Build Perspectives Podcast

Tim Seims and Carolina Baffigo
  • 5.0 (27)
  • Investing
  • Updated Weekly

We bridge Wall Street and Job Sites. Real stories, real numbers, real consequences. Hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. https://tinyurl.com/Build-Perspectives

  1. Sep 16

    The Audit That Made a Super Cry, with LaShira Champion King

    LaShira Champion King never applied to work at Walbridge. She got a call for an internship she had not asked for, planned to be an architect in a black turtleneck, and instead became the company's lean champion because her managing director liked how "our lean champion is L. Champion" sounded in a meeting. Twenty years later she is Director of Quality, Lean, and Innovation at one of the largest privately held builders in the country, and the resident systems thinker in a 110-year-old firm. Carolina sat down with her solo to ask what a quality and lean leader actually does on a job site, and got a story she did not expect: a burly superintendent, tough as nails, in tears at the end of an ISO audit. Not because of the non-conformance. Because, in his words, "I wish I could describe myself the way you just described me." That line changed how LaShira does everything, and it is the thread through the whole episode. In this episode: Why the L. Champion story is really a story about systems thinking, and why "there's not a whole ton of us" Committees people are voluntold onto and then refuse to leave when their term is up Walking into a trailer "like I'm there to give them a root canal," and what changes by the end of an audit The 5S study: a 15-minute task that took two hours because nobody could find the drill What lean is not: not "do more with less," not a way to cut your job Great processes get skipped when the project is going great, and the rework shows up two phases later Design for maintenance: the air handler nobody can reach to change the filter, and why closeout thinking should start at the spec The zero punch list mindset and the discipline it takes to get there The Carolina question: what should the industry be talking about? LaShira's answer is knowledge transfer. We are getting people into the trades. What are we giving them when they get there? LaShira is a repeat featured speaker at Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration. Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry.

  2. Sep 14

    I Hold the Warranty: JE Dunn's Callie Johns on the Quality Cop Problem

    Callie Johns went to Northern Arizona University undeclared until her uncle staged an intervention over dinner. Ten years later she is a Quality Manager at JE Dunn, running the quality program on a hyperscale data center in Ohio after stints in Phoenix, Oregon, and Austin. She started as a project engineer, hated pushing change orders, fell in love with the exterior enclosure mock-up, and asked to move into quality right as COVID hit. When her boss quit three months into her first quality role, her dad told her to throw her hat in the ring. She did. Carolina and Tim sat down with Callie to find out what the quality manager on your job site is actually thinking when she walks up to your installer, and what she wants from the manufacturers whose products she inspects. The short answer: she is not a quality cop, she does more homework than your rep, and she holds the warranty. We get into the modular unit vendor who sealed a penetration on one side and could not see why both mattered, the "just put a bead of butyl" answer that fails in two years, the client-mandated quality collaborative where competing GCs share lessons learned, and why substitutions are the best reset button a project gets. Then Callie answers our closing question with the thing she thinks the industry should be talking about: the learning opportunities we walk past every day because nobody takes the ten minutes. In this episode: The "rep" quality people get on site, and why Callie refuses to be the quality cop Doing the homework: plans, details, shop drawings, install instructions, pre-install minutes, all of it, before the contentious conversation "I completely disagree with how you installed this wall flashing, but let's work through it" Owning the joint when more of the building shows up as modular units "I don't know right now, but I will respond tomorrow" The quality collaborative: competing GCs on the same hyperscale program sharing what went wrong Emerging leaders, imposter syndrome, and why she asked ACQ to put people like her on stage What the field un-teaches you after a CM degree and a master's earned while working full time Substitutions as a reset: first work in place, manufacturer on site, everyone aligned before the rip-out "Give me the ten minutes and I will tell you how to install it" and why the word warranty opens doors Why it is scary to walk a site with QC, from both sides of the hard hat Perpetual pass-down and the shadowing conversation nobody is having Callie is speaking on the emerging leaders panel at Advancing Construction Quality. Find her on LinkedIn. This episode is supported by Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration. Also supported by Project Fluent, field-ready sales training for people new to construction sales, at spectoscale.com/project-fluent. Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry.

