Recruiting talent is only the beginning. The long-term strength of your company depends on how well you develop that talent into people who can see beyond today’s punch list. With 25 years of experience and a successful transition from nail bags and jobsites to an office and spreadsheets, Ian examines the stages of a tradesperson’s growth—from learning the craft to influencing financial outcomes—and describes how business literacy changes that trajectory. When owners connect mentorship with financial clarity, they build companies where improvement compounds and leadership becomes part of the culture.

Building science shows up on your jobsites whether you recognize it or not. It affects durability, comfort, callbacks, and your bottom line. This session breaks down the fundamentals of building science—from its roots to the basic physics that drive heat, air, and moisture movement. The goal isn’t to turn you into a scientist. It’s to add building science to your toolbelt so you can make smarter decisions in the field and move beyond being told what to do and instead decide what’s best for your project.

When it comes to custom home building, it’s sometimes easier to talk about things like budgets, timelines, service, and quality than it is to meet them. In the last three years, A&A Building and Remodeling has grown their window and door installation division at a dizzying rate. Last year alone, the company completed 264 projects. This year they are on pace to do more. All those projects required trained crews with specialized skills, capable of scheduling jobs, organizing materials and jobsites, and managing customers’ expectations. It’s only possible with a team that works together seamlessly for one common goal: To keep quality high when the volume of work is also high. This session will walk through how A&A Building and Remodeling balances crews, coordination, and customer expectations to keep quality high at scale.

A carpenter with a passion for old homes started a remodeling business… and no, that’s not the setup for a joke. But if it were, the punchline would be this: He now runs a successful company solely focused on restoring, replicating, and building windows and doors for historic homes. Clearly, he did something right—let’s see if we can figure out what that was.

Join us for a special happy hour sponsored by Andersen Windows & Doors.

ICON has made headlines in recent years for its novel robotic construction technology and its contract with NASA. At the same time, the cost and complexity of building have surged, driven by labor constraints, material volatility, and schedule risk. That’s why ICON is focused on advancing 3D-printing construction methods that can make building more efficient and more cost-effective. Here’s a look at why the company is betting on robotic printing technology as one solution to reducing construction costs and improving quality and speed, how it works, some of the successes, and the challenges we still face.

We live in a time of lightning-fast innovation in technology, and we can see its impact on our homes, in the evolution of building materials, “smart home” technologies, and more. And yet, both the wide adoption of building-science backed best practices in residential construction and a greater understanding the impact of our work on our climate often point us towards solutions that have long been right under our noses. Here’s a look at how the work we do at New Frameworks, combining a modern, systems-based approach to design and construction with natural materials like straw and clay and even innovative practices like prefabricated wall panels and wood fiber insulation, connects to broader movements in the industry to deliver climate-responsible and responsive healthy homes, equitable housing solutions, and other goals that I think we can all agree are noble, if not imperative.

Why does our master electrician help frame walls? In most construction companies, that would be a problem. In ours, it’s the point. Simple Integrity is a small builder based in Cooperstown, N.Y. On the surface, it looks pretty typical—we build a handful of homes, take on remodels, and occasionally tackle larger projects. But how we operate behind the scenes is completely different. With the exception of excavation, we self-perform everything. That means our electrician, our HVAC tech, and our carpenters all work across roles—framing, drywall, and whatever else the project needs. It sounds inefficient, and it’s unconventional. But it’s actually the reason we can deliver extremely high-performance, high-quality buildings on time with high client satisfaction. This session dives into what makes the company work and what strategies might carry over to your business.