Presenters
Tedd Benson, Benson Woodworking Company, Walpole,
NH
Founder and Principal
With four books and well over 500 timberframe structures to his credit, Tedd
Benson has played an important role in the resurgence of this centuries-old
form of construction in modern America. For nearly three decades, timberframers
throughout the country have relied on shopworn, dog-eared copies of his practical
how-to manual Building the Timber Frame House (Charles Scribner and Sons, 1980
and Simon and Schuster, 1995) to hone their craft and solve the sometimes complex
issues inherent in building with heavy timbers. Since then, he wrote two editions
of his second book,: The Timber-Frame Home: Design, Construction, Finishing
(1988 and 1997) and Timberframe: The Art and Craft of the Post and Beam Home
(1999), which have also become classic references.
Since 1974, when he founded Benson Woodworking Company (BWC), Tedd has been
both a student and teacher of timber home construction. As a founder of the
Timber Framers Guild of North America, he has spoken at numerous conferences,
conducted hands-on classes, and penned many articles extolling the virtues
of this venerable building technique. His reverence for the traditions of timberframing
has been coupled with a conviction that these buildings are well-suited to
meet the challenges and ever-changing technologies of modern homebuilding.
As an active proponent of Open-Building ideas, Tedd continues to champion
durability and adaptability in homebuilding. From the disentangled wiring,
HVAC, and plumbing systems running through dedicated chases to the pre-engineered
assemblies that seamlessly come together as finished custom structures, his
houses embody efficiency while anticipating the inevitable changes that a 500-year
home will undergo. With the BWC homebuilding division, Bensonwood Homes, he
has brought these ideas from the drawing-board to the proving-ground of the
construction site through a design-build system called Open-Built®. He
has also spearheaded a partnership with the MIT Open Source Building Alliance
to build a slate of demonstration building projects called the Open Prototype
Initiative. The first building is currently in use as a two-family home at
the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, NH; the second is
in the planning process and will be the President’s home for Unity College
in Unity, Maine.
Of all the things Tedd has been involved with building over the years, he
is proudest of BWC. It is an organization—an adventurous experiment in
itself—dedicated to creating an atmosphere in which fun and excellence
can thrive side by side.
When he’s not working on another book or riding a bike, Tedd lives with
his wife and partner Christine in an Open-Built home in Alstead, NH.
Robert Taylor, American Wood Council, Washington,
DC
Director, Technology Transfer
Dr. Taylor joined the AF&PA as Director, Technology Transfer, coming
from his former position as Professor of Structures at the School of Architecture,
Montana State University, Bozeman. He holds degrees from Ryerson Polytechnical
University, Queen's University, and the University of British Columbia,
Canada, majoring in structural/civil engineering and architecture. A licensed
professional engineer in his native Canada and former Chief Building Official,
he has accumulated over 30 years of experience in academia, industry, and
government in highway and building design, consulting, forensics, research,
teaching, and administrative capacities.
Robert is an award-winning well-known speaker, educator, and presenter of
wood design education topics to varied audiences and appears at many seminars
and Wood Solutions Fairs nationally every year. With assistance from AWC field
staff, Robert creates AWC's educational programs and scripts, as well as online
educational materials. Live contact seminars based on the programs are delivered
to design professionals and audiences nationally. In 2003, Robert and the AWC
field staff delivered over 81 seminars to over 12,000 enthusiastic participants
(24,000 contact hours) nationally, and this activity trend has continued at
this level in years since.
Robert has produced many writings and designed many small/medium scale building
projects in Canada, USA, Japan, and Korea. His passion for building design
has always been in developing innovative ways to use wood towards a holistic
design result both at the macro and micro scale. A family man, Robert enjoys
playing blues guitar with his sons.
The American Wood Council is the industry leader in development of standards
for wood design. Participants in this seminar will be able to comprehend
provisions of the 2005 NDS® , and the Wood Frame Construction Manual
2001 National Edition for wind, snow, and seismic applications. Attendees
will learn about lateral load behavior and structural response, and also
be able to apply building code and issues, connection design philosophies,
detailing, and code provisions.
Sam Francis, American Wood Council, Washington,
DC
Northeast Regional Senior Manager
Sam is a Senior Regional Manager with AF&PA (American Forest & Paper
Association) covering the northeastern United States. He is a CABO certified
building official, and has nearly 20 years of experience as a building
code official. He also served on the Ohio Construction Industry Certification
Board, and the National Construction Code Inspector Certification Program
Test Preparation committee.
Sam has also been very active with model code organizations. He has served
on various committees with BOCA, ICC and NFPA as well as several state committees
in the Northeast.
Internationally, he has been a member of the Technical Advisory Group representing
the United States to the International Standards Organization (ISO), most recently
in Kyoto, Japan. He was the U.S. representative to the Technical Committee
92, Subcommittee 4: Fire Safety Engineering.
