GlassTalk

Paul Amato of Tallinn Advisory brings 20 years' of professional experience advising construction companies to the question of how to get the different parts of your organization working better together. He joins The Hammer to talk about what he means by “alignment”; the elements of a good mindset; the barriers to great customer service and quality; and how to build a culture that succeeds. Take so...

Amanda Spann is the author of I Have an App Idea – The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills and she has good news for all of us. You don’t need to spend in the five figures or burn hundreds of hours of staff time to develop an app any more, thanks to new AI-powered tools and reasonably priced professional services. The even better news is, as experts in touch with the needs of th...

As the president and founder of DPI Lab, an industrial printer manufacturer, Lon Riley knows a lot about the chemistry and technology that makes it possible to produce remarkable images on glass. He joins GlassTalk for a deep dive into the technology and what makes glass printing a special challenge. He addresses the considerations we need to have when seeking the highest productivity and uptime f...

With his degrees in engineering and business, and his fascinating LinkedIn posts discussing everything about glazing and facade engineering, Adrian Lowenstein is most accurately described as a building engineering influencer. He joins Glass Canada editor Pat Flannery for a wide-ranging discussion of Flannery's One Number hobby horse; the differences between the Canadian and American glass markets;...

We're all looking for top engineering talent and the fenestration and glass industry has a lot to offer any technical person who enjoys innovation and experimentation. But our companies just aren't on most engineers' radar screens, making it important for us to be proactive in attracting and retaining talent. Eddy Atausi has made the unusual choice to learn as much as he can about fenestration and...

On his podcast Better Buildings for Humans , Joe Menchefski explores ways to make our built spaces healthier and more liveable with top building science experts from around the world. As part of the team at Advanced Glazings, a Nova Scotia fabricator specializing in aerogel products, Menchefski has deep knowledge of innovative energy-efficient technologies. Who better to ask about the state of sus...

Across the world of construction and trades, failure to secure payment for work done and materials purchased is probably the biggest and most common threat to any company’s survival. The system of bonds, liens and sureties we rely on to safeguard contractors and subcontractors can be so arcane that many of us simply don’t bother – and take on massive risk in doing so. Steve Ness of SAC says the sy...

Chris Magwood of the <a href="https://rmi.org/">Rocky Mountain Institute</a> joins the podcast to discuss the One Number approach to sustainable building regulation…and he has some objections. While a performance-based approach aimed at regulating the whole-life carbon impact of a construction project should be our ultimate goal, Magwood feels the upfront impact of embodied carbon need...

Our business is making things, not talking about them. So it’s no surprise that many of us struggle with the demands of promoting our businesses to potential clients and customers. Alison Simpson, president and CEO of the CMA, has been helping major corporations do just that throughout her career and she joins Pat Flannery for a lively conversation chock full of good advice. She also has details o...

The Ontario government’s award of a $140 million hospital façade project to American contractor Permasteelisa/Benson is making waves in Ontario’s glass community. After receiving multiple angry comments and calls from members, the Ontario Glass and Metal Association has taken the unusual step of going public with an open letter to the Ford government, complaining about the lack of support for our...

How would it be if all the databases and charts and spreadsheets and regulations and tiers defining whether our products comply with sustainable building laws just…went away? Replaced by one number: – the only number that matters – the amount of carbon dioxide emitted over a building’s lifetime as a result of its manufacture, construction, use and disposal. Partner at Layton Consulting, Jonathon “...

High-profile wildfires doing substantial property damage to urban areas in B.C. and Alberta have spurred NRCan to look at creating Canadian building standards for wildfire resistance. The consultation process has just begun, but it seems likely that some day soon we may see new codes requiring resistant windows, doors and other components in wildfire-prone areas. What might these rules look like?...

FenCan codes and regulatory affairs direction, Adrian Edge, is back on to talk about the latest trade war developments and how they might impact the glazing and fenestration industries. Our sector avoided new tariffs on April 2, but the stunning measures announced by Trump against the rest of the world are crashing markets and have already, in the words of our prime minister, ended the free trade...

