Habitat X is proud to have gathered an Advisory Board that includes experts from a huge swath of the sustainable housing, home performance, and energy efficiency industries. The following professionals serve – in a generous and unpaid capacity – because they believe in the mission and vision of our organization.
Chris Dorsi is the founder of Habitat X. He’s spent the last 40 years developing best practices for the housing industry, writing and publishing respected books and technical curricula, running successful construction companies, and working as a real estate developer. He’s recently retired from a position as the Director of the Montana Weatheriztion Training Center, a wing of Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.
Chris is the co-author of Residential Energy: Cost Savings and Comfort for Existing Buildings, the Homeowner’s Handbook to Energy Efficiency, and other respected titles on sustainable design and construction. Chris’ upcoming book, Human Habitat, reports from the intersection of housing, culture, and environment.
Chandler von Schrader is recently retired from the U.S. EPA in Washington, D.C.. Over the years. Chandler has been a main mover at the confluence of home performance, HVAC, and the rest of the construction industry. You couldn’t find anyone more qualified for this discussion — as the manager of the EPA ENERGY STAR Verified Installation Program, Chandler was been instrumental in building some of the nation’s most-widespread home performance programs. Today he works as a private consultant, and is focused on introducing home performance to the HVAC and remodeling industries.
Chandler lives in the woods of Arlington, Virginia, a few miles outside Washington, D.C.
Kevin Brenner is the passionate and energetic president of Brenner Builders and Healthy Home Energy & Consulting (HHEC) in upstate New York. While client satisfaction and environmental awareness drove his dedication to building energy-efficient, custom homes in the greater-New York area for over thirty years, his desire to help people improve the comfort and indoor air quality of existing housing led him to develop and nurture HHEC into a leading regional provider.
In an effort to demonstrate real-time energy savings, Kevin built HHEC’s net-zero-energy headquarters as well as the state-of-the-art, net-zero-energy home that he shares with his wife and three dogs.
Joe Medosch is a healthy building specialist for Hayward Score. He’s also the proprietor of Energy & Environmental Consulting LLC, and the founder and former executive director of HHEA, the Healthy Home Environment Association.
Joe is a master trainer and technical wizard across much of the home performance field. He has been a building contractor since 1990 and a Comfort Consultant trainer since 2003, providing solutions for healthy and energy-efficient home performance. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
Joe holds the distinction of having designed his own personal typeface and font, even hand-grinding the characters of an old Underwood manual typewriter.
Ed Matos has accumulated an impressive record of achievement in the home performance industry. With a background in sales and sales management, he recently closed a total of more than $4M in home performance retrofits.
Ed is a Sales Director at Healthy Home Energy & Consulting, and the proprietor of Competitive Advantage Consulting. His current initiatives include producing The Home Performance Sales Manual, a practical textbook on the language, psychology, and management of sales for the home performance industry. Ed lives on the north shore of Long Island, New York.
Ed is a recipient of the 2016 Habitat X Fellowship. Ed and Habitat X Fellows Michelle Nochisaki and Griffin Hagle are the founders of Brighter Energy Collective.
Griffin Hagle is a long-standing supporter of Habitat X. He’s been involved in weatherization and home performance since 2006, currently as the executive director of the regional housing authority in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. He’s also worked as a utility program consultant for Richard Heath & Associates, conducted hundreds of energy audits for SolarCity, and trained auditors throughout Alaska, Oregon, and Southern California.
Griffin was the recipient of the 2015 Habitat X Fellowship and is the current editor of the Habitat X Journal.
James Childre is a year-round staff member for Habitat X. He’s also the owner of the building diagnostics company RedPoint LLC in Bozeman, Montana. Their services include residential and commercial building inspections for real estate transactions, energy audits, thermal imaging, blower door testing, duct testing, HERS ratings, ENERGY STAR verification, and tax credit verification. James also has deep experience in international finance and analysis.
Michelle Nochisaki is a market strategist, operations consultant, and resource developer to the home performance industry. She works at present as a program manager at MCE, California’s first community choice aggregation program. Combined with her recent service with the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, the Building Performance Institute, and the former Efficiency First, she has gathered a broad set of experience and contacts that make her a go-to expert on the strategy and marketing for the home performance industry. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Habitat X Fellows Michelle Nochisaki, Griffin Hagle, and Ed Matos are the founders of the Brighter Energy Collective.
