Meet the CertiPHIers
Tad Everhart (President), CPHD & PHI-accredited Certifier; Member: Tad Everhart Energy Advisor LLC in Portland, Oregon
Tad was hooked on Passive House the minute he read about it, signed up immediately for the first Phius Passive House training in May, 2008, and was certified as a Passive House Consultant in January, 2009. Since then, Tad has donated his organizational skills to Passive House organizations as the Secretary of the first Phius board of directors in 2009, as a member of the Passive House Northwest board of directors, and helping organize the Passive House Network in 2011, co-found CertiPHIers Cooperative in 2015, and host a retreat for the North American Certifiers’ Circle in 2016.
With brother Garth Everhart, Tad developed, designed, and built 40 homes in the Portland metro area including his family’s home which they retrofitted to near-Passive House performance and 100% electric-power beginning in 2009. Meanwhile, they enthusiastically host tours of their EnerPHit home in the International Passive House Open House Days. Tad has helped introduce world-class building components in the North American market, and maintains Apogee Passive House, a free directory of high-performance building materials and components suitable for Passive Houses. Tad has certified Passive Houses since 2015 and manages CertiPHIers' operations.
Christina Snyder, Architect, Builder, CPHC, PHI-accredited Certifier; Owner: Equilibrium Energy Spaces, Michigan
Christina Snyder attended Phius' inaugural class in 2008 and became a CPHC in 2009, continuing a career focused on sustainable design, both in practice and education. A residential builder, an architect and sole proprietor since 2002, she also instructed architecture students as an adjunct professor, coaching them through winning the first & second Michigan Zero Energy Home competitions, as well as competing in the 2007 Solar Decathlon in Washington DC, and has also published a paper on zero energy homes utilizing seasonal heat storage systems. Christina has been a partner in a renewable energy system installation business, Sustainable Systems, before starting her own architectural practice. She has volunteered on natural building projects including strawbale, cob, cordwood, and thatched structures; and has lectured throughout the Midwest on energy efficiency and Zero Energy Homes. Most recently she has taught Continuing Education classes for professionals on Passive Houses. Christina is also walking her talk; she's almost completed a new Passive House on her family's rural Southern Michigan homestead using an innovative foundation system of glass-fiber reinforced concrete structural insulated panels. Christina has certified Passive Houses and provided PHPP assistance since 2015 as a founding member of CertiPHIers Cooperative.
Rolf Jacobson, CPHC, PHI-accredited Certifier; Research Fellow at Center for Sustainable Building Research, University of Minnesota
Rolf became a Passive House convert in 2008 after listening to a presentation by Stephan Tanner, designer of the first certified Passive House in North America (the Waldsee Biohaus). After attending the 3rd annual Passive House Conference in the US, held in Duluth that year, he decided to focus his academic studies on the concept. For his Masters of Science thesis, Rolf traveled to Norway in 2010 on a Fulbright fellowship to study the building science of Passive House envelopes optimized for cold climates. While researching there for a year, he used energy and moisture modeling tools such as PHPP, WUFI, and THERM to investigate and comprehensively evaluate a wide range of residential building assemblies and details in Performance of 8 Cold Climate Envelopes for Passive Houses. Rolf now uses these tools as well as Flixo thermal bridge modeling on a regular basis as an energy and enclosure consultant and instructor and has worked on a large variety of projects from Passive Houses to commercial buildings.
Rolf also continues to work on exciting new research opportunities as a Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR). With project partner NorthernSTAR, the center recently received a $1 million dollar grant from the DOE to help develop and construct a series of homes using a panelized, tilt-up enclosure system (SEP-ETTMS). This system is modeled on “perfect-wall” principles of moisture safety and routinely achieves Passive House levels of airtightness while reducing construction costs. Rolf became a CPHC through Phius in 2015 and resides in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Friends of CertiPHIers
Vlad Pezel, CPHD, Principal of eMod Studio
Vlad started his journey into Passivhaus career as a client, building and certifying his own Passivhaus home in Boston, US. This led to a career change, from developing design software for automotive, aerospace and hi-tech industries to Passivhaus consulting.
As a Certified Passivhaus Designer, Vlad helps clients achieve optimal building performance and Passivhaus certification on projects ranging from single to multi-family homes, housing developments, schools and retrofits. His focus is on scientific aspects of energy modeling, 2D and 3D thermal bridge analysis, and selection of mechanical systems to match project's energy, comfort and health goals.
Vlad holds a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY and is a Principal of eMod Studio, Passivhaus consulting and energy modeling practice.
Matthew Bowers, CPHC, CPHT, PHI-accredited Certifier; Director of Building Science at AUROS Group, Pennsylvania & New York
Matthew Bowers spent 6 years in the Navy as a nuclear engineer and became interested in Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics. Once his tour was over, he attended RIT's Mechanical Engineering Technology Program where he wanted to become a HVAC designer. While at RIT he learned of “homes so efficient they don’t need furnaces” and focused his career path on Passive House, graduating with the highest honors in 2010.
Since 2013 Matt has worked as a Certified Passive House Consultant and Tradesman and HERS Rater. In 2017 Matt started his own Company - Rochester Passive House Consulting - specializing in high performance homes.
Matt’s work is featured in the Journal of Light Construction’s Energy Column under multiple topics including Blower Door Testing for extremely tight homes, Infrared Scanning, Blower Door Testing and Retrofitting airtightness and trouble spots for airtightness in new homes, and thermal optimization of window installation.
