, the industry found Sam and a passion for building science blossomed. Unlike most of us Sam has created and grown his position in the industry on the back of his passion for finding unique ways of educating everyone that he comes in contact with. During the COVID most of the industry’s conferences and tradeshows moved to online platforms. To keep providing the industry with quality educational material, Sam built a virtual training lab athis home where he has taught and trained contractors and consultants all over the world. I enjoyed my conversation with Sam geeking out on building science and diagnostic testing and I think you will as well.

Sam Myers on LinkedIn

Retrotec

Retrotec on YouTube

Advanced Energy Raleigh, NC 

Green Building Advisor ZPD Testing