  3. Sep 8

    Audit the Manufacturer: What the Largest Sub-Default Insurer Sees on Quality

    Matthew Biehl is a Senior Construction Risk Engineering Consultant at AXA XL, the largest provider of subcontractor default insurance in the country. He paid for college loading plywood and laminate at a lumberyard, spent years on the general contractor side including a run as a director of QC, and now walks job sites for the insurer that reimburses GCs when a sub goes down. Which means he sits on something almost nobody else in our industry has: the claims data on why subcontractors actually fail. Carolina and Tim asked him to open it up. The headline number: when AXA XL runs a real root cause on a default, 70% of the issues happened before a shovel ever got in the ground. The top three causes are schedule and manpower, insolvency, and a third one that keeps creeping up the list: quality. And more and more of those quality notices trace back to equipment and material that showed up on site missing parts or not working. Matt's advice to his GC partners is to go audit the manufacturer. If you make a building product, this episode is about you. In this episode: What SDI (sub-default insurance) is, how it replaces a bond, and why it is a multi-year partnership rather than a 12-month policy The top three reasons subs default, and how labor and solvency problems show up as quality problems Why manufacturers are now part of the sub-default story, and what "audit the manufacturer" means in practice Carolina's sidewalk-over-the-starter-track story, and why product reps have to own the next trade's sequencing GCs burying their subs unintentionally with speed to market Prefab, self-perform, and concrete as a "pass-through trade": why GCs are buying their own subs The 70% number, and Matt's two biggest pet peeves: the project-specific quality plan that is a corporate plan with a new cover sheet, and the manual covered in trailer dust Why the best pre-qual benchmark for quality is your own internal data What AXA XL collects on every claim notice, and what they do with it "What do you lose when you don't do it?" The answer to every GC who asks how much a quality program saves on premium Hold points, "percent complete correct," and why holding payment is the most dangerous motivator on a project "You can't poach the willing" Data centers pulling manpower off the local hospital job, and why manpower commitments need monitoring What no one is talking about: a sub that has been in business 30 years defaults at the same rate as one that has been in business three. Relationships become comfort. Comfort becomes complacency. Find Matt on LinkedIn:  He is speaking at Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration. Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry.

  4. Sep 2

    It's Always What Happens Next, with Corey Zussman

    Corey Zussman is a forensic architect who crossed over to the contractor side in 2006, when almost nobody was doing it. Today he is QA/QC Vice President at AECOM Hunt, with 30+ years, more than 2,000 projects, 200 published Lessons Learned, and over 500 AIA presentations behind him. Carolina sat down with him solo (Tim was out) to find out what a quality professional sees that the rest of us miss. The short answer: it is never the product. It is what happens next. We get into the joint between two cladding systems that nobody was contracted to own, the multimillion-dollar surgical pavilion floor that failed because nobody tested the old roof underneath it, the waterproofing rep who confidently spec'd the wrong product over an electrical room, and the sealant that passed the entire submittal process even though its own limitations said it could not go in CMU. Then Corey answers our closing question with the thing he thinks the whole industry should be talking about: the "industry standards" we follow because we always have, even when the code, or the chemistry, says otherwise. In this episode: Mind the Gap and why concrete contractors are focused on concrete, not on the rainscreen that has to weep through it "Own the joint": your product is responsible for everything it touches Why the bid package, not the trades, is what makes the seam between systems an orphan Contractor Confessions: why every architect and construction pro should sit through a deposition at least once The most expensive failure Corey has watched get built (flooring, every time) Concrete curing, feather finishes, and the conversation that never happens What manufacturers get wrong about installation, and why "let me get back to you" beats a fast wrong answer Submittals: fasteners, ESR reports, limitation sections, and what "no exception" actually means (hint: it is not approval) Industry standards that are regional, outdated, or flat wrong: sealant tooling, exterior treated wood, fire-treated blocking Corey's Lessons Learned, bulletins, and speaking schedule live on the AECOM Hunt QA/QC page. Find him on LinkedIn. This episode is supported by Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration. Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry.