Matt designed Rochester’s 1st Certified Passive House – his personal home. Matt started certifying with us in 2019 and providing assistance with PHPP and Flixo before becoming Director of Building Science at AUROS Group in 2023.
Chris Petit, CPHD, CPHT, PHI-accredited Certifier & Trainer; Director of Technical Services at Passive House Canada
Chris learned about Passive House and was immediately impressed by the rigor of the systems approach to construction and its commitment to reducing energy use. Chris' commitment to low-energy buildings stemmed from his love for the environment and his passion to protect natural ecosystems. Through his research while earning his BA in Biology cum laude from Carleton College, he decided to go beyond reporting about the disheartening trends he was seeing. He chose to influence the built environment and the way we live, in order to reduce the large impact we currently make on the natural world with the way we design, construct, and operate buildings.
Chris is a Passive House consultant, trainer, and building certifier accredited by the Passive House Institute. He has provided design support and energy modeling services since 2008 with the Center for Sustainable Building Research, Clean Energy Coalition and Regenerative Design. Through CertiPHIers Cooperative, Chris has consulted and certified Passive House projects in the US and Canada. In addition to his work with CertiPHIers, Chris teaches sustainable design, renewable energy, thermal bridge modeling, designPH, PHPP, and building energy-efficiency best practices and auditing. He holds a MS in Architecture from the University of Minnesota. Chris became a CPHD through training with the Canadian Passive House Institute-West and completed Certifier training at the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt. Chris certified Passive Houses and provided assistance with PHPP, designPH, and Flixo with us from 2016 to 2021; and currently is the Senior Director of the Passive House Canada education program.
Susan Stocker, M.A., M.A, Ph.D.
After earning Masters degrees in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania and in Liberal Education from St. John’s College, I took a Ph.D. (with distinction) in Philosophy at Georgetown University. Tenured at Goucher College, I went on to teach both undergraduate and graduate students for 6 years at the University of Amsterdam. Later, I took a one year position at the University of Oregon where I taught “The Philosophy of Sustainable Architecture”.
With this, and given my lifelong passion for sustainable architecture, I decided to leave teaching to spend the rest of my career on behalf of the earth. I took Phius courses, passing both the CPHC and Builders exams. I did an internship at BUILD Smart in Lawrence, Kansas where I wrote the first draft of their Quality Control manual. Then I turned to learning both designPH and PHPP. Since 2018, I’ve helped designers, developers, and homebuilders on several buildings build their PHPP energy models.
Albert Rooks Owner, Small Planet Supply, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Olympia, Washington
Albert became a Passive House enthusiast in 2009 after a long career in building materials. "The opportunity of Passive House is to both refine and excercise my personal enterprise development skills while problem solving assemblies and material requirements that aren't found within our North American supply chains." Albert helped found Passive House Northwest and the Passive House Network, and has been a board member of the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild. As President and Founder of Small Planet Supply Albert worked with Passivhaus Institut's Dr Wolfgang Feist and staff to import the Institut's scientific studies and create tools for the Passive House Planning Package including the IP version of PHPP v8 for the American market. In 2015 Albert and Eva completed their "Corkhaus" deep energy retrofit of their condo with exterior cork insulation and many other Passive House components. Albert and Eva's Corkhaus in Olympia, Washington is the second home in North America where a single Sanden CO2 refrigerant heat pump water heater provides both all domestic hot water as well as all space heating without electrical resistance backup heating. Albert contributed his marketing, sales, accounting, and small business expertise helping co-found CertiPHIers in 2015 with Tad Everhart.
Sara Gundermann Small Planet Supply, Olympia, Washington
Sara has been involved in the sustainable building industry for several years, overseeing operations at The Small Planet Supply, a leading distributor of high-performance building products. She also organizes events and workshops to expand the public's knowledge of energy-efficient building practices and products. Being a “health nut” with a background in human physiology and nutrition, Sara understands the important relationship between one’s personal health and their living environment. In her free time, she enjoys working out and competing in fitness competitions, attending concerts, reading, and hiking in the Pacific Northwest. Sara assisted CertiPHIers with financial transactions and reception through 2018.
Dylan Lamar Architect, CPHC, PHI-accredited Certifier; Owner, cultivate, Eugene, Oregon
Dylan is among the leading Passivhaus consultants in the country, having designed Passivhauses since 2004 from Illinois, to New Mexico, to Oregon. He has translated the PHPP into IP-units, in 2008 and again in 2014. He has worked on many Passivhaus first’s in the nation including office/educational buildings, affordable single-family and one of the largest multifamily Passivhaus in the US. In 2010 he published Urbanize and Insulate: The Development of a Fossil-Fuel Exit Strategy, which highlights the relationship of Passivhaus toward a larger framework of societal sustainability.
Dylan worked as an architect and energy efficiency expert with Green Hammer, a design-build firm in Portland, Oregon, before starting his own firm cultivate in Eugene, Oregon providing local architectural and development services as well as national consulting services.
Steve Mann, CPHD, CPHT, PHI-accredited Certifier; Owner: Home Energy Services, California
Steve has been involved in the construction industry for more than 25 years. His focus is to assist architects, contractors, developers, real estate professionals, and homeowners with sustainable design and high-performance construction practices. His primary activities include design consulting, building and HVAC testing, and sophisticated energy modeling. Steve is the designer and builder of two LEED for Homes Platinum projects including his current home which is both LEED- and Passive House-certified. Steve has collaborated with CertiPHIers Cooperative and is currently certifying Passive Houses through his Home Energy Services.
