Thank You for Participating!
September 5-6, 2007
Portland, Oregon
Presenter Bios
The following are bios of the Building Knowledge Forum
presenters:
Gord Cooke
 For the past two decades, Gord Cooke has been an effective and
passionate educator and advocate for better building practices,
improved indoor air quality and energy efficiency. He has a unique
talent of taking the complex issues of building science and breaking
them into easily understood elements with practical real-world
applications for all audiences.
Gord’s building science training curricula covers the gamut from
creating and delivering basic and advanced building science
principles through managing indoor air quality to HVAC system design
to an intensive sales workshop. He has pioneered new training
programs designed to assist builders in the sales and marketing of
higher performing, energy efficient homes – helping builders more
effectively tell their story to customers, increase their margins
and sell more homes.
Gord has delivered sessions at such conferences as the NAHB’s
International Builders Show, Energy Design Conference, JLC Live,
West Coast Green and the National Green Building Conference and is
an active Energy & Environmental Building Association (EEBA) board
member and certified trainer. He authored the Build Comfort Program
and provided instruction for both the Union and Enbridge Gas
companies. Additionally Gord has authored and co-authored numerous
white papers and research studies related to indoor air quality and
home performance issues, contributes a monthly IAQ column to HPAC
magazine, and is a certified R-2000 Design Evaluator and Trainer.
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Tony Grahame
 For
the past eleven years Tony has been the director and a professor of
Residential Building Technology at Yavapai College, in Prescott
Arizona. In the past four years his RBT program has been awarded
five Gold National Association of Home Builder’s Awards for Green
Building and Energy Efficiency in both the custom and affordable
house categories-moderate climate. He teaches students to design,
manage, and build crafted, healthy, safe, comfortable, durable,
environmentally responsive houses using appropriate, climate
specific, materials, systems, and technologies. The program
emphasizes applied building science principles incorporated into
mainstream construction practices.
Tony is certified by the Energy and Environmental Building
Association as a Master Builder, and as a National Trainer for the
EEBA’s Houses That Work workshops. He also is an Environments For
Living Diamond Certified builder. In a building career that has
spanned 30+ years he has built, and/or helped to build, hundreds of
houses throughout North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
He’s held general contractor licenses in North Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, and currently for the past eleven years in Arizona. His
company consults, and builds select green custom homes when time
permits.
In addition to presenting Houses that Work workshops in Arizona and
New Mexico, on numerous occasions, he has presented to local and
state organizations on energy efficiency, green building, applied
building science, and healthy houses. He also has presented at the
National Association of Home Builder’s ‘International Home Builder
Show’.
Tony has an insatiable desire to learn and teach so he is constantly
researching and reading, and attends select building conferences,
workshops, seminars, and expositions as frequently as possible to
stay current with cutting-edge building technologies. He constantly
tells his students “never stop learning”, “always prepare yourself
for opportunities”, and “what about the concept of making money and
doing the right thing”.
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Dr. Jay Hall, PhD.
 As the President of Research for BKI, Jay is instrumental in the
company’s mission to develop and promote educational tools to
improve the performance of homes. With over 20 years of experience
in sustainable building design and development, Jay is an expert in
market transformation, building energy efficiency, and indoor
environmental quality.
Having earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Duke
University, Dr. Hall’s professional skills include design and
development of voluntary market-based programs, program
implementation (i.e., marketing, outreach, and communications),
market and technology assessment, and program evaluation.
Jay has worked for the last 16 years as a consultant to the EPA’s
ENERGY STAR for Homes Program, and recently has been the lead
consultant and Acting Program Manager to the U.S. Green Building
Council's new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for
Homes initiative (LEED for Homes).
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Mark LaLiberte
 Mark LaLiberte is a recognized industry trainer, author and
consultant with more than two decades of experience. His focus is to
help the building industry learn to build better homes and better
businesses. Mark has a deep personal commitment to his work and
strives to help his clients increase the performance of the homes
that they build and translate those changes into business success.