He has taught extensively on subjects closely related to codes and code
development throughout the United States and Canada. He is the author of numerous
articles and publications on various building regulation subjects.
Peter Yost, BuildingGreen Inc., Brattleboro, VT and Adjunct
Professor, UMass Amherst
Peter Yost is the Residential Program Manager for BuildingGreen,
Inc. in Brattleboro, Vermont. He has been building, researching, teaching,
writing, and consulting on high performance homes for more than twenty years.
Peter has made significant contributions to the work of many leading homebuilding
organizations and initiatives—NAHB Researcher Center, Building Science
Corporation, 3-D Building Solutions, EEBA, Masco’s Environments for LivingSM
program, USGBC’s LEED for Homes program, and the US Department of Energy’s
Building America program.
Leander
Bathon, University of Applied Sciences,
Wiesbaden, Germany
Professor, Structural Engineer
After completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter (Zimmermann) in 1982
in Germany, Mr. Leander Bathon studied civil engineering at the Hochschule
Darmstadt in Germany. In 1990 and 1992 he received an M.Sc. and a Ph.D.
from Portland State University in Oregon in the field of structural engineering.
Between 1993 and 1995 he worked for HESS-Holzleimbau in Germany and was
involved in numerous glue-lam projects. In 1996 he was appointed as Professor
at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany.
He is a licensed expert witness in Germany (ö.b.u.v. Sachverständiger)
and a checking engineer (Prüfingenieur für Baustatik). He is
also associated with Werner Sobek Engineering & Design,
Frankfurt, New York and Moscow.
His research work has been in the filed of wood composites and wood-concrete-composite
solutions. He holds numerous patents in this field of expertise.
David Moses, Equilibrium Engineering, Vancouver,
Canada
Structural Engineer
David Moses is a structural engineer specializing in timber engineering.
David has a Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver. David joined Vancouver-based Equilibrium Consulting
in 1999 and moved to Toronto in 2004 to open the Toronto office for Equilibrium.
His work includes innovative commercial, residential and community-based
projects in Canada, the United States and parts of Asia. A growing number
of his projects involve green design, where timber is the material of choice.
Tim Svarczkopf, iLevel by Weyerhaeuser, WA
Commercial Sales
Tim Svarczkopf began his professional construction career in 1987 as a member
of a crew framing houses on Cape Cod. He then moved to Nantucket where he served
as a draftsman and construction supervisor for a small design-build firm. Eventually,
his interest in wood and carpentry spurred him to join the Building Materials
program at The University of Massachusetts in 1992. He earned a B.S. in Wood
Technology in 1994, and began a career in lumber sales working for Weyerhaeuser
Corporation. He served as the manager of the Engineered Wood Program at the
Weyerhaeuser distribution center in Ephrata, PA, for 7 years. In 2001, he began
his own construction firm. In 2003, Tim moved back to his native Massachusetts
and took a position with G.V. Moore Lumber Yards in Ayer, MA, as the Commercial
Sales Manager. In November of 2006, he returned to Weyerhaeuser as a Technical
Sales Representative for iLevel-Trus Joist Commercial.
Throughout his career,
Tim has followed his interest in the intersection of environmental issues and
construction. He has championed the use of wood in structural systems to support
the idea of sustainable construction through the use of renewable materials,
rather than steel and concrete, which require a significantly greater use of
energy in manufacturing and transportation.
Mark Collins,
iLevel by Weyerhaeuser, WA
Mark Collins began his career in the engineered lumber industry 20 years
ago after receiving a degree in Wood Science and Technology from the University
of Massachusetts in 1987. In his first position, he designed plated wood
floor and roof truss systems for a New England lumber company. In 1990
he joined Trus Joist Corporation where he starting designing floor systems
utilizing Trus Joists proprietary engineered lumber and open web trusses.
He got his first start in sales where he marketed and promoted engineered
lumber products in industrial applications including scaffold plank, concrete
forming applications, and millwork products. The last 10 years he has been
assisting builders, architects, engineers, and building officials on the
proper specification and use of engineered lumber in residential applications.
Alexander Schreyer, University of Massachusetts
Lecturer, Building Materials and Wood Technology and Architecture+Design
Combining backgrounds in structural engineering as well as wood science,
Mr. Schreyer's interests span the entire range of design, construction and
behavior of mainly heavy-timber type (e.g. glulam) structural systems. This
is complemented by a strong interest in computer applications for structural
engineering, construction and architecture.
In his research, he focuses on the behavior of wood-based structural systems
with a particular interest in innovative connection systems.
Another field of interest encompasses computer applications in design as well
as structural optimization.
Mr. Schreyer currently teaches classes at UMass in CAD (Computer-Aided Design),
wood properties as well as building materials and construction methods.
