RESNET Enhances Its HERS® Rating Quality Process with Hiring of New Quality Assurance Field Specialist Introducing Billy Giblin The consistency and quality assurance of Home Energy Ratings is paramount to the success of the rating industry. RESNET is striving to make the RESNET quality assurance program the gold standard, and many initiatives are being undertaken to accomplish that goal. This goal is critical because Home Energy Ratings are being adopted into building codes and are being recognized by the appraisal and real estate industries. Credibility is of the highest importance to these new stakeholders. RESNET’s quality assurance program provides the basis of that credibility. Accomplishing this goal will take a collective effort on the part of RESNET staff, providers and raters working together to make ratings and quality assurance more consistent. The RESNET Board of Directors has made HERS® ratings quality assurance a high priority. This commitment is reflected by the allocation of significant resources to up RESNET’s quality assurance game. An important step in this effort is the hiring of Billy Giblin as RESNET’s new Quality Assurance Field Specialist. Billy gives RESNET a more visible presence in the field and will help us gain valuable insight into the real-world challenges raters and providers face on a regular basis. For 2018, Mr. Giblin will be completing site visits with 25% of providers and their QA staff to conduct training and provide mentorship and oversight. The Quality Assurance Field Specialist will enable RESNET to have a more robust complaint resolution process, increasing capacity for on-site investigation. Billy Giblin has worked in the high performance building and energy efficiency industry for over ten years. He started this work with a general contractor performing new and retrofit construction. Billy later earned a degree in Energy Management, an energy efficiency engineering program. He went to work with Nexant in 2010, providing quality assurance for utility new home programs and state existing home programs. Billy has been an active HERS® Rater since 2011 and is both a LEED for Homes Quality Assurance Designee and a RESNET Quality Assurance Designee. He has completed over a thousand QA field inspections and performance tests of HERS® rated new homes, as well as QA review of thousands of energy models. Billy played a prominent role in Utah in HERS® Rater training, mentoring and technical support, as well as providing QA, training, and technical support to builders and trade contractors. His previous outdoor education and guiding experience has given him the skills to mentor and motivate people of all ages and abilities, and he utilizes these skills to train and mentor professionals in the high performance home industry. Billy’s addition represents a significant investment by the organization in a quality process. Since 2017, RESNET has increased from one quality assurance staff person to three full time positions. Mr. Giblin will join Scott Doyle and Laurel Elam on RESNET’s quality assurance team.
