Evan Holladay: Welcome back to another episode of Monumental. I'm your host, Evan Holladay and today's guest is Ben Kaiser. Let me start off by saying that Ben is doing some pretty unique real estate development projects that are truly Monumental. I just knew I had to have him on the show. Ben is the owner and principal of Kaiser Group and Path Architecture, where they have set a new standard for what's possible in sustainable development in the United States. Ben and his group recently completed the tallest building in America built completely out of mass timber wood. It's an 8 story 16 unit condominium retail tower in Portland, Oregon and Ben brings a unique perspective to urban development and is informed by over 20 years of serving as the owner, developer, architect and general contractor on his projects. Ben is committed to mass timber construction and believes it is the future of sustainable development. Ben and his group are leading the movement to use timber in a new crop of America's tallest buildings, and Ben is currently working on the feasibility of the spar in Portland, Oregon that would be 48 stories tall and the tallest mass timber building in the world once completed. In today's episode, we dive into some deep topics. We talk about why Ben is committed to doing sustainable timber development going forward, why you have to take responsibility for every aspect of your business and your impact on the world and figuring out your big why. This is a game changing episode learning from someone that is truly not afraid to push the envelope. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with friends on or social media and give us a review on iTunes, that seriously means the world to us. Alright, let's get right in.

Ben, great to have you on the show.

Ben Kaiser: Nice to meet you, Evan. Thank you for the invitation.

Evan Holladay: You and I were just talking about how I had found you, it was really a very interesting and very cool article I saw on Urban Land Institute and their magazine about your completing the tallest American CLT mass timber building of 8 stories in Portland. I just want to jump right in and talk about how you got into that and then architecture and real estate development.

Ben Kaiser: Thank you. It's been very interesting. A quick background on myself, Evan, is that I grew up a builder. Back in Ohio, back in Cleveland where I was born probably by the time I was 15 or 16 I was building decks and fences. Wood working is in my blood, my father was a wood worker till the day he died and I think I was born with that innate sense of building with wood. I started construction as a 16-year-old and then that morphed, I went to architecture school, I went to a year at Miami University in Southern Ohio and then transferred to Rhode Island School of Design continuing the architecture studies but always with an eye towards building. My brother and I were flipping houses at the time on the east coast of the United States to pay for our separate schools. He was going to school at Brown when I was going [Inaudible 03:54] in Province and we were flipping homes throughout that process. Always in tandem was architecture as well as construction. By the time of graduation I went the architecture route and worked for a couple large design firms and then it's interesting, I moved out of Portland, Oregon in '93 and again started flipping houses and my brother came up from Santa Cruise, and we continued what we did on the east coast but the rain got to him pretty quickly up here in Portland so he moved back to Santa Cruz. I continued working architecture but then I got a job at the development firm, and I worked at a development firm but that also was uninteresting to me. As a development firm, we were just hiring architects, hiring general contractors so again, I wasn't seeing part of the whole picture. That's when I started in 2000 what I do now which is all facets, and this is germane to our conversation because what allows me to innovate like I do is only because we're developer, we're the architect, we're the general contractor as well, meaning we find the land, come up with the idea, view the designs for it, get the permits for it and then find a general contractor for it. Often that evolves into managing it from years or months afterwards whether they're sales or... It's in that model where we're all ends of the development world from land acquisition to sales on the real estate side or leasing when we can, it allows us to remove all the profit centers, Evan, from all three of those different facets. You can imagine, if you're a developer, for instance what you do is you guys hire an architect and pay 8 to 12% and hire a general contractor and pay 8 to unknown percent because it's all concealed. I always joke that developers don't tell architects the whole truth, architects don't tell builders the whole truth, builders don't tell developers the whole truth so in fact, in the end you never get the truth whereas we can do it all. We have clear optics into the center of whatever we're talking about. In this conversation with you today, Evan, we're talking about CLT and mass timber so that removal of the profit centers allows us to innovate as well as it allows us to clearly see into the real core issue, whatever it is: skill, concrete, CLT or silly putty where we have the optics to see everything through. That's my nutshell in history and I think that is the only thing, that model, at this point of innovating with CLT in the United States, it's the only model that would work for this beginning part. Even then it's starting to [Inaudible 07:13] because as the prices come down and as people understand the materials more, now other people will pick it up. In the first phases, you just can't sustain all those profit centers while you're trying to innovate on a new idea. I feel fortunate through my path that moved to a place where I know almost out of default, where we're architects, builders and developers. I've been building with whatever material for the last 15, 17 years and it was a visit up to the Bullitt Center in Seattle. There's a gentleman, Eric Lemelson, and another guy, Mels Gabort and myself who were co-developing a site in Portland. We thought it would be smart to start not with the idea for what's going to go on the site or the pro forma for what works on the site, but rather with environmental footprint and what's going to land on the site. There's about 15 of us and we have what we call an [Inaudible 08:17] and all drove up to Seattle to visit the Bullitt Center. We had a guided tour, have you heard of the Bullitt Center?

