David Grubb owns Berkeley, Calif.-based David Construction, a remodeling firm with annual volume of approximately $500,000. He also is on the board of education of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of NARI. HousingZone.com managing editor Erik Gabrielson talks with Grubb about the chapter's Certified Green Building Professional course, the first remodeler-specific program in the nation to teach about green building methods and materials.

HousingZone: What was your involvement in developing the Certified Green Building Professional course?

Grubb: About seven or eight years ago, a voter initiative created the Alameda County Waste Management Authority. Their mandate was to reduce debris going into the landfill. To fund that, voters put a tipping fee on every ton dumped at the landfill. The fee right now is about $57 per ton, and $7 goes to the Alameda County Waste Management Authority to promote recycling.

The authority has started a number of programs over the years in the county, and in this process they discovered that a quarter or more of debris going into the landfill was coming from contractors.

They wanted a program to address this, so they came to NARI and wanted to put together an educational program, and we agreed. So we put the CGBP class together and decided it had to encompass more than just recycling and reusing materials, so we decided to do the whole green package together. We brought in consultants and experts and put together a curriculum, a binder and a host of speakers and started running the class. We've run three classes, we have one in January in Marin County, and we're coming back to Berkeley in March. The first class was in February 2003, and the class was in development for about a year.

HousingZone: Who recognizes the certification, and how many people hold the designation?

Grubb: SFBA NARI recognizes certification, and about 50 people are currently certified.

HousingZone: Can any licensed California contractor take the course and get the certification?

Grubb: We let anybody take the class; we just won't certify them unless they're a licensed builder or contractor in California. Part of that is because we do a lot of advertising on their behalf after they pass the class. They are posted on the SFBA NARI Web site, and they are posted in a resource pamphlet printed by the county, and we can't do that unless they're licensed. We don't want to put someone out there to the general public who's not licensed.

HousingZone: Is there a recertification period once somebody takes the course?

Grubb: The certification is good for two years. Without a whole lot of prodding, graduates of the course started getting together to talk about innovations in green building and to continue their education. That group is starting to formally organize, and continuing education will be to attend three of these meetings a year to stay current on what's new in green building.

HousingZone: Why do you think this the only green building program for remodelers in the nation?

Grubb: Green building has been focused on big commercial buildings. You can get LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] certification on giant projects. The U.S. Green Building Council has been around for a long time, and they're very organized and have a great structure in place. But they don't focus on residential, so it's been missed. They're starting to focus on big residential developments, but remodelers have been completely missed.

HousingZone: Is NARI watching your local chapter to see how well the course is working, and are there plans to roll it out nationwide?

Grubb: We designed the program with an eye toward taking it nationwide. We're going to a different county, so that's a good way to figure out if it works in a different place. So that's on the boards, and nationwide we have put together a development committee, so it's in the works. It may be a ways off, but it's in the works.

HousingZone: Have you seen a great demand for building professionals with green building certification?

Grubb: I talked today to my cabinet guy, who went through the class, and since taking the class, he has connected with a lot of other general contractors who have an interest in this, and he is booked. He can't do little projects anymore. He's taking only large kitchen jobs, he said, as a result of just filling the niche. A couple of other general contractors have billed themselves as green, the word is out, and they're in high demand. People want to do this.

HousingZone: Why do you think it's valuable for remodelers to be certified? It sounds like it can help their business from the stories you have heard, but what about the skills they will acquire by taking a certification class?

Grubb: A lot of this focuses on the basics, and it's great to look at the basics from a whole-house design -- if you change one thing, how it might affect five or six other things in the house. When you're focused on just the one thing, you might not think of the other things.

So whether you're into green or not, it makes a lot of sense from a business aspect to not get yourself in trouble. For example, people using some of the new products out there without understanding what they do and how they're supposed to be used and what the ramifications are.

HousingZone: Have you always been involved in green building?

Grubb: No, I was on a framing crew building condominiums and moved into high-end residential. I was just like any other contractor and came about the trade with a fairly typical training. Green building was a result of working with materials that I intuitively knew weren't good for me. Reading some articles about the carcinogens in pressure-treated wood made me think, "Does this make sense to sell this, and what's a different alternative?" So it evolved, but I haven't always had this bent. It's been fairly recent -- in the last few years, essentially.

HousingZone: Have you seen increased demand for your services because you're certified in green building?

Grubb: It's hard to say. A lot of my business now is repeat and referral business. Some of my clients don't even know we're a green operation. I haven't had to sell a project that way because they're taking me on for other reasons. But it does not hurt. Once you get into a project, it often gets bigger and more comprehensive. For example, if you look at a house and suggest that someone has a really good layout for solar panels on their roof, and you're adding a bigger electrical load with new lights, they might consider it.

So it's led to a lot more business that way because we're looking at projects from a green approach.

HousingZone: Do you find that consumers are more knowledgeable about green building techniques and products these days?

Grubb: They are definitely more knowledgeable. It's becoming more mainstream, and consumers are driving a lot of contractors to take this class. Consumers are demanding it and asking the tough questions to the contractors, who are scrambling to find the answers.

HousingZone: Have you found that you can charge a premium for your services after completing this training?

Grubb: I'm a small business, so it's hard to quantify that. But I definitely think there's a perceived value from my clients, and there's a comfort level on my side being much more knowledgeable about this. So more business comes through the door, more business gets sent quicker and better and faster. It definitely means it's more profitable. There are certain pockets of the country where people are more inclined to green building. A lot of clients could drive any car they wanted, and they're choosing Toyota Priuses. You go into the grocery store now, and the organic food section is bigger than the regular food section. It's along those same principles. The consumer is just taking it into remodeling now.

HousingZone: The San Francisco area seems like an ideal place for this program to start because the consumers seem to embrace the idea of green building. Is that true?

Grubb: There are definitely pockets -- Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; and the Boston area -- where this is catching on. But I would say that if you walked into any house in the country and you talked to the homeowner and said, "Would you like the air in your house to be cleaner?" they're going to say yes. They're not going to call it green building, but they're going to say, "Of course." So I think it works everywhere.

HousingZone: What kind of topics do you cover in the marketing aspect of the course?

Grubb: One thing we talk about is how to do pricing. We talk about being able to explain green building to consumers, that it really doesn't cost a whole lot more, that over time it's a lot cheaper to do a lot of these practices because they last longer, your maintenance costs go down, your energy costs go down and that kind of thing. So a lot of it is how to talk to clients about the benefits of green building.

HousingZone: And you also said that people who get certified get free advertising.

Grubb: Right. We post all the names on the SFBA NARI Web site. That's linked to Alameda County's Web site, and several other Web sites are now linking to our list of certified contractors. There's also a resource guide from the county that lists certified contractors in hard print. The other benefit is that once you're certified, you get to become a green guild member -- the graduates who are now meeting once per month -- so you get continuing education as well.