As Research Director at BuildingGreen, I dabble in - or dive headlong into - a wide range of BuildingGreen internal and collaborative projects, and am part of the team working to make the GreenSpec product directory as robust as possible. I have every intention of making my bio personalized, but there are too many other fun things to do than talk about myself – so in the mean time:

Through her work with BuildingGreen, Toxics Use Reduction Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Demand Management Institute, Jennifer has conducted research and analysis in a variety of sustainability topics including green building, commercial and industrial energy efficiency, electronics recycling, and the economics of toxics use reduction. Her activities at BuildingGreen include providing technical and research support for GreenSpec, EBN, and other BuildingGreen activities, as well as collaborating on projects such as the ASID/USGBC ReGreen Guidelines and a policy white paper for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. A primary focus of hers has been developing and clarifying standards to assess the environmental sustainability of products, processes, and organizations. To this end, her activities at BuildingGreen include researching and updating product criteria for GreenSpec, and providing technical support to the Construction Specification Institute (CSI) on GreenFormat. Jennifer has a dual MS from MIT in Technology Policy and Material Science & Engineering, and a BS in Environmental Science from Brown University.

Peter Yost is the Residential Program Manager for BuildingGreen, LLC in Brattleboro, Vermont. He has been building, researching, teaching, writing, and consulting on high performance homes for more than twenty years. His expertise stretches from construction waste management and advanced framing to energy efficiency and building durability. 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 Living program, USGBC's LEED for Homes program, and the US Department of Energy's Building America program. Peter is currently an instructor for the Boston Architectural College's Sustainable Design Certificate program and for the University of Massachusetts Department of Building Materials and Wood Technology program in Amherst. He is a past co-chair and current Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Steering Committee member of the USGBC's LEED for Homes program.

I am the Product Editor here at BuildingGreen. Along with a several team members I help select products and write listings for our GreenSpec guide. I also write an occasional product review for Environmental Building News and for GreenSource. I came to BuildingGreen last October from Green Builder magazine, where I was a feature writer and associate editor. My background is eclectic, or transient, depending on your point of view. I grew up in a city consumed by a Stockholm syndrome-like attachment to our home industry — one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Personally, I never identified with dioxin production, so after graduation from high school I traveled to New Mexico and spent a month with Outward Bound hiking, climbing, and whitewater rafting in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside Taos. The experience opened my eyes, and that fall I moved to the sparsely populated shore of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I received a BA in psychology and an MA in English/composition from Northern Michigan University and became an avid, and sometimes rabid, runner and Nordic skier. I have traveled and worn a lot of hats since then, including working as a freelance writer, kitchen manager, and trim carpenter. I spent years trail running in the mountains outside Boulder Colorado, where as a carpenter I was exposed to the best and worst the building industry has to offer. My love of the outdoors and belief in leading a healthy, simple life with minimal impact give me a sense of continuity with my past and future, but I feel fortunate to be grounded by my wife and family and by the ideals of the dedicated, intelligent, and conscientious crew here at BuildingGreen.

As the Associate Products Editor for GreenSpec, our database of environmentally preferable building products, I've had a chance to dabble in just about every category of building product that's out there. My interest in green building started in high school and college, helping to build houses with my father's design/build business. Tight, high R-value building envelopes and attention to solar orientation along with reduced material use just seemed logical, especially on the tail-end of the 1970's energy crunch. I learned a great deal about "efficient living" during my two years of working in Germany, a country where efficiency is not only a necessity, it is considered cool. A B.A. in Economics from Bates College, a Master's Degree in Resource Management from Antioch New England Graduate School and years of experience on planning boards, conservation commissions, conservation groups, and steering committees frame my efforts to help others build a better building beginning with site selection and ending with healthy, sustainable interiors.

I am the manager of the High Performance Building Database, as well as the manager of network (firm-wide and college/university) sales of BuildingGreen Suite.

As manager of the High Performance Building Database (HPB) I get to work with all kinds of fun people on projects such as the HPB Google Earth Layer and the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards.

I graduated from Union College in 2004 with a dual degree in Electrical Engineering and French. Shortly thereafter I headed to Portland, Oregon with my girlfriend Lauren and the noble but not-so-specific goal of "working on environmental sustainability". While Portland lived up to its reputation as a hotbed for young, active and green minded people, we moved back east after failing to find our niche in what proved to be a competitive or lackluster job market. Upon arriving at BuildingGreen shortly thereafter, I began working as a sales and marketing intern.

Over the last couple years I have been able to narrow my interests to building science, material science, urban design... Who am I kidding? I am still interested in almost anything related to environmental design, nature, sustainable communities, etc. When not trying to change and inform the world through the wonders of BuildingGreen, you can find me telemark skiing, rock climbing, practicing yoga, hiking, drinking beer, and eating cheese.

