The Impact series: Tim O'Brien

00:00:05:02 - 00:00:22:29
Mike Collignon: Hello and welcome to the impact series in the Green Builder Media Network. I'm your host, Mike Collignon. On this podcast, I'll have one on one conversations with leaders and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines. We'll talk about how they got into their field, the reason the lessons they've learned and advice they have for future generations of leaders.

00:00:23:06 - 00:00:51:02
Mike Collignon: Today I'm joined by Tim O'Brien. He entered the home building industry in 1994, just after earning his master's degree in civil engineering and construction engineering management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hence the Red. He has served on the boards of NB, the Wisconsin Builders Association, IBA, and the Green Builder Coalition. Tim started Tim O'Brien homes in 2007, and his company has gone on to win numerous local, state and national awards.

00:00:51:09 - 00:01:04:08
Mike Collignon: Tim O'Brien homes also runs home building programs in conjunction with five Wisconsin school districts, where high school students work side by side with their trade partners during the fall semester. Tim, welcome to the Impact series.

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Tim O'Brien: Hey, thanks, Mike. Great to see you again.

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Mike Collignon: Yep. Good to see you too, sir. Always good to catch up with you. I really appreciate it. I know that, you know, spring building really starts to get hot and heavy. So I appreciate you taking the time to to spend a little bit of time on the podcast with us.

00:01:20:22 - 00:01:25:08
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. My pleasure. Happy to happy to contribute and support.

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Mike Collignon: Well, this is the beginning of your 32nd year in the home building industry, and you operate a regional production home building company now. But you started out working for a national production builder. Tell me a little bit about what the young Tim O'Brien was striving for when you were a project manager in 1994? What were kind of some of your early career goals?

00:01:47:01 - 00:02:30:28
Tim O'Brien: Yeah, so like, I really wanted to find a way to apply, you know, a lot of what I learned in the technical side in the civil engineering, I really enjoyed the science of building. And and of course, I had some experience in commercial construction, actually, before getting into residential, I was geared really my whole, I would say high school in college to go towards commercial construction until I found this opportunity, which I never thought existed, for residential to actually have a career in residential outside of where I grew up with, in a small community in Wisconsin where, you know, the builders were really, really framing contractors, which became home builders.

00:02:30:29 - 00:03:09:27
Tim O'Brien: And I didn't see that as much of an entrepreneurial or business opportunity until I stumbled across this public sector home building market. And I've always been interested in residential. So I took that science based approach that I learned through civil engineering and those applications, kind of that critical thinking. And it really aligned well with my first experience in the residential construction world at that time was with Pulte Homes and Scott Sedum, who was their director of of kind of quality and construction, part of it, and kind of overseeing a lot all of the divisions, all the markets and helping them understand building science.

00:03:09:27 - 00:03:39:15
Tim O'Brien: I learned a tremendous amount, and it just it really resonated with me. And that was that was my first time I met Joe Seabrook, which was great. And like just being in that space and learning more about how building science applies in the residential aspect just got me engaged, energized, excited, and just just went all in embracing that element of the residential side.

00:03:39:15 - 00:04:09:15
Tim O'Brien: And so I really learned that building science component at Pulte Homes and really enjoy that experience. So then I actually started kind of troubleshooting some of the problems with some of the homes and what I learned, which at the time I wasn't sure. You know, here's where I'm starting in kind of a warranty type of role, but what I found out is that's the great place to start because you're dealing with failures in the home.

00:04:09:15 - 00:04:48:00
Tim O'Brien: Some are simple things like a door adjustment and such, right? Some are bigger, like moisture related issues or leaks, water leaks or something related to moisture transfer in the home or improper ventilation. And so once I started getting back out into the field and actually building homes, I was able to build out those problems by really focusing on the process of construction, applying the principles that I got that I learned from, from Joe Seabrook and the Pulte group, and really started to focus on how can we start building better homes, more high performance homes.

00:04:48:00 - 00:05:07:02
Tim O'Brien: And at that time, there really wasn't building paper that was used on the exterior of the home, which is crazy to think about it now. But once I started to get more in understanding about that moisture movement, it's like, okay, we need to really bring some building paper into this. And that's when we started to partner with Tie.

00:05:07:05 - 00:05:46:19
Tim O'Brien: And then we continued just to kind of develop those details. And it was just a wonderful learning experience with that group. And so we did that for four years and then just continued to grow. I just wanted to learn more about it and still kind of followed, you know, Joe and his speaking and where he was, whether it was NHP or through other green building conferences that he spoke at, and just continue to absorb that material and use it and apply it in any way that I can to improve and build a better home and not look at it as just pieces and parts, but totally as a whole system, which was just fascinating to

00:05:46:19 - 00:05:47:20
Tim O'Brien: me.

00:05:47:23 - 00:06:13:09
Mike Collignon: And Joe. We've had him on a couple of webinars with Greenville, the media, and he's just a wealth of knowledge, and he does a summer camp every year and just really, really informed guy, really educated guy that just loves to share knowledge. And I think it talks to about the importance of the design phase. Right, Tim. Like how important the design phase is to what you do.

00:06:13:11 - 00:06:36:21
Tim O'Brien: Right? So when we when we look at the design elements of the home, we're also taking a look to make sure that we don't create any details that are going to have some problems. Again, as it relates to bulk water, but any type of conditions that might be present in our particular climate zone. So we're always looking at the freeze thaw components of it.

00:06:36:22 - 00:06:56:13
Tim O'Brien: We also have sometimes we have a lot of clay soil that doesn't move water very quickly. So, you know, really dry basements is another important element of it. So how can we keep these basements dry? We use a waterproofing element on the outside of the home. There is a lot of design criteria that we use when especially ventilation in the home.

00:06:56:15 - 00:07:35:27
Tim O'Brien: You know, moving air effectively around the home is another important thing for comfort for people. And then just what wall systems, you know, we experimented with so many different wall systems and different details for thermal performance and thermal breaks and minimizing areas for air infiltration. We strategically use a closed cell phone component in the home, just in strategic areas where we have the biggest opportunity to seal up specific areas of the home, but typically carry, you know, conditioned air out of the home or bring unconditioned air into the space.

