Page 14 - Green Builder Jan-Feb 2022 Issue

Ground

Rules SUSTAINABILITY

SUPERHERO

Tim O’Brien has three keys to
success: planning, open mindedness
and sharing what you know.

BY ALAN NADITZ
For Tim O’Brien, it all started with a little thing called building
science, at a time when the phrase wasn’t quite in vogue yet. This
was in the mid-1990s, when there was also a new thing called
LEED certification that some builders were starting to work
toward. Both caught the civil engineer’s ears, and soon he was
taking an employer-sponsored course that delved into the latest
performance-enhancing techniques for building homes.
Fast-forward into the early 2000s. O’Brien was working for a
regional builder, and was involved with a home construction pro-
gram through CertainTeed. The builder was also a devoted par-
ticipant in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY
STAR program, with all of its homes undergoing that certification,
O’Brien says.
These programs further enhanced O’Brien’s knowledge of
structural engineering and ways to improve a home’s energy
efficiency. “I just ate that stuff up,” he says.
Then the recession hit. “For the builder I was working for at the
time, it was all about cutting costs,” O’Brien recalls. “He was no
longer going to do the Energy Star program, and I felt that was a
mistake, because it was really starting to gain traction.”
So, in 2007, O’Brien—Green Builder’s 2022 Sustainability
Superhero—did what any construction specialist does during an
economic downturn: He started his own company. He and a busi-
Forward thinker. Tim O’Brien has made a living out of presenting the
positives from sustainability-focused homes, from environmental benefits to ness partner, Mike Neumann—who would go on to launch SunVest
Solar two years later—opened Tim O’Brien Homes (TOBH) in
cost efficiency. CREDIT: COURTESY OF TIM O’BRIEN HOMES
Milwaukee. It would expand into Madison, the state capital, in 2012.
The construction firm had a mantra: Every new home would
have third-party LEED certification, as well as certification
through one or more energy efficiency programs, including
Energy Star, Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy, and the city of Madi-
Sustainability son’s Green Built Home Program. “Our focus was on energy cer-
tification, and then green-built home certification,” O’Brien says.
Awards 2022 “That was going to be our marketing differentiation. We both
believed in it; it was the right way to build a home.”

12 GREEN BUILDER January/February 2022 www.greenbuildermedia.com