Pivot + Growth = PIVOTH: Talking Rainscreen with Steven Gaynor
With Steven Gaynor, linkedin.com/in/stevenedwardgaynor
https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=15599498
This episode, we talk to Steven Gaynor, our rainscreen expert, and advocate. We talk to him about his company, rainscreens and more.
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues, and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk about rainscreens with Steven Gaynor, owner of Pivoth.
All about Steven (and Pivoth)
Steven Gaynor is our rainscreen expert and advocate. He recently started a new company called Pybus, who, through their manufacturer partnership program, helps companies with new or existing products evaluate their product offerings, route to market, sales strategy, and positioning.
According to Steven, the biggest challenge is to help manufacturers define what their needs are. A lot of his clients are new or growing in the industry and they want to bring on someone with expert knowledge but they don’t know how to prepare or they don’t want to make the investment right up front: That’s where Steven comes in.
Tim asks how someone like Steven can navigate competitive relationships in a dignified way. Steven acknowledges that it can be a challenge, but for the most part, companies bring them on to solve a particular problem, and then he goes away. Sometimes they bring him back to solve another problem, but he’s not a permanent partner, so most of his work is tactical and not a competitor relationship problem.
Steven learned a lot of his technical knowledge when he was a project manager with Trespa, where he helped them with some compliance issues and then ICC CES. This experience lets him help current manufacturer clients with their process certifications, which is a great niche knowledge place to be. It helps manufacturers remove this tedious, difficult work from their employees, freeing them up to do the sales and product work they need to be focusing on.
Tim asks what are the biggest pains that Steven sees his client feel most often. For new clients, it’s an understanding of the garments of the industry: there are a lot of different routes to get to the same players. For existing clients, it’s breaking down the barriers to get to the wall and understanding of their compliance position.
General contractors and architects don’t really understand compliance as well as the building product manufacturers do. And that’s become part of the American building culture: that the building product manufacturers are responsible for all of those things, not only compliance but the performance and how their product fits into a system.
Steven acts as a sort of mediator between the designer, architect, and specifier, and the manufacturer, to make sure everyone is meeting compliance requirements.
Education
Steven is of the opinion that paid education experience doesn’t matter as much as they cost. He completed his engineering degree and his MBA and he feels he paid more for the paper than anything else. Most of what he learned, he learned on the job. The reason he got into construction because he did not go to school for construction, is that he got an estimating assistant job with a waterproofing subcontractor.
They gave him a few projects to manage and on one of them, he got a call from a superintendent who was unhappy and left a voicemail. Steven immediately called back and found out it was a simple issue, but the fact that he called them back right away created a relationship. And he says that’s one of the keys to his success: always answering his phone, always trying to have the hard conversations because you have to understand the problem to get past it.
Mentor
One of Steven’s mentors is Don Heft at Eco Cladding, who was a technical manager at Trespa and hired Steven. They didn’t work together for long, but they’ve maintained their relationship and Don’s views of the construction process and players have really affected Steven and inspire him.
Rainscreens
Rainscreens are a holistic system that allows for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and more. It’s perfect for any facade. Steven agrees and has started an industry group, called RAiNA, around rainscreens because he feels they are so important.
A lof people think rain screens are just cladding, but really, it’s everything that makes up the rainscreen assembly: the cladding, the attachment components, the insulation to the membranes letter barriers, air barriers, and even becoming the sheathing.
All of those components’ performance depends on the performance of the other components. Even different installations and weather barriers, they rely on the performance of the system, even more, to do exactly what they’re designed to do.
Steven says, “Raina came together really to think of this as a system in a systematic approach and not necessarily take, you know, the weather barrier knowledge and become the weather barrier authority or the metal knowledge called the metal authority, but to work with those groups.”
They started with a founding membership of 67 companies in January 2020, including manufacturers of all the components of the rainscreen. They also have some testing agencies, some engineering firms, and some architectural representation. Subcommittees were created in May, including some performance committees and some sustainability committees.
It’s taken years of work to get this group started, but it’s been worth it. There’s a lot of motivated people in the industry, and things are progressing wonderfully.
If you want to get involved, email admin@rainscreenassociation.org to get the process started.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.
Sites Mentioned
Article on Building Enclosure Commission