00:07:35:27 - 00:08:15:10
Tim O'Brien: And so we had a great energy raider that helped us model it. And we both learned from each other, which I think the energy raider is one of the most important elements besides HVAC and the insulator in really building a high performance, energy efficient, indoor air quality, comfortable home. We had a great person that was willing to help experiment with us, try different things, and we were able to kind of dial in the different ingredients, if you will, the different materials that work best together and still offered value to the customer without, you know, there is a little bit more cost to do with it that way, but we were able to dial it in

00:08:15:11 - 00:08:38:18
Tim O'Brien: that we could easily quantify that not only the financial aspects of what it's going to save them, but the, the, the, the part that they can't quantify in dollars, which is comfort, peace of mind. There's basically the elements that are taken out of older homes that they've lived in that have created problems for them. Right. Like even ice damming.

00:08:38:18 - 00:09:00:20
Tim O'Brien: We get a lot of ice damming up here, and a lot of people get a lot of leaks coming through there. So we really focused on making sure that we have well-insulated attics that don't lose a lot of heat. Air sealant is a big part of that. And and we really, you know, you'll still have some level of ice dam, but nowhere near what people have traditionally experienced.

00:09:00:23 - 00:09:05:07
Mike Collignon: And so it seems so simple to say, but just thinking of the house as a system right here.

00:09:05:07 - 00:09:37:04
Tim O'Brien: The house is a system, you know, that's what most manufacturers do, right? The automobile industry, appliance, everything is looked at as a system, but somehow still in the housing industry, we still look at it as sometimes as pieces and parts. And so that's where that performance testing, the modeling in the beginning and matching that up with the performance testing in the end really help us to design a better system in the home with parts, pieces of parts that actually work together and not operate independently of one another.

00:09:37:06 - 00:09:53:10
Mike Collignon: Yeah, clearly, it sounds to me like, you know, Joe Seabrook was one of your early mentors interactions with him? Is that when the kind of the interest and the passion and sustainability started to arise, or did it start earlier in your life?

00:09:53:14 - 00:10:20:19
Tim O'Brien: Well, that's that I would say the sustainability element, you know, had had been a part of my life, but I really didn't know how to apply it in a real world situation until I really started to get into the the construction aspect of it. And I saw some of that in the commercial side. But when when I was introduced to Joe, I really could feel how I could truly apply it in a residential setting.

00:10:20:22 - 00:10:43:20
Tim O'Brien: The engineering side, you know, in a commercial setting, everything is engineered unique for that project. On the homebuilding side, you know, you're kind of doing there's different. Each home is kind of different, right. And so you don't have an engineer doing your HVAC design in so much as you have somebody sometimes just using the rule of thumb that this square footage needs this tonnage.

00:10:43:21 - 00:11:01:14
Tim O'Brien: Right. And you might. Yes, right. And you might use a and you might use a simple heat calc, but you're not using what we use now as a manual J calculation to really take a look at every room in the home and how it performs based on the orientation is facing north. Is it facing east? Is it how many windows it has?

00:11:01:16 - 00:11:22:28
Tim O'Brien: You know, that's the science part of it. That really started to resonate with me, and we made that very early on. That is a standard in everything that we do. As we design each home, we look at each home as an individual product versus something we've built before, and we do the same thing. So, you know, it's really every project is unique, just like kind of like a commercial construction.

00:11:22:28 - 00:11:41:20
Tim O'Brien: And that's one of the things that I took from that commercial construction is don't just repeat the same thing over and over again. The orientation of that home where the front facing was the rear and the windows, it changes the dynamics of the air that's required inside, and it can change the dynamics of the of the building envelope, sometimes two.

00:11:41:28 - 00:12:06:29
Mike Collignon: Yeah. And one of those components of of what you do is energy efficiency. You know, you build, as I mentioned in the intro, award winning homes, incredibly energy efficient. They're either net zero or very near net zero. So the big question I need to ask you is, why can't the vast majority of new homes in the US be built that way to.

00:12:07:02 - 00:12:18:16
Tim O'Brien: That's a that's a great question, Mike. And I think, you know, part of it is a lack of understanding or really looking at as a, as a.

00:12:18:18 - 00:12:38:25
Tim O'Brien: As an operating entity that has to focus on the, the, the margins. And I'm not saying as a business you don't focus on the margin, I get that, but there's a value component in it that you can if you could communicate it effectively to your customer, you can build a better quality homes, more resilient homes. I think that speaks to the reputation.

00:12:38:25 - 00:13:07:25
Tim O'Brien: We're starting to see some production builders, public builders, move in that direction. But you're right. The majority of the homes built in the in the US are by large production home builders. So they have the ability to make the biggest impact one way or the other. Right. And so it's great to see, you know, companies like Beazer and others like taking that step forward and making that commitment towards sustainability.

00:13:07:26 - 00:13:25:01
Tim O'Brien: They see it as this is who we are as an organization. This is the culture we want. This is the image we want to not only project to our consumer, but to our team, to our trades. And there's some pride in that. And I'm not saying, again, that there isn't pride in the other element of not looking at it.

00:13:25:01 - 00:13:46:20
Tim O'Brien: I get it, but I think sometimes we get blinded by the, the, the element of the dollar that that goes to the bottom line or the quarterly reporting that we need to do or shareholders that we need to report to. I think, you know, we've been able to demonstrate that it's not that significant, more to build an airtight, but that's really what we focus on first.

00:13:46:20 - 00:14:14:23
Tim O'Brien: That's the most cost effective thing to do. Seal up the holes, you know. And if you can identify where those are and you could train your trades, it doesn't cost that much more become standard operating procedure. And so it takes time and it takes commitment to not swap out swap out trade partners all the time. We have we have relationships like our insulators, the only insulator we've ever used.

00:14:14:23 - 00:14:34:04
Tim O'Brien: And and they have it dialed in. They know where our holes are and they go after it. We have the same HVAC partner that we've had pretty much since day one, and they understand the design and what what we're looking for. They know how. They all know how to work with our energy rater. Our energy rater works directly with them now rather than through us.

