Tony Woods, BPI Board Member, Dies

Tony Woods, member of the Building Performance Institute (BPI) Board of Directors and founder of Canam Building Envelope Specialists and ZERODRAFT®, passed away on May 8, 2009, after a battle with cancer.

From bungalow to skyscraper, school to seat of government and all points in between, Mr. Woods improved the performance of almost every type of structure. He was a true pioneer of building performance and the systems approach, blazing a trail with his smoke pencil and can of polyurethane foam since the early 1970s, and co-founding Canam Building Envelope Specialists Inc. in 1980.

Throughout his career, Mr. Woods developed many new and innovative ways to diagnose and correct building envelope flaws, as well as ways to calculate the energy savings that could be realized from retrofit air leakage control work. Seeing a need for higher-quality materials, he developed and launched the ZERODRAFT line of weatherization products in the mid-1990s. Today the network of ZERODRAFT approved applicators extends across North America and into Australia. Canam Building Envelope Specialists and ZERODRAFT were acquired by Tremco Inc. on April 1, 2009.

Mr. Woods served tirelessly in the industry as a volunteer board member with BPI and ACI. He was also the first Canadian to become a BPI Affiliate and brought the organization to the table with the Canadian Government. A mentor to many, he was constantly involved in training weatherization organizations and home performance contractors across North America.

On April 28, 2009, BPI announced the inaugural winner of The Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry, a new initiative from BPI replacing the former BPI Awards or "Bippies" in honor of Mr. Woods. On the same day, ACI awarded Mr. Woods its Lifetime Achievement Award.

A popular presenter known for his quirky sense of humor, Mr. Woods made regular appearances at ACI regional and national conferences, Energy and Environmental Building Association (EEBA) events, Construct Canada, Buildings X, Thermal Solutions and the National Building Envelope Council of Canada conferences. A physicist who graduated from the University of Hull (England) in 1959, his paper Retrofitting the Building Envelope is the Most Cost-Effective Path to Improved Building Performance will be included posthumously in the proceedings of the Fourth International Building Physics conference, June 15-18, 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey.  Mr. Woods also contributed hundreds of feature articles on building science and air leakage to magazines and other periodicals over the years.

In addition to his long-term service to BPI, Mr. Woods contributed to ten Standards Committees covering air tightness testing, ventilation, combustion safety, window installation and sealants. He participated in many Federal, Provincial and Utility Development and Demonstration Programs, including several Air Leakage Control Projects, UFFI Remedial Measure development, National Moisture Studies and the Ontario Hydro 1000-House Audit Program.

Mr. Woods was Past-President of the Ontario Building Envelope Council and Executive Vice President of the National Energy Conservation Association and the Contractors Warranty Corporation. He was a member of HRAI Toronto Chapter, the Construction Specification Writers Association and the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors.

Donations may be made in memory of Mr. Woods online to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's "Light the Night Walk" at www.lightthenight.org.