As managing editor for BuildingGreen, I run our efforts, through Environmental Building News, to monitor key news and product developments in the green building industry and bring them to you, our readers, in a thorough and engaging way.

In the last year I've written feature articles for EBN like "Cradle to Cradle Certification: A Peek Inside MBDC's Black Box," "Historic Preservation and Green Building: A Lasting Relationship," and "Antimicrobial Chemicals in Buildings: Hygiene or Harm?"; investigative news articles like "Appraising Green in Vancouver" and "Enertia Double-Envelope Home Still Has Problems"; as well as perspectives like "When Is it Greener to Build?"

My life in green building dates back to a high school reading of "Walden Two," by B.F. Skinner. Never mind the specifics of the book—at the time I found the positive vision for creating vibrant communities to be a revelation. I am fascinated not only by healthy and environmentally sound approaches to construction but also the fostering of healthy communities.

By the way, my byline changed in September following my marriage—my new name, Korthals Altes, is from my Dutch ancestry. If you're wondering why I left behind an easy Anglo-Saxon name like Roberts, you can put two and two together if you know that my wife's name is Julia.

As Director of Online Services at BuildingGreen, Inc., Jim Newman has led the design and development of the BuildingGreen Suite of online tools from BuildingGreen, Inc.—the well regarded publishers of Environmental Building News and the GreenSpec product directory. As part of this work, Mr. Newman has spent several years researching how architecture, engineering, and construction firms integrate sustainable design into their firms' practice. The initial results of this research were published in Environmental Building News, in May of 2004, under the title "Greening Your Firm: Building Sustainable Design Capabilities." Jim Has a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design (Architectural Design) from MIT, and a Masters of Management Science from Lehigh University. In and around those degrees, Jim ran a design/build company in the Boston area, and participated in six software and web start-ups.

I am vice president of BuildingGreen, Inc., editor of Environmental Building News, and coeditor of the GreenSpec product directory. I also work with McGraw-Hill Construction on GreenSource magazine, which has earned me a spot on the masthead as executive editor. For the past 5 years I've chaired the Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR-TAG) for the LEED Rating System. I'm a LEED Faculty Member, which means that I get tapped to lead workshops on LEED (mostly LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations — LEED-NC — but occasionally others). Back in the 1990s I was a principal author of the Applications Reports for the AIA's Environmental Resource Guide that compares the environmental value of different building materials in various applications. I do some consulting and lecturing on sustainable design, with a particular focus on green materials. In addition to running LEED training workshops, I've taught seminars for various USGBC chapters, CSI chapters, state AIA chapters, and private architecture firms. I also serve on the U.S. team for Green Building Challenge, oversee BuildingGreen's management of the U.S. Department of Energy's High Performance Buildings Database project, and generally lead the content development team for Web and software resources at BuildingGreen.com.

Alex Wilson is the Executive Editor of Environmental Building News. For more than 25 years Alex has written about energy-efficient and environmentally responsible design and construction. Prior to starting his own company in 1985 (now BuildingGreen, Inc.), he was executive director of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association for five years; before that he taught workshops on the construction of solar greenhouses in New Mexico in the late '70s. Alex is author of Your Green Home (New Society Publishers, 2006) and coauthor of the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings (ACEEE, 8th edition, 2003) and the Rocky Mountain Institute's comprehensive textbook Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate (John Wiley & Sons, 1998). He has also written hundreds of articles for other publications, including Fine Homebuilding, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, the Journal of Light Construction, and Popular Science. Along with writing about design and construction, Alex has written four guidebooks on quiet-water paddling published by the Appalachian Mountain Club—covering all of New England and New York State. (You can order Alex's books online.) Alex served on the board of directors of the U.S. Green Building Council for five years and he is currently a trustee of The Nature Conservancy - Vermont Chapter.

I am an associate editor here at BuildingGreen, which means that I contribute to and edit Environmental Building News, edit case studies for our High Performance Buildings Database, and work on other projects as they come along. I also receive, organize, and catalog all of the books that come through the door, and review a good chunk of them for the newsletter and our online bibliography.

Unlike others in the company, I haven't been in the green building world all that long. Before I was here, I was pursuing a doctorate in American literature, and before that, I was a roustabout with a small circus for a couple of summers.

So how does a gal with a love of literature end up discussing articles on waterless urinals at editorial meetings? I blame Google. A desire to leave graduate school, move back to Vermont, and have a job that involved writing led to an internship BuildingGreen, thanks to the search engine. The internship led to a full-time job, and here I am, still loving it!

When I'm not working, I can usually be found fixing up the 1870 house I just bought with my husband, growing vegetables with varying degrees of success, cooking said vegetables, and all manner of fiber arts. I read a lot, mostly 20th century American fiction and books related to work. Oh, yes, and I'm hoping to build a trapeze in my barn.