00:14:34:06 - 00:14:53:04
Tim O'Brien: So if there's an issue, he reaches out directly to them. And then, of course, you know, the product testing in the end helps us dial it in even more. We don't sample test every home. We we don't sample test seven homes or ten homes. We test every home. But back to your original question is why don't more people do it?

00:14:53:04 - 00:15:12:02
Tim O'Brien: I think part of it is a lack of understanding, and part of it is just it's it's not built into their strategy yet. I hope at some point it does. And I hope that they can understand that there's not it's not significant amount of things that you need to do. You don't need to go all SIP panels. You don't need to go all renewable energy to try to drive that down.

00:15:12:02 - 00:15:36:11
Tim O'Brien: There are some simple steps that we can take and still comply with a lot of what might be our state energy programs, which we use here, as well as Energy Star in zero energy rating home. But there's a lot to be learned and gained from just reaching out to an energy consultant to see what you can do to build a better product at a nominal additional cost.

00:15:36:13 - 00:15:57:08
Mike Collignon: Yeah, it's it's felt over the past decade and a half, like we're trying to drag the horse to water on some of this sometimes. And I think the shareholder value is a certain influential component to this too, you know. So you bring up some good points there. And I just hope that like you said, Beazer Homes is one of them.

00:15:57:10 - 00:15:58:18
Mike Collignon: There's a couple others to that.

00:15:58:18 - 00:15:59:26
Tim O'Brien: Are yeah.

00:15:59:28 - 00:16:08:04
Mike Collignon: Meritage I was going to say Meritage was the other one. I was thinking of that they're starting to kind of move in that direction without having to drag them there. And so.

00:16:08:05 - 00:16:31:09
Tim O'Brien: You know, and what's interesting about that, Mike, is as as they move in that direction and some of their competitors in that space and that in that scale of operation, start to see the success that they're having, either through velocity of sales or even incrementally better margins, I would hope that that would demonstrate. I'm sure they're doing competitive evaluation.

00:16:31:09 - 00:16:36:02
Tim O'Brien: I would hope that that would demonstrate is, hey, maybe there's something here that we need to look at, right?

00:16:36:03 - 00:16:59:28
Mike Collignon: Right. Because you've got a differentiation element until everybody follows you and then you don't have that differentiation anymore. But they do now. And I'm reminded of a of a different industry, different situation where it was a situation where nobody wanted to go first, but everybody wanted to go second. So so I'm glad that we're starting to see some of these companies kind of go first.

00:17:00:00 - 00:17:07:11
Tim O'Brien: Well, and the cool thing about is if you start to lose that differentiation, in my opinion, that's where innovation comes in. Yeah, right.

00:17:07:12 - 00:17:08:29
Mike Collignon: Yeah yeah.

00:17:09:00 - 00:17:14:18
Tim O'Brien: I welcome I welcome it only because it helps us be stronger.

00:17:14:25 - 00:17:15:10
Mike Collignon: Yeah.

00:17:15:14 - 00:17:25:11
Tim O'Brien: You know and I'm happy to share, you know kind of some of the elements of what we do to get there. Because I think it challenges us as an industry to build better housing stock.

00:17:25:17 - 00:17:55:12
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Well, and the other thing too, that I'm going to go into a few things that our audience may or may not know about you, but one of them is that you're always striving to learn more. And I saw that firsthand when Sam and I were doing some of the housing 2.0 action groups, and you brought you yourself and your team to that action group, and here you are winning awards, but at the same time, still trying to refine what you do and figure out how can we do it even better than we already are?

00:17:55:13 - 00:18:03:20
Mike Collignon: And I think that just is a huge credit to you and your company, and just the way that your employees all kind of look at it and think about it.

00:18:03:25 - 00:18:34:02
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. Thanks, Mike, I appreciate that. I mean, you know, and it is it's constant communication to the team, especially our field team continuing the trade, what we call our building professionals in the field referred to as superintendents, construction managers, to really have them understand the big picture of why we do what we do and then dive into the details, because I think it's important for them to understand, you know, why we do what we do and the passion that comes from it to ideally, they embrace that level of passion and they bring that into the field with the trade partners.

00:18:34:02 - 00:18:58:09
Tim O'Brien: And like I said, it's a lot easier when we use consistent trade partners to learn from each other. And that's one of the great things about our HVAC provider and our insulator and also our plumber. Two is that we continue to learn and we continue to dial it in. And as we do that, and here's the speak I have towards the bigger builders, as we continue to do that, we lower our cost of doing business together.

00:18:58:11 - 00:19:19:01
Tim O'Brien: Right? And so they preserve their margin. I preserve their margin, but I don't see the increases because they're getting more efficient with us. They're building a better product. They can then take what they learn, what we all learn together, and they can start building that into some of the other homes that they build for other builders, provided, you know, the other builders willing to embrace that as well.

00:19:19:03 - 00:19:41:19
Mike Collignon: Yeah. And going back to the innovation part that you talked about, you know, this pushes us to innovation. I know this of you because I've known you for quite some time, but some of our audience might not know is the fact that your homes are also very water efficient. Now, as I stated before, you build them Wisconsin, you're surrounded by Great Lakes.

00:19:41:22 - 00:19:53:08
Mike Collignon: Wisconsin has more Great Lakes than Minnesota, which is the land of 10,000 lakes. So why did you decide to innovate and care about water efficiency?

00:19:53:10 - 00:20:22:06
Tim O'Brien: Well, because, you know, a lot of some of the stuff, honestly, Mike, you know, you brought to light by what's happening in the southwest and the words program. Right. And and so as and this was more than a decade ago that I started understanding, you know, yes, we live right next to the Great Lakes. I mean, I am I am less than 30 minutes to Lake Michigan and, and a lot of our communities around here get water from Lake Michigan that in the basin.

00:20:22:07 - 00:20:43:16
Tim O'Brien: As long as you're in the basin, they'll give you water. But the concept is, is that that's becoming so much more valuable. And you see it in areas like the southwest. You see it in California where people are struggling to get water. We I have a builder friend in Salt Lake in Salt Lake, Utah that has to get water rights for their developments.