Registration for Canada’s architectural glass show is open and the agenda set. Join us April 29 – 30 in Mississauga, Ont., for a day of great discussion with all your friends in the industry. And get a behind-the-scenes look at Trulite Glass and Aluminum Solutions, one of Canada’s top glass fabricators. Glass Canada publisher Pat Flannery shares all the details – see you at Top Glass!

FenCan’s director of government and regulatory affairs, Adrian Edge, joins to talk tariffs. What is the status? Are they gone or are they coming back in a month? Either way, what can we and our governments do to protect ourselves and our businesses going forward? Things get political and practical in this edition.

David Cooper has been researching and developing vacuum insulating glass for over a decade and chairs multiple international standards committees that will define how it can be used, how its quality can be assessed and how to test its performance. With demand for VIG growing and producers multiplying, specifiers and contractors need guidance on what to look for in these products – guidance that ma...

Steve Johnston of Omnigence, a private equity firm investing in the construction sector, has a stark warning. He sees a real risk of long-term stagflation (inflation coupled with low productivity and high unemployment) in our present conditions and government policies. His white paper lays out the broad details, but he joins GlassTalk to talk about the specific effects in Canada’s construction sec...

Keith Daubmann is an owner of MY Architectural Glass and MY Shower Door , a glass fabricator and custom glazing contractor serving southwestern Florida. What makes Daubmann unique is his thunderous presence on social media, running accounts with around 30,000 followers and hosting a weekly YouTube show, Hard Hat Highlights . He claims he has never had a guest on his show that didn’t become a clien...

Langley, B.C.,-based Cascadia has published its first environmental product declarations for its fibreglass fenestration systems and its happy it did. Marketing manager Chris Guelpa joined the Conversation to talk about the process; the help they got; the markets and opportunities the EPDs are opening up; and how fibreglass stacks up in the embodied carbon discussion. NSF Product Category Rule for...

Movember is back with an added focus. The popular fundraising drive for men’s health has added support for mental health to its efforts along with prostate and testicular cancer. Mitch Hermansen joined Annex Business Media publisher/editor, Patrick Flannery, to talk about why these issues are important and what we in the construction community can do to help the guys who work for us.

Those of us who ship product across provincial borders have probably noticed that it can be easier to ship to the United States than inside our own country. Recently, the federal Committee on Internal Trade has announced a pilot program that would see any province’s trucking regulations acknowledged in all the others’. Duncan Robertson, senior policy analyst for Nova Scotia, joins the podcast to t...

Canada’s architectural glass show comes to Calgary Oct. 16 – 17 and Glass Canada’s intrepid brand manager, Leslie Osborne, joins GlassTalk to give you all the details. We’ll be touring the local glass fabrication plant of the might Oldcastle Building Envelope. We’ll be talking about office-to-residential conversions. We’ll be looking at the future of glass. We’ll be debating contract changes from...

New standards for energy efficiency and low carbon impact in construction are demanding new skills in the trades – skills your young workers might be more familiar with than you are. Chad Flinn, associate vice-president of academics at Red Deer Polytechnic, and Judi Varga-Toth, manager of the ImpAct-Climate program at Colleges and Institutes Canada, are working to educate today’s construction indu...

Glass Canada editor Patrick Flannery has a big announcement for you! Top Glass, Canada’s trade event for the architectural glass industry is coming to the Best Western Premier in Calgary on Oct. 17. And that’s not all…on Oct. 16, you can tour Oldcastle Building Envelope’s Calgary fabrication facility and see advanced glazing components being manufactured before your very eyes. Tune in as Flannery...

Helen Sanders, general manager at Technoform and chair of the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance Glass Products Research Committee, celebrates her 30th year in the industry by joining GlassTalk to talk about their work on the cutting edges of glass technology. The Committee is looking at new ways to confirm the amount of argon fill in IGUs; developing industry Product Category Rules for fa...