Gene Myers, owner and chief sustainability officer of Thrive Home Builders, will deliver the 2024 Hankin Distinguished Lecture, hosted by the residential construction program and the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, which is housed in Penn State’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His talk, “A Homebuilder’s Journey to Carbon Neutral Construction,” will be held at 4 p.m. on Nov. 6 in Robb Hall in the Hintz Family Alumni Center at University Park. A reception will follow the free, public event.
Lecture Description:
Thrive Home Builders, based in Denver, Colorado, is a seasoned builder of high-performance homes. Recent climate events, culminating in the New Year’s Eve 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed over 1000 homes in the Denver metro area, prompted Thrive to map out its own climate action plan. Thrive completed its first carbon neutral home, a Green Builder Magazine Vision Home, in its Sonders Ft. Collins project. The home won the Energy and Environmental Builder Alliance (EEBA)’s Excellence Award for Carbon Neutrality at the 2023 EEBA Summit. Thrive has since embarked on two all-electric communities in the Denver area and one all-electric and carbon neutral community in Breckenridge. Benefit from Thrive’s lessons learned and its vision for becoming a carbon neutral builder.
About the Hankin Distinguished Lecture Series:
The Hankin Distinguished Lecture series, hosted by Penn State’s residential construction program and the PHRC, was established in 2006 to honor the late Bernard Hankin and his family for their continuous and dedicated support of the residential construction program at Penn State. It brings world-class speakers to Penn State to address students, faculty, industry members and the public with thought-provoking topics and education related to the housing industry. The residential construction program and the PHRC are administered within Penn State’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering. The lecture series is free and open to the public.