00:20:43:16 - 00:21:06:24
Tim O'Brien: And, you know, so so I know this is coming, and I think it's important for us to build the homes today that are going to be able to be more water efficient when water becomes a much more valuable resource in the Midwest, as it is so down in the southwest. So we really focus on trying to minimize, especially the distance from hot water to the fixture.

00:21:06:26 - 00:21:28:05
Tim O'Brien: That's where a lot of water waste comes from. People turn on the shower and they wait, and they wait and wait for it to get hot or the faucet. They wait and wait for it to get hot. So, you know, we want to focus on minimizing that distance. We want to try to stack, you know, bathrooms near one another, keep that water heater in the ideally as many plumbing fixtures as we can.

00:21:28:06 - 00:21:50:21
Tim O'Brien: In short distances, you know, that's that's another design element. You were talking about the design element of when we look at design in the homes is how can we kind of minimize that, that distance. And then of course, nowadays most everything is is water sense, you know, faucets and showerheads. You know, there's I don't know many out there in a residential space that aren't.

00:21:50:29 - 00:22:13:04
Tim O'Brien: But a while ago, you know, that was something that you really had to specify. And then we got to look at other items dishwashers, Energy Star rated dishwashers. Again, most of those are that way now. It's amazing. I mean, you know, just even an older home, like an energy star dishwasher, I think it's somewhere around 3.2 gallons per wash where the old dishwashers or anywhere from 10 to 15.

00:22:13:05 - 00:22:37:06
Tim O'Brien: I mean, it's crazy when you think about the multiple of five, 4 to 5 difference and then washing machines to, you know, those are those are in other area where we consume a significant and close washing, where we consume a significant amount of water. I think the appliance industry is getting better at it. I know dishwashers are almost forced to, but it's great to see washed clothes washers starting to come out that way too.

00:22:37:08 - 00:23:00:28
Tim O'Brien: So there are a lot of different things we can do. And then, you know, again, especially in the Midwest, we love our grass, you know, so, you know, common sense don't water on really hot days, you know, so some of that common sense has to kind of apply to. But we try to educate our buyers because they have new grass coming in and they're going to they're going to need to consume a lot of water.

00:23:01:02 - 00:23:21:05
Tim O'Brien: So we want to have them be smart about it because we and we pitch it as you know, supporting you're going to your water bill will be really high if you don't manage your watering efficiently. So we really try to have that education with them, to give them a pamphlet about when they should water, how often they should water, that type of stuff, and when not to water.

00:23:21:08 - 00:23:22:00
Mike Collignon: Right.

00:23:22:07 - 00:23:23:23
Tim O'Brien: But it's education.

00:23:23:26 - 00:23:28:17
Mike Collignon: And did your team work at all with Gary Klein on some of the plumbing designs?

00:23:28:18 - 00:23:54:14
Tim O'Brien: We, we did on a home that we did. Gosh, I'm trying to think how long ago that was. It was probably about a decade ago. We did this home that was built for really kind of showcasing sustainability in the marketplace, and he had helped design kind of a manifold system and really try to minimize the amount and weave water that it takes to get to a fixture.

00:23:54:14 - 00:24:08:15
Tim O'Brien: And we really kind of though we don't emulate that exact system in our homes. We emulated a lot of the technique and in the concepts that he helped us in that particular situation.

00:24:08:18 - 00:24:29:23
Mike Collignon: Yeah, yeah. And some of his stuff has now found its way into the energy code too. So yeah, he's had influence there too. Going back to a comment I made earlier about you, you're you're constantly striving to refine and learn more. You did it with the housing 2.0 action Group, but you've also been a long time member of a builder 20 club.

00:24:29:23 - 00:24:52:11
Mike Collignon: And it's not something that a lot of builders do. They don't. They don't want to make that commitment. I think maybe they feel that it's too much of a commitment, but you have not only made that commitment, but you have consistently and continually made that commitment to your club. So why is it so important for you to join one in the first place, and how has it been fitted your company?

00:24:52:14 - 00:25:13:18
Tim O'Brien: Well, that gets back to kind of what you said earlier, you know, and this is kind of reinforced from my parents continuous learning, you know, and I love the quote by Albert Einstein. You know, a student took a test. It had the class in the fall, say, and took a test in the spring. And the questions were the same.

00:25:13:18 - 00:25:34:07
Tim O'Brien: And they said, hey, why? Why are you giving the same test? And he said, well, the questions never change, only the answers. And so enough innovation happens that, you know, doing it, doing the same way over and over doesn't continue to work. It might have worked five years ago, but it's not going to work today. It might even work a year ago, but it's not going to work today.

00:25:34:07 - 00:25:55:03
Tim O'Brien: So what I love is that collaboration in that open book kind of concept that you get with a builder 20 club, because you're not competing with them, that you you learn and you share resources. Right? So like if something's and I love traveling to their market when they host because I can see what they're building, how they're building, you know, nobody builds the same home the same way.

00:25:55:03 - 00:26:14:21
Tim O'Brien: And so I might say, wow, I wouldn't do that. But I also might say, Holy cow, that's a great idea. I love what you're doing there, or that specific detail or whatever they might be doing. We can bring that back and incorporate it into our home design or process that they're using to become more efficient. That's the great part of the learning.

00:26:14:21 - 00:26:32:26
Tim O'Brien: We also share financials so we can benchmark truly against one another. I can't do that in my local market. Nobody's going to share their financials with me. Right. You know. And nobody's going to tell me how they did that specific detail or some trick that they found that that that can build a better home or make their home more efficient.

00:26:32:26 - 00:26:54:07
Tim O'Brien: I don't get that there. I get that through the builder 20 club. And unfortunately, I think it's one of the best kept secrets at NAB. I wish we could have more builders in it because there's a tremendous amount of learning. I've been a builder 20 club members since 2009, 2010, somewhere around that time. So for me, you know, that's 16, 17 years now.

00:26:54:07 - 00:27:13:10
Tim O'Brien: And it's it's very invaluable to me. It's very valuable to me. It's it's something that I'm starting to bring a couple of our team members to because as I, as I work myself out of some of the day to day, I want to be able to have somebody like my son is going to be going in. Our CFO goes to the financials now to.

