Lisa Podesto

Regional Director of Preconstruction

Swinerton

Lisa Podesto offers 15+ years of leadership in developing, designing, and constructing projects using mass timber and offsite construction technologies. Utilizing a broad range of industry experience, she supports Swinerton’s project teams regionally to achieve cost and schedule efficiency in enabling the use of mass timber and expanding the market for more sustainable innovation.

As a recognized subject matter expert, Lisa is active on several industry and professional advisory boards supporting mass timber research and market development for organizations such as the Tallwood Design Institute (TDI), the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2012, Lisa began her contribution to the market development of mass timber as a co-author and peer reviewer for the United States Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) Handbook. Over a decade later, she continues to advance the cause—speaking and authoring papers on designing and constructing cost-efficient, high-performing, low-carbon buildings.

Lisa Rammig

Director

Eckersley O’Callaghan

Lisa leads Eckersley O’Callaghan’s West Coast offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She joined EOC in 2013 to support the practice’s emerging facade engineering group in London and after playing a significant role in the group’s exceptional growth, Lisa has been responsible for the expansion of EOC’s West Coast presence.

Lisa directs EOC’s R&D efforts, focusing on innovative glass designs and technology.

She remains heavily involved in academia particularly with the Facade Research Group at TU Delft where she pursued her doctoral research and has built strong links between research and industry.

Ethan Martin

Director of Projects

Generate

Ethan Martin, PE brings a wealth of engineering design experience to the team of developers, architects, and contractors. Having helped develop CLT in the US, Ethan assists general contractors with mass timber constructability and collaborates with architects on construction types and acoustics to create exciting projects for clients. Ethan collaborated with state officials in Oregon to set up the permitting process for tall mass timber buildings. This process developed the prototype buildings creating the Type IV-A, IV-B, and IV-C construction types, which allow for mass timber up to 18 stories. Driven to inform his team and professionals in the AEC industries, Ethan quickly becomes an asset to any multi-discipline project team looking for answers on proformas, construction types, constructability, supply chain, and product usage. He also co-founded the International Mass Timber Conference with Forest Business Network in Portland, now one of the leading mass timber conferences in the world.

Zach Pozner

Director of Architecture

Stanford University

Zachary Pozner is the Director of Architecture and a Campus Planner with Stanford University Land, Buildings and Real Estate. He oversees the long-range planning and design of a broad range of building types across all of Stanford’s lands. Believing that good ideas come from everyone, Zachary works collaboratively and closely with faculty, staff, and students to translate their values and aspirations into potent place-making programs that support and sustain group interaction and team-based learning. Leveraging Palo Alto’s wonderful climate and Stanford’s renown culture of interdisciplinary collaboration, he works closely with design and construction teams to create campus spaces that, beyond simply supporting the immediate building program, invite cross-pollination from the broader campus community.

Philip Tidwell

Assistant Professor of Architecture

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

Philip Tidwell is a registered architect in Finland and director of Peripheral Projects. He has practiced professionally in the offices of Juhani Pallasmaa, Agrest & Gandelsonas, and Perkins Eastman. As a designer and educator, Philip focuses on wood construction and emerging technologies in timber. His teaching and research examine the relationships among architectural form, constructive technique, and the agency of matter. For more than a decade, he served as studio coordinator for the Wood Program at Aalto University in Helsinki. From 2021 to 2023 he was an assistant professor of architecture at McGill University and he has served as a visiting professor at the Universities of Florida, Massachusetts, and Arkansas.