  5. Aug 25

    The Levers of Low-Carbon: How Turner Builds the Supply Chain It Needs, with Imani Hamilton, Turner Construction

    Turner Construction is the largest general contractor in North America, the number-one green builder 17 years running, and carries a net zero Scope 1, 2, and 3 commitment for 2040. Imani Hamilton is the person working the supply chain side of that promise. In this episode we sit down with Turner's Sustainable Supply Chain Manager for a conversation that runs from product design to procurement power — because before this seat, Imani spent a decade as a sustainable design consultant helping manufacturers build low-carbon, low-toxin, low-waste products. She has been on both sides of the table, and it shows. We cover: How a GC that doesn't design products influences product design anyway: the rural ready-mix supplier coached through its first EPD, and the regional SCM supply chain built because one client asked Turner's standing market signals — EPD requests on concrete, steel, asphalt, glass, and wood on all projects since 2025, plus the low-carbon bid form that asks every concrete bidder for a lower-carbon alternate at cost parity Performance specs vs. closed specs, early engagement, and why design-build keeps coming up as the delivery method that makes decarbonization workable The bottleneck nobody talks about: the structural engineer's signature — and how SE 2050, pilots, and mock-ups move the risk conversation Imani's contrarian take on SBTi waterfall commitments, and why EPD actuals beat spend-based estimates in an industry that never builds the same thing twice The manufacturer's playbook: define "sustainable" specifically (carbon? toxins? waste? water?), prioritize, then capture the value — LCA to EPD, test results like GreenGuard, certifications like Declare Where the investment money is: responsible investors, European Article 8/9 funds, and the strategic acquirer already sitting in your supply chain EACs (environmental attribute credits) — the book-and-claim mechanism arriving from sustainable aviation fuel, and why it's a bridge, not a supply chain Circularity on site: smaller dumpsters, source separation, and drywall's three demand-side destinations Her message to the big, established brands that have relied on name and track record: table stakes are EPDs now. Where product category rules don't exist yet (MEP is a massive data gap), pre-competitive collective action — like NRMCA's industry EPD calculator — is how categories catch up. Whether you're on the manufacturer side trying to stay on the bid list, the GC side building your carbon literacy, or the capital side looking for supply chains worth funding — this is the episode. Episode Sponsor Brought to you by Hanson Wade's Advancing Construction event series and Project Fluent. Imani spoke on the Day 1 panel "Bridging Owner Ambitions with Construction Reality" at Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver. Discount code: BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for the upcoming Advancing Construction Quality event in Phoenix, AZ Register here.   Connect Imani Hamilton on LinkedIn. Carolina Baffigo on LinkedIn Tim Seims on LinkedIn