00:27:13:12 - 00:27:29:04
Tim O'Brien: So there's a great learning just outside of what I can do there. But it's, it's it's something that I think is so beneficial for others to get involved with because you just can't do that in your own market. You just can't get that information.

00:27:29:06 - 00:27:34:04
Mike Collignon: Right. Yeah. You run into issues of either collusion or antitrust, that sort of stuff when it's.

00:27:34:05 - 00:27:55:09
Tim O'Brien: Well or, or they're like, well, you're going to steal my ideas, right? You know, or you know, I'm not I can't share that with you. I might compete with you one day. Right. You know, and that's what you don't have with these builders. They're they're 100 plus miles away from your market and they're very open. And the other great thing about it too, is like our director of sales, if will connect with their director of sales.

00:27:55:09 - 00:28:18:06
Tim O'Brien: So it's not just me learning from it. We can connect the leaders on our teams together to learn more about how are you selling at this pace? How are you getting your traffic and what kind of AI tools are you using to do market data? That's one of the things that we just talked about market analytics. What kind of tools are you using?

00:28:18:06 - 00:28:28:13
Tim O'Brien: So we connect our our brain trust on our team together. And they share information and we get better right. Iron sharpens iron. It's the old saying right.

00:28:28:14 - 00:28:50:00
Mike Collignon: Right. Yeah. And you know you just alluded to the kind of this transition that your company is going through. I talked about it with Nathan Good on a different episode of this podcast, but you're transitioning your business to your son. And I want to make sure everybody knows it's one of three children that you and your wife have.

00:28:50:03 - 00:28:58:23
Mike Collignon: So it's, it's going to one of the sons wants to kind of run the business. So talk a little bit about how that process has been going for you.

00:28:58:25 - 00:29:20:07
Tim O'Brien: Good. I mean, we we would say, Mike, we just started he made the commitment about 18 months ago that he this is really where he wanted to stay. And this is really what he wanted to do. We engaged kind of a succession planning consultant who, you know, kind of gives us homework to work on. And so we're continuing to kind of plug away at that.

00:29:20:14 - 00:29:49:23
Tim O'Brien: It's not you know, I'm not in what's nice. I'm not in a big rush because that's where you make mistakes and you're in in the succession transfer, whether it's tax related, estate related or wrong people related, people not ready. You know my son were he's going back to school now he's getting an executive MBA. You know we're having him work with other developers to kind of learn more about the development side of the business.

00:29:49:23 - 00:30:11:10
Tim O'Brien: I can teach them the operations side, but I really love for him to learn more about the development side, which I haven't had a lot of experience in, but the succession planning, you know, they'd say it takes about 5 to 7 years, and that's kind of the path we're on. And, you know, it'd be a lot easier if I, if I just said, hey, I'll just sell, you know, or, or do an escape.

00:30:11:10 - 00:30:27:12
Tim O'Brien: But that's not what we want to do. So we want to make sure in our leadership team is involved in that too. We want them involved in it. We have a couple of our leadership team members that are minority owners in the company, and so we want to make sure that they're involved in the process, too. But it's it's exciting.

00:30:27:12 - 00:30:52:08
Tim O'Brien: And but at the same time, it's it's work. And so we got to engage, you know, all of our different unique specialties like our tax advisor, financial planner, attorney, estate planner, all of those different players come in and, you know, we have one kind of general person that helps us make sure that we're asking the right questions and keep moving the ball forward as we can.

00:30:52:08 - 00:31:13:05
Tim O'Brien: But it takes time. It takes time. And he's excited about it and I think the team is embracing him. That was the other part of it is, is is, you know, he's spent he's been with us now full time for let's see what it is. He graduated so six years full time with us. But he had been working summers since he was 14 years old with the group.

00:31:13:05 - 00:31:31:12
Tim O'Brien: So he's you know, he's got that trust and respect from the team. That doesn't come from saying I'm the sons or the son of the owner. It's his work ethic, right? His work ethic, his contribution, which has helped him gain that, gain that trust.

00:31:31:15 - 00:31:55:10
Mike Collignon: And I've got the chance to meet him at an event. And so I can I can let our audience know that the the company is going to be in good hands. The thank you. It was it was it was great to meet him and great to talk with him. And I could just I could see that he had a similar yearning for education, for information and, and a passion for it.

00:31:55:10 - 00:31:57:26
Mike Collignon: So you should be you should be proud to.

00:31:57:27 - 00:31:58:19
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. Thanks, Mike.

00:31:58:20 - 00:32:35:12
Mike Collignon: Appreciate it. I want to go back to one other thing, too, and that is your involvement, not just in the builder 20 club, but also in different organizations. You've served on the boards of NB that was Builders Association, eBay, Green Builder Coalition, which is my organization. You've taken some advocacy stances, though, that weren't all too popular with some of those organizations in that list, and I imagine there was probably a certain amount of risk in sticking your neck out there and speaking out.

00:32:35:12 - 00:32:39:03
Mike Collignon: But why did you feel so compelled to do so?

00:32:39:06 - 00:33:13:20
Tim O'Brien: Well, you know, one thing is our state is on the still on the 2009 IEC International Energy Code. And, and I think we're one of the few states that is that is that low in terms of the code. I feel that there's there's things that we can we should be as an industry promoting, building a better home. And although I am I am not an advocate for legislative and government control and regulation in the business.

00:33:13:20 - 00:33:38:23
Tim O'Brien: I feel, however, there are some certain elements of it specifically building better energy efficient homes, which are going to help us not only build a better home, but also help us preserve, you know, get off of of a lot of the carbon based fuels that we've been using in homes and such. And so I, I want to see us get better as an industry.

00:33:38:23 - 00:34:03:22
Tim O'Brien: I don't feel when you look at all of the other industries and manufacturers out there embracing a lot of technology and productivity measures and trying to build, let's say, more fuel efficient cars and things like that. Our industry is historically it's nothing new, but historically has always been behind on that part of the curve. And I and I would hate to see us get further behind.

00:34:03:23 - 00:34:31:11
Tim O'Brien: So I understand the position sometimes of Nabi and the local bas of, you know, forcing, trying to reduce the amount of regulation. I get that, but there's certain elements of it that I think just build a better home. There are certain elements that I agree that maybe don't have place in our industry, but when it comes to the energy efficiency component of it, those are not really hard things to do.

