Responding to explosive demand for nationally recognized credentials in the residential energy efficiency retrofit industry, the Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) experienced tremendous growth in 2010. A confluence of factors has contributed to establishing BPI as the nation's premier home performance credentialing, quality assurance and standards setting organization:
• BPI Certified Professionals are now located in all 50 states and five foreign countries, with western states seeing the most aggressive growth of over 400 percent in 2010
• The number of contracting companies earning BPI Accredited Contractor status doubled for the second year in a row
• Intense demand for training increased BPI's nationwide network of affiliate training organizations 78 percent --to 242 training organizations
• Over 100 utility, state and local incentive programs now call for BPI credentials
• BPI earned accreditation from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as a developer of American National Standards for the residential energy efficiency retrofit community
• Revenues jumped 78% in 2010 to approximately $4.7 million after experiencing a 98% growth in 2009
• BPI completed the development of a $500,000 IT infrastructure to handle the processing of exams and the servicing of thousands of newly credentialed professionals and accredited contracting companies
• BPI donated the results of a $50,000 project --to convene industry experts and develop a set of Standard Work Specifications --to a major Department of Energy (DOE) 2010 initiative that included developing federal Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades
• Staff expanded from 23 to 37 employees in three locations over the past year: Malta, NY, Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA.
BPI Chairman David Hepinstall commented on BPI's growth: "Those of us who have dedicated many years of our lives and large portions of our careers to building a viable building energy retrofit industry are especially gratified to see the growth of professional credentialing in recent years, and how BPI has stepped up to meet this increased demand. The growth of the energy efficient buildings sector will continue to present new challenges to our industry to maintain standards for building performance work and for training and BPI is well prepared and positioned to meet those challenges in the years to come."