Bill Spohn has been one of our most consistent participants at the Habitat X conferences. As the president and CEO of TruTech Tools, he’s also a widely respected expert on combustion testing, wireless tools, and other technologies. He holds degrees from the University Of Rochester, is a registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania, and has designed a wide array of test and measurement products in the last twenty-five years. See Bill’s self portrait here. Check out the highly respected Building HVAC Science podcast that’s produced by TruTech Tools.
Bill’s organization TruTech Tools is a 2019 Silver Sponsor of Habitat X.
Larry Zarker has been involved with the world of home performance for most of his career. From a start at research center of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), he’s now the Executive Director of the Building Performance Institute (BPI). Larry brings an important perspective to our discussions: with his years of experience on Capitol Hill, he has a strong sense of when to use political solutions, and when to rely upon private industry. Larry lives in Washington, DC.
Jacques Touillon is the Founder and CEO of Airboxlab, a startup dedicated to health and wellness in the built environment. They are the makers of the Foobot indoor air quality monitor. With a background in both communications and environmental management, Jacques is well positioned to have an impact on the emerging market of connected devices for home-performance. Read Jacques’ interview at Greentech Media.
Steve Baden is the Executive Director of RESNET — the Residential Energy Services Network. Widely regarded as one of the main movers in the residential energy efficiency field, he’s been at the head of RESNET since its inception and he ran a state energy office for ten years. Among other accomplishments, he was recently awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Michael Freedberg is currently the Senior Advisor for Energy Policy and Climate Change in HUD’s Office of Economic Resilience, created by the Obama Administration to support sustainable community development, climate adaptation and resilience, energy efficiency, and green building. Previously he was Director of Affordable Housing Technology Research in HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, and chaired the Department’s Energy Task Force, which coordinated the agency’s efforts to reduce HUD’s $5 billion energy bill.
Michael lives in Washington, DC.
Susan Davison works at the forefront of California efficiency and finance programs, with recent service at CalCERTS, the Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE), and Build It Green. She has a ton of experience across a range of industries, with specialties in asset ratings, real estate finance, workforce education, and data analysis. She has played critical roles in the PACE map design for the State of California, the California Energy Commission Action Plan for AB758, and the Orange Button solar finance initiative. She currently serves as the President of HHEA — the Healthy Home Environment Association.
Colin Genge is the founder of Retrotec, Inc. Recently retired after decades of service in the organization, he’s widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on the science and practice of measuring the integrity of air barriers in buildings for home performance, fire control, and clean room applications. Colin has provided solid support for the Habitat X initiative for years now. He lives on a houseboat in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Colin is a supporter of a 2018 Habitat X Fellowship.
Rick Blumenthal has been involved in the housing industry for his entire career. Educated in Environmental Conservation and Planning, he has spent the last half of his career focused on producing high performance sustainable buildings. In 2010 Rick was chosen as the Lead Energy Advisor and Technical Specialist for the RePower Bainbridge Energy Challenge, and he currently serves as a Building Performance Specialist for Knauf Insulation. Rick lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Read Rick’s article in the Habitat X Journal.
Brad Turner is the Director of Education and Technical Assistance at Southface Energy Institute. He manages the Southeast Weatherization and Energy Efficiency Training (SWEET) Center, plus several other programs focusing on residential energy efficiency. He has also worked in various capacities developing national standards and certifications best practices related to energy efficiency improvements on existing homes. Brad resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Read Brad’s article in the Habitat X Journal.
Alex Glenn has built a 20 year career striving to advance the cause of sustainable housing. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he works as the lead trainer and building scientist for Advanced Energy, one of the most respected energy-efficiency consultancies in North America. Alex is lucky to have worked across most facets of the construction industry, having served stints as a technical trainer, program developer, curriculum designer, and tradesman. He also has the distinction of having delivered the first Pecha Kucha presentation ever to a Habitat X conference.
Alex is also the proprietor of Launch the Hustle, a private consultancy providing marketing support and motivational training to individuals.
Garry Upton is an executive vice-president at Decision Analyst, where he has specialized in developing actionable marketing and service procedures for the HVAC and home performance industries. He previously spent years as a branch manager and Director of Research with Lennox International.
In his own words, “Much of my time these days is spent building, conducting, analyzing, and presenting ad hoc primary research. A side line that has been important to me has been the addition of secondary data to complete the primary study we complete for the client. Often the addition of secondary information helps the primary directives we’ve found, and supports more specific actionable results from the studies.”
Garry lives in Denver, Colorado.
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