00:34:31:11 - 00:34:50:23
Tim O'Brien: Those are things I feel we should do. So it is a delicate balance of of of saying, I know it can be better and I think we should move. You know, I'm on a committee right now with on the part of Safety and Professional Services, which is looking at the energy code. They want to take a significant jump.

00:34:50:24 - 00:35:10:20
Tim O'Brien: I think that would shock our system. But I think we do need to move up. And I think we need to move up to start to catch up. And so that's the position that I've been trying to, to push with, with our with our builders association and hoping they understand. But I also just believe in my heart that's just what we should be doing.

00:35:10:20 - 00:35:32:05
Tim O'Brien: We should be. We can be. I want to say should. We can be better at what we do without significant costs. Like I mentioned earlier on, it's just really knowledge and the best way to do it. But I also think it's on us as stewards of building a product that people are going that's going to be up for, you know, 7500 years.

00:35:32:08 - 00:35:56:28
Tim O'Brien: Build the right product. Now, it's not something that turns over quickly. It's not something that is. It's not a consumable. Right? It's something that's going to be there for a while, you know, so you don't build it as cheap as you can. There's there's a balance between the value base of what a customer is willing to pay and what is basically a good quality, high performance home.

00:35:56:28 - 00:36:05:08
Tim O'Brien: And it doesn't need to cost an arm and leg to do it. It's just us allowing ourselves to get better at what we do.

00:36:05:10 - 00:36:18:06
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Do you think sometimes builders get caught in a trap of thinking, I'm building this home for this person instead of this person, and the next and the next and then, like the future generations of people, too.

00:36:18:11 - 00:36:41:21
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. I think we sometimes get caught in that trap of we're living month to month in our building cycle, or year to year in our building cycle without thinking about the impacts of it and say, you know, 20, 40, 20, 50, 20, 60. You know, that's what I love about the Zero Energy Ready Home program. You know, you're building to a future code and that.

00:36:41:22 - 00:37:20:28
Tim O'Brien: So when you you know, as the house ages, you're getting there and it's ready to take that on which we all, I firmly believe are utility costs, especially electricity, are going to continue to grow at a much faster rate than what. Income levels will grow. And so we it's on us, I feel, to help mitigate that. What will be a much larger monthly expense for our consumers in the future, and for us to do a better job of building just a more energy efficient, more resilient home?

00:37:21:01 - 00:37:45:19
Tim O'Brien: That's the other part that's going to be a burden for the customer. Besides utility cost is the resiliency resiliency component of it. I don't think windows should be a consumable either. So, you know, good quality window versus what is the cheapest window you could buy. But anyways, back to your point. I think the code challenges us to get better, and the energy code specifically challenges us to get better.

00:37:45:23 - 00:37:54:26
Tim O'Brien: And I think that's a good thing, I really do. And again, our state being so far behind.

00:37:54:28 - 00:38:17:17
Tim O'Brien: Gosh, I'm almost, you know, almost kind of embarrassed by that. I mean, we should be able to build to at least a 2018 or 2021 code. Yeah. You know, and continue to move ourselves to catch up to your point. You know, nobody wants to be first, but everybody wants to be second. I get that. So somewhere in between.

00:38:17:18 - 00:38:24:11
Tim O'Brien: You know, 2024 and 2009, you know, we we need to get to and continue to kind of close that gap.

00:38:24:17 - 00:38:48:10
Mike Collignon: Yeah, yeah. And you're right. It's a shock to the system. If you take that enormous jump. And it to me is just my opinion that it speaks to the importance of incrementally continuing to update your code, as opposed to just forgetting about the code for a decade and then going, oh, we probably should update this because, yeah, that, that's that's a little bit of a tougher challenge.

00:38:48:10 - 00:39:03:11
Mike Collignon: And it doesn't allow, I think, the building industry to to make those incremental adjustments. It just makes them make a bunch of adjustments. And then they grumble because nobody really enjoys change a whole lot. And now you're asking them to change a whole lot of things all at once.

00:39:03:13 - 00:39:26:05
Tim O'Brien: Well, in some part, some of that. Mike, too, is not understanding how those new pieces of equipment or details interact together. Pieces and parts. So the cost there fear is the cost jumps significantly, but with with time they'll learn to do it better and that drops down. That's why I'm a proponent of stepping into it. Give them time to learn.

00:39:26:05 - 00:39:40:28
Tim O'Brien: Move to the next one. Not every three years, you know. Maybe it's every two years until we catch up. Maybe we skip, you know, 2012 and we go to 15 or we go or maybe we 15, maybe we go right to 18. We hang at 18 for a couple of years, you know, and then we moved to 21.

00:39:40:29 - 00:39:53:12
Tim O'Brien: Hang at 21 for a couple of years. You know, we don't have to wait every three years to move up. But how can we start to at least in Wisconsin and there's other states, but how can we start to kind of close that gap?

00:39:53:14 - 00:40:19:18
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, talk about resiliency. We talk about, you know, thinking about this long term. One of the things that your organization has done is worked with high school students. And you've done that for quite some time now. So talk to us a little bit about the, the programs that you're, you're helping the schools. You're helping with the number of graduates that have gone through your program.

00:40:19:21 - 00:40:31:13
Mike Collignon: Give us a little bit of insight into what all goes into that, because I think this is something that other builders need to hear about and potentially emulate.

00:40:31:15 - 00:40:53:02
Tim O'Brien: So we're going into I believe this is our 15th year doing the program, specifically with one high school, the other high schools. I want to say one is around eight years. We've been with them and other ones, the other ones are like six and four. But what and the one that we've been doing it the longest with, we just started doing two homes a year.

00:40:53:02 - 00:41:05:25
Tim O'Brien: So typically because of our climate, we would start in the fall and we would finish, you know, in the winter. So at least we get heat in the house before it starts to get really cold. And then the teacher said, well, I'd love to start one in the winter. And I'm like, the kids are going to be cold.

