Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the clear impact podcast brought to you by P G T I university. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host
Speaker 2 00:00:15 Permitting questions are huge. What do they need for permitting? What type of documentation do they need to turn in? What do they need to fill out on their permitting form
Speaker 1 00:00:24 Today on the clear impact podcast, we are launching a new series called windows and doors 2 0 1. We tap into the incredible knowledge of our code compliance team here at PGT innovations, we meet Lisa Wilson, our code compliance specialist and Lynn Miller, our code compliance manager. These two have 38 years of combined experience here at PGT innovations. You'll learn a little bit about what this team provides to help you be more successful in your business. Good morning. Welcome to the clear impact podcast. We are launching a new series today called windows and doors 2 0 1. This is a deeper dive into some important topics for our dealer audience. To understand we are tapping into the incredible knowledge base of our code compliance team to help us address many of the questions that they get asked on a regular basis. So here in studio today, we have Alex disk who is our summer intern, who is handling the soundboard. We also have Lynn Miller and Lisa Wilson, and I will let you guys introduce yourselves. Tell us your title, your experience, and any professional affiliations that you have.
Speaker 2 00:01:28 Hi, good morning. My name's Lisa Wilson. I have been with PG T for 26 years now. Wow. I, uh, I know, right. I started in the customer service department back then. It was called data entry. Okay. Moved to customer service, moved to a team leader position, moved to product specialist. And back in, uh, 2001 is when the Florida building code was developed. Right. And they needed a new department. And so I volunteered to go into that department and I've been there ever since.
Speaker 1 00:01:59 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:02:00 I love code compliance when you call in, I'll probably be the person that you get first.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:02:07 And I also deal with the building code. I have a lead certification. Okay. And I'm gonna let Lynn take it from here and introduce the rest of the team. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:02:16 Awesome. Well, that's amazing. I'm, I'm so grateful that we have that kind of experience in tenure. So you were on the ground floor of that, of this department. Yes. So you've seen and heard a lot over your tenure here. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:02:27 That's a lot of changes.
Speaker 1 00:02:29 That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. Lynn, tell us about you.
Speaker 3 00:02:32 Uh, good morning. My name is Lynn Miller and I've been with PGT for 12 years now, and I am the manager of the code compliance group here. I actually started out my career as a structural engineer. Um, I have, uh, a master's degree in, uh, engineering, civil engineering from the university of south Florida. And I worked as a structural engineer for about 11, uh, almost 12 years in Sarasota before I came to PGT. So I always tell people that I used to design everything around the openings, around the windows and doors. And then I came to PGT and reversed everything. So now I'm working on engineering inside the openings, so, okay. So it's a kind of an interesting, uh, switch on, on the career. I'm a professional engineer in the state of Florida and also in Texas. Okay. And our department consists of, we have five senior code compliance engineers, Erin cost yen Zaki Hong Chen, Susan Berkowitz and Alonzo Moreson.
Speaker 3 00:03:22 And their primary function is to work on our calculations and CAD drawings for all of our approval documents. And they're kept quite busy. Erin cost also specializes in our energy performance requirements and she handles all of, uh, our C certifications. We also have a new engineer that was just hired at the beginning of may and that's Logan Yoder. And he comes to us right outta college. Okay. Uh, so, uh, we're excited to have him aboard. He's learning quite a bit and, uh, he's a code compliance engineer, and then we have no yam who is our programmer. And she, uh, all of our certifications have to be programmed in our order entry system here at PGT. And, uh, she handles all of the programming for that. She translates our engineering jargon into programming jargon, so,
Speaker 1 00:04:03 Oh, fun.
Speaker 3 00:04:04 We're happy to have her with us. And then of course, Lisa also introduced herself earlier and she's, she's just tremendous asset to our team. Like she said, anytime someone calls in has a question about building codes or general product knowledge. She's right there with the answer. And we're just glad to have her there whenever, whenever she's out on PTO, we always scramble because we have to answer all the phone calls and we end up having to, um, yeah. Uh, printing labels and things like that. It, it just, uh, quite a bit of quite a bit of work that she does that we, we can't live without her. So
Speaker 1 00:04:32 Appreciate that. That's awesome. And that's actually kind of how this series started was Lisa and I were chatting as I was coming out of the podcast studio because the podcast studio is in this innovations lab, which is where your offices are housed. And so we were chatting and just kind of like, what kinds of things do you do and what kind of questions are you getting? And so, um, we're really just, this is basically a crowdsourced, uh, series, but I wanted to ask you, Lynn, you neglected to share your professional affiliations because you just got named to a new position on some board, something, something. Yeah. Tell us about
Speaker 3 00:05:02 That. Sure. I'm also involved as part of the code compliance group. We actually are involved with developing codes and standards. Mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, so we're directly involved with the American society for testing and material. So it's as S T M mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I've been working with that group for ever since, uh, ever since I started about 2010 and I've been on various task groups and committees there. Uh, one of the key task groups of that committee is the impact resistance group. Uh, so it's the group that develops all of the testing protocols for our impact resistant windows and doors. And I was nominated as a chairman of that task group this year. So nice. I'm looking forward to working with them, starting at the, at the fall meeting. Nice. Um, but I also am involved with F GIA a, which is the Fest and glazing industry Alliance. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's formerly AMA American architectural manufacturers association. Okay. So I'm involved with several task groups there. I chair a few of those groups and I'm also the president of the Southeast region of F G I a.