Together with Kristo Vesikansa and Laura Berger, Philip was curator of the Pavilion of Finland for the 2021 Venice Biennale of Architecture. The exhibition and book, New Standards, examines the industrialization of the wood industry in Finland during and after the Second World War. Philip’s research has been supported by grants and fellowships from numerous organizations including the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright program, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. His work and teaching have been recognized by The Architectural Review and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Chris Giovannielli

Global Director of Product Management

Kawneer

Chris Giovannielli is Director of Global Product Management for Kawneer, where he has been a leading contributor for more than 25 years. Chris directs product development, positioning and launch strategies across global markets with an emphasis on education and sustainability. His deep expertise on the benefit of Kawneer’s products in the educational setting and how they tie to sustainability in people’s daily lives is highly valued in the industry. He has been featured in Metropolis and Green Building and Design, and recently was the member spotlight for the Air Barrier Association of America. Chris earned his Executive MBA from University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business in 2021. (13) Christopher Giovannielli | LinkedIn

Justin W. Ridley

Building Envelope Specialist

YKK AP

Justin is a Building Envelope Specialist with YKK AP America. He is a graduate of Texas Tech University, College of Architecture with a B.S. in Architecture. Justin’s career covers over 18 years of experience within the Architectural, Engineering, Building Material Manufacturing & Distribution communities. Justin is also actively involved in community development & volunteering where he resides in San Francisco, CA (Russian Hill). He is also member of SF AIA, SF Heritage, Junior Giants Coach, and a volunteer at Saints Peter & Paul School in North Beach.

J-F Robert

President

RAICO North America

As a Professional Engineer and owner of Blackcomb Facade Technology, J-F Robert has focused his practice on significant curtainwall projects. His experience ranges from 60 story high rise, PHI certified commercial buildings, high end residences and complex freeform structures. Blackcomb Façade Technology is the exclusive fabrication partner for RAICO Bautechnik in the Pacific Northwest for all systems types including Timber, Steel and Aluminum.

Michelle Murray

Architectural Sales Representative

SAFTI First

Michelle Murray has over 15 years of experience in the architectural glazing industry. As the Architectural Sales Representative at SAFTI FIRST®, she brings her extensive knowledge and expertise of fire rated glazing systems and fenestration in general when working closely with architects, specifiers, glazing contractors and code officials. Michelle is a dynamic presenter and speaker who has been delivering our AIA-registered presentation to various architecture firms, AIA local chapters, CSI local chapters, and at other architectural and glazing industry events.

Michael Zanotelli

Facade & Curtain Wall Specialist – Western US & Canada

STI Specified Technologies

Michael has over 20 years of real-world experience on many of largest, high profile projects throughout the Western United States. Through his knowledge and expertise, Michael developed a solid reputation working closely with inspectors, glazing contractors, and curtain wall consultants as a trusted resource on a wide range of curtain wall projects.
Michael is committed to ensure your project stays on budget and gets done right the first time from conception to close out. Prior to his role as Façade and Curtain Wall Specialist for the Western US and Canada, Michael was the Western United States and Hawaii Regional Manager.

Luís Fernandes

Head of Building Technology

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dr. Luís Fernandes has over two decades of experience in researching, developing and demonstrating the energy and visual performance of daylighting and electric lighting technologies, using a variety of methods including computer simulation, optimization, laboratory tests and field demonstrations. Fernandes holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Building Systems Program of the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has authored 30 publications. Currently Department Head for the Building Technology Department in the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division.

David Brenner

Founder & CEO

Habitat Horticulture

Working at the intersection of horticulture, art and architecture, David has applied his passion for plants to a growing list of innovative projects, building a broad variety of modern, human-centric spaces with abundant plant life at their heart.

David is a pioneer in the field of vertical gardens. He holds a degree in Environmental Horticulture Sciences and Psychology from California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. He credits his time spent apprenticing at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, with setting him on the path to living wall design. It was at Kew that he came to appreciate the beauty of epiphytic plants—those which have naturally evolved to grow vertically on trees.

David sees his work as an integral part of a public shift in consciousness towards a renewed desire for closeness with nature and an appreciation of the restorative effect of plants, especially in urban environments. For David, creating living walls affords the chance not only to promote awareness of native and endangered plant species, but also to have a direct impact on quality of life.

David speaks on the benefit of living walls in urban architecture and his work has been featured in publications such as Fast Company, CBS, Wall StreetJournal, Dwell, Architectural Digest, The Los Angeles Times, Wired, Work Design Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, andSan Francisco Magazine. In 2019 he was honored to join the 2019 Class of the “Top 40 Under 40” by The San Francisco Business Times.