00:41:05:25 - 00:41:29:04
Tim O'Brien: And so he goes, I don't care. I'll make them hard, make them tough, right? So I'm like, okay, all right. And he goes, it'll give them a real experience. So so we just started this is our second year building a spring home with them. And the concept is is you know, they get in around foundation time. So we get the foundation in and then we'll find, you know that because that takes you know, it takes ten days to two weeks for that to cure.

00:41:29:04 - 00:41:52:25
Tim O'Brien: So there's downtime. We want to get them ready to start framing. We'll fall back to another foundation that's in place and they'll go see how that works. But really we're getting it ready to start framing. So they'll start framing in September. And in the fall they'll start in September. They'll it will usually finish around end of December. What we do is we we we want to make sure we give them the time to be involved in it.

00:41:52:27 - 00:42:12:10
Tim O'Brien: The home does go a little slower because they're involved. We don't stop it every day, but we kind of slow it down so they don't miss pieces. They come out every morning around. They start at like 730 and they finish around 1030 in the morning. The school gives them that time. Teacher is always out on site. That's a requirement of ours.

00:42:12:11 - 00:42:34:25
Tim O'Brien: The teacher is there when the kids show up, the teachers there and the teachers there until last kid leaves the populace or population, if you will. The students on site are about 12 to 15, no more than 15. And they are involved in, like I said, working with almost every single task. Drywall is a little different. That goes really fast.

00:42:34:25 - 00:43:09:07
Tim O'Brien: And so they'll be involved in some elements of that. But usually we let the drywall crew go in, knock it out, and they might get involved with some repairs later, but then they're touching everything. And and it's really what we hear from the parents is how engaged that their child is in this program. We invite the parents out at the pre drywall stage to kind of get them, because some of them have never been in a framed home before, with the seeing the walls and the mechanicals and all of that stuff and the kids going around and and talking about what they do.

00:43:09:08 - 00:43:30:06
Tim O'Brien: What's also been great is the school district comes out. So not only do we see the principal of the school, but we see members of the school district out people. It just everybody that's involved in school in addition to the parents. And sometimes we get grandparents and uncles and stuff that come out to because they want to see it, and the kids get a chance to show what they did.

00:43:30:08 - 00:43:53:08
Tim O'Brien: And so we give a kind of a brief overview of, of the teacher does of what the students are doing. We talk a little bit about the industry in general and the need for skilled trades. It's such a low barrier to entry to get into most of these skilled trades. Foundation and excavation are the exceptions. But you know, it's just a it's a it's a van or a truck and a few tools.

00:43:53:08 - 00:44:15:24
Tim O'Brien: And you can get started. We bring owners in from some of the companies that talk about, you know, them starting with, with a hammer in hand or pulling wire in a house or sweating. Well, they don't sweat pipe anymore. But you know, that's what that's what they did back then and then and then talk about like how they did that for, you know, whatever, three, five, 6 or 7 years.

00:44:15:24 - 00:44:34:18
Tim O'Brien: And then they started, they went out on their own. And what also was kind of really cool about this is we have a couple of those that started early on in the program, like ten or more years ago, that actually do own their own business. And they say, I was doing the same thing you did ten years ago, and now I own my own business, and those are paths.

00:44:34:18 - 00:44:56:12
Tim O'Brien: So we talk about not only the great American Dream is home ownership, but it's only in your own business. And so we get that message out to the parents so they can see that there's something beyond, you know, working at an hourly job or having to go to college or what have you. You can actually own your own business at some point in this industry and how much demand there is for the skilled trades.

00:44:56:12 - 00:45:19:15
Tim O'Brien: So that's really what we focus on, trying to get the message out. Our trade partners get, you know, usually a typical class might produce anywhere from it could be three. It could be seven students that actually come out and go into some specific element of the trade, whether it's through apprenticeship program, whether it's working with one of our framers, roofer siders, things like that.

00:45:19:15 - 00:45:41:18
Tim O'Brien: Trim carpenters. We see a lot of them. They want the structure. So they go for the plumbing, HVAC and and electrical because they have good apprenticeship programs. But every every class yields some kind of students that are going into the skilled trades. But even if they don't go into the skilled trades, Mike, they learn a valuable life skill.

00:45:41:20 - 00:46:02:09
Tim O'Brien: And that is how to take care of your home and to know when something does come up in your home, you have some kind of idea. You may not be able to fix it, but you have some kind of idea of what might be going on. And that being one of the largest investments that most people in our life will ever have, that is a valuable life skill.

00:46:02:16 - 00:46:06:19
Tim O'Brien: So those are some of the elements that kind of come out of it.

00:46:06:21 - 00:46:18:09
Mike Collignon: Do you, do you? Is that kind of the biggest takeaway that you hope they come out of your program with is just that kind of general like knowledge, whether they go into the trades or not, that they at least have an understanding.

00:46:18:11 - 00:46:54:15
Tim O'Brien: I think the goal really is to show them that there's something more beyond what they might have thought they could do, or what their parents thought they could do, that there's demand for this types of skilled trades in it's in its and you're changing people's lives. I mean we talk to them about, you know, how some of the students and some of the sometimes we'll get some of the students that come back that built a home three years ago and like, drive through the neighborhood of the home that they built and they see, you know, they see a family engaging and living at home.

00:46:54:15 - 00:47:21:23
Tim O'Brien: And they feel that pride of that. They were a part of that. They may not know the family, but they're contributing to somebody who's having experiences creating memories in a home that they had a hand in building and that level of pride and excitement. That feeling is something that's a lot harder for people to really understand. When you build a product and you don't see it, where you build a piece of a product and you don't see it, so there's that pride of ownership that comes from it too.

00:47:21:23 - 00:47:41:24
Tim O'Brien: But at the at the least, if what they take away is that life skill, that's awesome. That's incredible. Ideally, we'd love to see them go into the skilled trades. And and I would say, you know Mike, of that 3 to 7 they go into skilled trades. There might be 3 to 5 that are going to school for some kind of construction management program.

00:47:41:26 - 00:48:03:26
Tim O'Brien: So they might be coming back, you know, and being professionals in some building organization, ideally a residential building organization, but some kind of construction organization. So that's kind of the group. And then and so it's almost like a one third, one third, one third kind of component. Then the other third is really life skill. But but they this is a program that they actually have.