  6. Aug 9

    KP Reddy: Your Price Is Why the C-Suite Doesn't Know You Exist

    In this episode of Build Perspectives, we sit down with KP Reddy. Investor, civil engineer, author, and one of the clearest thinkers in construction tech. We get into the real questions founders should be asking: What makes a problem venture-fundable? Why does pricing determine your visibility? And why do so many startups build for the wrong customer? KP started coding at 13 on an IBM PC his father handed him, funded his first startup on a Discover card, and pivoted a 1996 web-based project management tool into telecom - two people to 1,200 and an IPO in three years. Three decades later he's writing checks into material science, robotics, and the hard problems some VCs won't touch. We explore: Why most construction tech could be bootstrapped, not VC-backed Pricing psychology: why $5,000 keeps you invisible and $50,000 gets you a meeting with the CFO The fragmentation problem KP's son is solving with OneBuild: turning offsite methods into vetted SKUs for regional builders Why affordable housing is the wrong place to test innovation Material science, AI, and the frontier problems worth solving, including robots carving stone Why real estate investors make terrible VCs (and why KP hates the word "proptech") What KP actually looks for before writing a check Leadership gaps in AEC, and why they create opportunities ALSO, you can hear more about one of his companies, ZeroRFI on a prior BP Pod! If you're a founder, VC, builder, or building products leader, this is a masterclass in thinking clearly about innovation, adoption, and creating businesses that survive market cycles. Links: KP Reddy KP Reddy Co: https://kpreddy.co Email: kp@kpreddy.co LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpreddy/ Substack (personal): https://kpreddy.substack.com Substack (KP Reddy Co / Insights by KP): https://insightsbykp.substack.com KP Unpacked podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1okdc2zZdBJTXALxnadBSw | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kp-unpacked/id1495750961 Shadow Ventures: https://shadow.vc Books Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B079HR189J Creating the Intangible Enterprise: The Critical Skills Required to Thrive in an AI-Driven World (2024) — https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Intangible-Enterprise-Critical-AI-Driven/dp/B0D2VJZTCJ What You Know About Startups Is Wrong (2018) — https://www.amazon.com/What-Know-About-Startups-Wrong/dp/1619618796 BIM for Building Owners and Developers: Making a Business Case for Using BIM on Projects (Wiley, 2012) — https://www.amazon.com/BIM-Building-Owners-Developers-Business/dp/0470905980 The AEC Summit https://aecsummit.co — annual full-day gathering of innovation officers, CEOs, and owners, timed for strategic planning season Speaker archive: https://www.aecsummit.co/speakers Also mentioned ICON: https://www.iconbuild.com Monumental Labs: https://monumentallabs.co Branch Technology: https://www.branch.technology MiTek: https://www.mitek.com Housing Innovation Alliance: https://housinginnovationalliance.com Builders FirstSource: https://www.bldr.com Schneider Electric: https://www.se.com Slate Auto: https://www.slate.auto The Goal, Eliyahu M. Goldratt: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951 Build Perspectives https://buildperspectives.com Presented by Project Fluent Timestamps: 01:00 — Second-generation civil engineer, an IBM PC at 13, and being told he'd replace his dad's whole team 03:30 — The first startup: 1996, web-based project management, and a general contractor telling him the internet was a fad 04:30 — "My first investor was Discover" — credit card limits and the WorldCom pivot that took him from 2 to 1,200 people 06:15 — Pricing as a visibility strategy: why $29/month goes nowhere and $50,000 gets you the CFO 08:00 — Targeting the wrong customer: ICON, $300K starter homes, and why the second move-up buyer was the real market 09:45 — Why anything new can't launch into the affordable segment — the iPhone analogy and the 50-acres-with-a-creek pattern 13:20 — OneBuild: cataloging panels, 3D printing, and offsite methods into SKUs, then handing builders the integration layer they don't have R&D teams to build 16:45 — Why 25-year-olds think in brand: "Powered by OneBuild" 17:45 — Why real estate investors make terrible VCs — and why he never asks early-stage companies about revenue 20:00 — Monumental Labs, robots chiseling stone, and why our buildings got so boring 21:00 — The lost trades: masonry, constrained labor, and why every building looks the same 22:20 — The sushi-in-Kansas-City theory of building materials distribution 23:45 — Material science as the industry's real unlock — and why AI-driven drug discovery is the model 25:00 — Greenbuild, adoption curves, and how green went from specialty catalog to core catalog 26:30 — Three reasons KP isn't sold on EVs 28:40 — Highway 1, the daily drive as meditation, and the ranch he almost bought 32:45 — The Summit, year nine — and Vibethon: 18 teams who'd never written code, 14 working prototypes in six hours 34:45 — Why every non-technical SaaS CEO should clear two days and try to build their own product 36:00 — What he looks for before writing a check: pattern of thinking, not domain credentials 37:00 — "I worked at Turner for 15 years, so this is the answer" — the trap of experiential product design 38:15 — "You're not venture fundable" is not an insult, it's permission to own more of your company 39:45 — Why he stays in this industry: investors who write $20K checks because they want you to succeed 43:30 — The incubator model: 20 companies, no exit pressure, and the CEO role he's hiring for 46:00 — Three books, a fourth in progress — and why he's writing fiction 47:50 — The Carolina Question: most AEC leadership is C+, and it's because tenure is the promotion criteria