Speaker 1 00:05:57 Wow. So you're busy. Yeah. <laugh>, I'm so thankful that we have time with you today. Thank you for carving out some time for this series. Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the Fest industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics, you can find out more about
[email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook and LinkedIn. So what kinds of support does your team provide to P G T innovations? I mean, I know Lisa's answering calls and you guys are providing documentation, but what other kinds of things like, how would our dealers really understand what does code compliance do and how does that, how does this team benefit them?
Speaker 3 00:06:43 Okay, so I'll, I'll start with that. So as, as far as how we benefit PGT innovations, as we mentioned, we, we provide all the certification documents. So all of our windows and doors have to be approved by the state of Florida. Mm-hmm <affirmative> for resistance of not only wind loads for hurricane wind loads, but also impact resistance in, in some cases. And so, as part of that requirement, we're also required to submit engineering documents that include calculations and Anchorage for our products, various glass types, what types of design pressures the windows can receive. So our department is responsible for performing all those calculations, developing those documents and uploading them to the, uh, board of product approval system. So that's one of the main purposes of our department. We also provide building code support internally, if any of our customer service reps or our product specialists have any questions about building codes and how they apply to our products. We provide that information. We also assist with order entry, support there's cases, where a customer may have a product. And for some reason, when they enter their product in the system, it's telling them, and it's not certified. Mm. And often time the customer service rep or the product specialist doesn't quite understand why that is mm-hmm <affirmative>. So that'll be forwarded to our department to kind of dive into that and find out what's going on. If there's a programming error, or if it's truly not certified, then we can't sell that product. So,
Speaker 1 00:07:55 Mm. So you're involved in the programming part, which you mentioned that there was a person that's their sole purpose is just to be the translator between the engineer jargon and the programming jargon.
Speaker 3 00:08:05 That's correct.
Speaker 1 00:08:06 Okay. Yep. I hope she has a big supply of Advil on her desk. <laugh> oh, anyway, just kidding. That would give me a headache. <laugh> yeah. So that's how you support the PG T isn't. Is it just PGT? Is it CGI? Is it all of the brands or,
Speaker 3 00:08:22 Yeah, we actually support all of the CIBO brands. Okay. Southeast business unit. So it's PGT CGI window, and we're starting to get involved with echo windows mm-hmm <affirmative> and also a little bit with new south windows as well.
Speaker 1 00:08:33 Okay. Wow. So, so just a couple things, just a couple things just to, yeah. A few things. Yeah. And then what kind of support does your team provide to the dealers and the homeowners?
Speaker 2 00:08:44 Okay. So I'll take this one. We actually provide a lot more than I think people realize for homeowners, they have insurance credits, tax credits. They have questions about energy star. The dealers have questions regarding to lead N FRC, building code questions, permitting questions are huge. What do they need for permitting? What type of documentation do they need to turn in? What do they need to fill out on their permitting form, et cetera. Also, the labeling is really important. We get calls about certification labels all the time and what they need to see out there in the field for the inspectors. So those are just some of the things that we touch on. There's so many different areas that we don't even think existing building codes, what they can still use, what they need to replace safety glazing, where it needs to go. Just a whole Lew of different questions we get coming in.
Speaker 4 00:09:31 Actually, I do have a short question. Do you get most of your calls before or after a product is ordered?
Speaker 3 00:09:36 It, it varies there's there's times where someone will have a question before they order product. And there's times that it's, that it's after it's already been ordered. So
Speaker 2 00:09:43 Yeah, I would, I would agree. It's 50 50 on that one. Mm-hmm <affirmative>,
Speaker 1 00:09:46 Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's probably better if they call before,
Speaker 2 00:09:48 It's always better if they call before, but that doesn't always happen.
Speaker 1 00:09:52 Right. So you really know your stuff because you probably are able to answer all of those right off the top of your head, right? No, I'm just kidding. I, well,
Speaker 2 00:09:59 I would like to think I could, but, uh, I have a great support team. So whenever I have questions, we have such awesome engineers. They all are top rate in their fields, so they're a great resource to have.
Speaker 1 00:10:09 That's awesome.
Speaker 3 00:10:11 And I always say too, that if we don't know the answer off the top of our head, we all know where to go to get it. We know the section of the building code. Most of us do. Anyway, if they're talking about safety glazing, we know to look in chapter 24, or if it's structural, we know to look in chapter 16, we may not have the codes memorized, but we know how to find them quickly.
Speaker 1 00:10:28 Right? And so this is just the kickoff session just to kind of let everyone's appetite. So I really wanted to do a windows doors, 2 0 1. Um, but I know that our team is limited in their knowledge and your team is very vast. And so some of the topics that we're gonna be talking about as we continue in this series is we have one specifically around permitting what to know before you place your order with us. We have one around safety. We have another one around energy. We have another one around design pressure and water performance, which is huge in the Fest industry. And then we have one whole topic just around labels. So not necessarily riveting for the average person, but if this is your industry, and this is your business, this is important for you to know and understand. And we're so grateful to have the knowledge base that we have here. And we get to put a little light on that today. So, all right, well, we're gonna wrap this conversation up and we look forward to the next one. Thank
Speaker 3 00:11:21 You for having us. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:11:22 All right. P G C I university is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original, easy breeze, porch and closure line then became P G T America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added CGI C G I C windows, Western windows, new south windows, echo windows and doors, and our latest acquisition and Lynn windows and doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. P G T I university is here to educate you our listener so that you can be more informed about window and door products.