In high demand, Mark reaches more than 8,000 builders in the U.S. a
year through his private services, and has been a featured speaker
at such events as the NAHB International Builders Show, PCBC,
Sunbelt Builders Show, and JLC Live conferences. He was a co-creator
of the Houses That Work™ program, an educational series provided by
the Energy and Environmental Building Association (EEBA) which is
based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Program,
and has served in an advisory capacity on the EPA’s ENERGY STARŪ
Program and the Minnesota Energy Code Advancement Project. On an
international scale, Mark has provided training to members of the
Warsaw, Poland housing industry and the International Housing
Symposium in Tokyo, Japan.
In addition to being the onscreen guide for BKI’s Building Better
Homes Series, Mark’s media involvement includes his role as a
spokesperson for the Ad Council’s Energy Hog Campaign, and appeared
as an on-camera content expert in TLC’s Home Pro and Home Savvy
series and the PBS Hometime series.
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Randy Nicklas
Randy is a mechanical engineer who concentrates on applied
building science and sustainable construction technology. He is a
founding member of the US Green Building Council. As one of the
first energy raters in the United States, Randy has performed more
than 800 blower door tests and home energy ratings. He has been
working extensively in energy efficient building technologies since
the early 80s, and has been involved with more than 20,000 systems
engineered buildings. He has worked hands-on in all phases of
construction from foundations to roofing, including designing,
building and performance evaluation and testing. He was involved
with the design and construction of the initial American Lung
Association Health Homes and the first US DOE Zero Energy Building
in the Pacific Northwest.
Randy is a Code Specialist with Icynene, Inc.
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Patrick O'Malley
 Patrick O’Malley is the Director of Operations with Building
Knowledge Consulting. With ten years experience in building-related
energy efficiency and quality control projects. His areas of
expertise include research, diagnostics, testing, data monitoring,
technical assistance, consultation and training.
Pat was project and technical manager for the Minnesota Department
of Commerce energy code study Evaluating Minnesota Homes and as an
outside contractor managed the Xcel Energy Premier Homes Program in
Minnesota from 1996 to 2003.
At the local level, Pat works with Building Science Corporation in
support of the Department of Energy’s Building America Program.
Activities include planning and energy analysis, builder site
assistance, consultation, testing, commissioning and reporting for
production builders. He has also delivered training and technical
consultation services for the Building Association of Minnesota, the
Builders Association of the Twin Cities, and the Energy and
Environmental Building Association.
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Sam Rashkin
Mr. Sam Rashkin is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National
Director of ENERGY STAR Homes.
Mr. Rashkin has managed Energy Star for Homes since its start in
1996. Under his leadership, Energy Star for Homes has grown
exponentially to more than 3,000 builder partners and over 650,000
labeled homes. He is also overseeing a new EPA Indoor Air Quality
label for the housing industry.
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David Richmond
 As a trainer, consultant, energy rater and former builder, David
Richmond has dedicated over 30 years to the residential and
commercial building industry. His commitment and perseverance to
improve the quality and energy efficiency of residential
construction in the marketplace has crossed most of the residential
and commercial disciplines including architectural design, sales,
construction management, and purchasing and customer service
management.
Besides work as a presenter at the Afforable Comfort Conference,
American Gas Assocation, Midwest Energy Efficiency Association (MEEA),
Northern Kentucky HBA, David brought his leadership to the Energy
and Environmental Building Association (EEBA) as board president in
1999, He is currently a certified trainer with this non-profit
organization as well as for the International Code Council.
Additionally he is a certified RESNET Energy Rater for the Wisconsin
Energy Star Homes, Building America Project.
Recently David created a curriculum on the EPAct 2005 Tax Credits
with an emphasis on Energy Star criteria. His technical experience
is showcased in the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC)
for both residential and commercial construction with all their
versions including all ASHRAE 90.1. David created this course
curriculum for both code officials and the building community. These
courses vary in length from half day on specific sections of the
code to multi-week training and implementation programs for
municipal building code departments and the building community.
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Edward VonThoma
 As President of Building Knowledge Consulting, Ed advocates the
house as a system approach to home design and construction, in
accordance with building science principles.
With over 20 years of progressive construction project management
experience, Ed VonThoma is a seasoned veteran of building industry.
Ed has extensive expertise in the development of innovative single-
and multi-family homes with a commitment to prove that better design
creates value for the builder, and the homeowner.
Ed has served as the Energy and Environmental Building Association -
Board President and as a member of the Minnesota Energy Code
Advisory Committee.
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Contact Information
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