  7. Jul 21

    Erase the Green Premium: Joe Rozza on Decarb, Insurance, and Building to the Underwriting

    Joe Rozza, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ryan Companies, doesn't run a sustainability strategy. He runs a sustainability business strategy, and the difference is the whole episode. Joe spent almost half his career at Coca-Cola managing water risk across 1,000 plants in 200 countries before bringing that methodology into commercial real estate. Now he's applying it at a $5B developer-builder-owner: sustainability in the BD pipeline, decarbonization roadmaps for 23 classes of construction materials, and buildings designed to the same secondary modifiers insurers use to price flood, hail, and wind. In this episode: Why Joe wants to erase "green premium" from the industry's vocabulary The Project Sustainability Planning process: total cost of ownership, NOI, cap rate, terminal value How building product manufacturers get into Ryan's supplier program, starting with a two-hour strategy gap assessment "Tell me when you're interested in my problem set" — the question suppliers should be asking their biggest customers Insurance costs up 88% in five years and what that means for materials and design Joe's prediction, on the record: sustainability becomes the primary selection criteria within one to three years The free Aqueduct water stress tool Joe helped create, and why water risk isn't just a Southern California problem Carbon footprint accountability: whose carbon is it, and why financial control should decide Resources: From Vulnerability to Value playbook (Resiliency Company website) WRI Aqueduct platform: https://www.wri.org/aqueduct Joe Rozza on LinkedIn Build Perspectives is made possible by Spec to Scale and the Advancing Construction Event series. Join us at Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver, July 28–30. 10% discount code: BUILDPERSPECTIVES10

  8. Jul 14

    LEED V5, Embodied Carbon, and Why 2026 Is Prep Year with Kristin Brubaker, Green Badger

    LEED V5 got pushed to June 30, 2027 — and if your team hears "delay" and relaxes, you're going to be underwater. In this episode we sit down with Kristin Brubaker, Head of Sustainable Construction Solutions at Green Badger, to walk the industry through what actually changes and what a smart GC, sustainability director, or building product manufacturer should be doing with the runway.   Kristin brings her environmental science background, four years at Whiting-Turner, and a front-row seat to thousands of LEED projects into a conversation that is equal parts masterclass and gut check. We cover:   Why sustainability submittals are still one of the most manual, RFI-heavy pain points in construction — and how Green Badger's 125,000+ product database (now integrated with EC3 and the HPD Collaborative) removes the busywork The mandatory embodied carbon assessment coming in V5 for structure, enclosure, and hardscape — and the carbon literacy your GC team needs to build now The commingled waste shake-up: new third-party facility rules, the East Coast / West Coast infrastructure gap, and what it means for anyone building data centers or campuses in the middle of the country The product selection credit that just tripled in scope — from documenting a few products to tracking every product in a category Buy Clean: the nine-state policy putting embodied carbon thresholds on public projects with real teeth The single most important document a building product manufacturer can invest in right now (hint: it's a product-specific Type 3 EPD) Green Badger Academy — the free sustainability curriculum designed for the project engineer, APM, or rep who just got handed a LEED project   Whether you're on the GC side wondering how to prepare your teams, on the manufacturer side trying to stay on the shortlist, or on the ownership side making the business case — this is the episode. Episode Sponsor Brought to you by Hanson Wade's Advancing Construction Decarbonization. Denver, July 28–30, 2026. Kristin is speaking on day one and Green Badger has a table throughout. Use the 10% discount code below to register.   Discount code: BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 Register: HERE  Connect Kristin Brubaker on LinkedIn Green Badger: https://getgreenbadger.com Green Badger Academy

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About

We bridge Wall Street and Job Sites. Real stories, real numbers, real consequences. Hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. https://tinyurl.com/Build-Perspectives

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  • Creator
    Tim Seims and Carolina Baffigo
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    107
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright of Buildperspectives.com
  • Show Website
    Build Perspectives Podcast

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