00:48:03:27 - 00:48:22:20
Tim O'Brien: It's not something you just enroll in. You have to go through three other or two other semesters of classes, and then you got to apply to get in this program. So it's not just wide open, it's really kind of dialing in to people that are really going to get the best the teacher believes are going to get the most out of it.

00:48:22:20 - 00:48:32:23
Tim O'Brien: This is something that this I could see, this kid, this child really engaging in this program and taking it past beyond just the completion of this home.

00:48:32:27 - 00:48:53:13
Mike Collignon: Right, right. And I think it's I think it's really smart on your part to, to have some of this alumni come back, right, to have that moment of inspiration of, hey, you know, this this person was just like me, but now they've made it and they're doing well. And that's just that's really cool. So I'm glad you do that too.

00:48:53:16 - 00:49:04:10
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. It's especially when you can bring back people that were in the program that now own their own business in the construction industry and say, hey, look, this is what I did. And they share their story. It's very powerful.

00:49:04:16 - 00:49:17:24
Mike Collignon: Yeah. So if if you were the grand ruler of the homebuilding world for a day, what is the top thing that you would have every home builder do?

00:49:17:26 - 00:49:44:29
Tim O'Brien: Oh, let's see. You know, I think growing leaders is an important element of what we do as as an operation. I love to see us get more involved in learning how to be better, but getting our teams involved in the education component of how to be a better home builder. I'm not the one that goes to all these conferences.

00:49:44:29 - 00:50:09:21
Tim O'Brien: I want to send a bunch of our team that's engaged and interested in it, because I want them to learn they're going to see other things that I don't see, and they're also going to be the ones that are going to be applying it and bringing it back and executing it. So I think, you know, what I'd love to see is just more engagement, whether it's through eBay, which is a wonderful organization, especially for learning about building high performance homes.

00:50:09:22 - 00:50:36:26
Tim O'Brien: You know, I get some I get something out of each one of those organizations. Builder 20 I get operational excellence and understanding of financials and just basic business practices. But, you know, I learned more about how to build a better high performance home. There's such great information that you can get from from those groups. So, you know, I think us getting more of our team involved in that helps to promote more of, especially on eBay side.

00:50:36:26 - 00:51:11:08
Tim O'Brien: And with Green Builder Coalition and everything that Sara Guttman does, you know, that helps that movement to to get that message out more. So I'd love to see, you know, more, more participation builders, sending more people to these types of events that can then bring that information back into their organization. I want to say it's like a grassroots effort, but it's not far from that that you get them excited about it and and they come back into your operation and give you some ideas that you could try and test out.

00:51:11:08 - 00:51:33:18
Tim O'Brien: I think the other part of it is just try something different, you know, find find somebody that can help you get better at what you do and share that. You know, the other thing I said this to you before, once before, is I'd love to see everybody just try a blower door test once on your house. Just really get a feel for like, where am I at?

00:51:33:24 - 00:52:02:14
Tim O'Brien: How do I measure up against a standard? Just try it once. It's so enlightening. You might say, oh my gosh, I never realized that my air exchanges per hour are like six, which is crazy, right? Our code is seven changes per hour. I'm like, oh, you know, we're averaging we're averaging anywhere between 1 and 1.3, 1.4. And you know, code is seven.

00:52:02:14 - 00:52:30:13
Tim O'Brien: I'm just like whoa. So it's like understanding. Do you know really how your home performs? Like, you know, do an infrared scan, have somebody test all your HVAC ducts. There's a lot you can learn and there's just little things that could come out of that. So I don't know, I think opening our eyes to to other things that are possibilities for us to improve our product, get out, get the rest of our team involved in learning more about how to become a better builder.

00:52:30:15 - 00:52:48:27
Mike Collignon: And I would second that, just because experimentation is not always found in the building industry, you find this, you know? Well, my grandfather did it this way. My father did it this way. I'm doing it this way rather than, oh yeah, I'm just going to be a mad scientist on the building site.

00:52:48:29 - 00:53:09:08
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. Gosh, I remember that when I first started out, I had a flooring guy that says, well, this is the way I've always installed it. I'm like, I pull out the installation instructions for the material and I'm like, but this is what it says. You need to install it again. Remember Albert Einstein, the questions don't change, the answers do.

00:53:09:11 - 00:53:27:05
Tim O'Brien: How do I install this? Well, different than what you installed it, you know, five years ago. Right. And so that that that element. Yeah. That always the worst, the worst phrase. This is how we've always done it. Don't. The other one I love is don't don't don't fix it if it's not broke.

00:53:27:08 - 00:53:29:09
Mike Collignon: Right.

00:53:29:11 - 00:53:38:10
Tim O'Brien: And how do you know it's not broken. It could have been broken all the time. And it's just something you just keep doing. It's like, oh, it's okay. It works.

00:53:38:12 - 00:53:39:28
Mike Collignon: Yeah. I thought this was normal.

00:53:40:05 - 00:53:46:11
Tim O'Brien: Yeah, right. We expect these problems in warranty.

00:53:46:13 - 00:53:57:24
Mike Collignon: Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It's always a pleasure talking with you. And I always come away with with a smile on my face and a smile in my heart.

00:53:57:26 - 00:54:20:12
Tim O'Brien: I had fun. Mike, thank you so much. This is wonderful and I appreciate everything that that Green Builder Media is doing and Green Builder Coalition is doing to help really kind of move our industry into some new space that helps us build better homes and reduces a lot of the harmful things that our industry unknowingly sometimes can do.

00:54:20:12 - 00:54:23:20
Tim O'Brien: So I really appreciate what you guys do to create that awareness.

00:54:23:23 - 00:54:35:18
Mike Collignon: Thank you sir, and thank you for just being a leading example for others to follow. And hopefully you all out there listening to this, really look into what Tim O'Brien homes is doing because it's it's exceptional.

00:54:35:19 - 00:54:38:03
Tim O'Brien: So thanks, Mike.

00:54:38:06 - 00:54:45:20
Mike Collignon: Stay tuned for more episodes on the Impact Series podcast on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm Mike Collignon and I'll see you again soon.

00:54:45:27 - 00:54:57:03
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