Evan Holladay: I have not.

Ben Kaiser: ...very inspirational project, it's almost off the grid class A office building in downtown Seattle, and by off the grid I mean in process that are on water, with the waste water they generate electricity, it was a mass timber building so using mass timber it also has steel and concrete. It was down by the Bullitt Foundation to really do exactly what it’s done in us, inspire others to achieve more than they were until a visit to the Bullitt Center. We all went up there in a van and spent the day up there getting the lowdown. The Bullitt Center - if I'm not mistaken - is in the ball park, was built for $600 dollars of square foot. The only thing we could come back to Portland with, the only thing that we could afford to apply to the project we were about to undertake is mass timber. We couldn't afford on site water, filtration, we couldn't afford being off grid on electrical. That comes into about $600, we were coming in around $175 dollars. Are you pretty familiar with the differentiation between mass timber and CLT, what this all means?

Evan Holladay: I would go into that a little bit just to explain to our listeners because I'm sure a lot of them aren't exactly familiar on the differences.

Ben Kaiser: Mass timber, like a 2x6 or a 2x8, just standard framing for a house or an apartment building is not necessarily mass timber. Mass timber is when you take those timber elements - those 2x6, 2x4 or any material coming out of a mill - and engineer it into a product that's an aggregate of those smaller pieces. Beams, columns, that's in the world of mass timber because you have to engineer the product beyond just the aspects of that one 2x6. When you're building a bunch of 2x6's together to become a column or a beam, that's the realm of mass timber. It's plotting engineering beyond just 2-by material. Then the differentiation of mass timber to CLT, Cross Laminated Timber is mass timber because it's engineered panels of cross laminated timber, but not all mass timber business are cross laminated timber. We started just doing mass timber buildings, meaning glu-lam beams and columns because of its carbon sequestration attributes and then we've evolved into cross laminated timber as our buildings have progressed. Let me give a little background on that. As you and I spoke about it at the beginning of the conversation that oddly warm climates we're both sitting in it should be much colder at this time of the year. We wouldn't have started on this path of mass timber and cross laminated timber projects unless there was a need. I think that the projects we just completed and done 8 years ago, 7 years ago, I think they would have fallen on [Inaudible 11:39]. I don't think they would have been absorbed into the marketplace, I don't think people appreciate what they're trying to do because we still had a large percentage of the world doubting climate change. In that window, since we visited the Bullitt Center, till today I think the world now recognizes we've got a severe problem on our hands. There's still one hole down in the white house, I won't name him but other than that one guy I think the majority of the world believes that climate change is real and it's affecting all of us pretty badly. That was at the same time that we were stumbling into these mass timber buildings that are much better for the environment, and it'll just take me a minute to explain that. When you build with concrete or steel, just the process of concrete fabrication and manufacturing is creating a huge carbon footprint. Steel the same, melting the steel, strip mining of [Inaudible 12:44] concrete and the steel manufacturing generates tons of carbon, but when you build with mass timber, when you replace concrete and steel with these mass timber products, you're actually not going from fabrication and processing of carbon to neutral. You're going below neutral into a sink because these buildings are sequestering carbon. In the photosynthesis process, what the trees are doing is converting sugars to carbon so trees are actually sequestering carbon which is just [Inaudible 13:20]. When you're looking for carbon taxes and you're looking for ways to sequester carbon, you really don't have to look much farther than the tree sequestering carbon.

Evan Holladay: A question about the sequestration. Is that happening after the tree has already been cut down, as in the building? I really don't know.

Ben Kaiser: If you burn a log, what's left is a block of black carbon so when a tree grows it's consuming carbon and turning that into the fiber that makes up the tree, and that is sequestering carbon so it's sitting in the tree. You can unlock it by burning it so the tree burns, you release that carbon back into the atmosphere, the carbon that it will use to grow. You can imagine if you grow out a forest, cut it down and make a building it's like storing the carbon.

Evan Holladay: Storing the carbon instead of burning it and creating CO2.

Ben Kaiser: Right. It's a bit of a stretch but we have a theory on the Carbon 12 building, that that site has a lower carbon footprint than had we built nothing and that's a cool way to think about development. When you see an empty site, a lot of people have said that their active construction generates a lot of carbon so now we can push back and say, "Actually, if we put a building there, we'll have carbon sink. We'll go below neutral." It almost is advocating for building wood buildings on all urban centers because you're actually storing carbon.

Evan Holladay: Would that include planting new trees in the place of those trees that were taken down?

Ben Kaiser: We've made a promise, we're working on a 450 foot tall CLT mass timber building and we've made the proclamation that we will plant all the trees equal to what will be used prior to breaking ground. We're taking it about ourselves as developers to offset either our own use of wood because you can imagine if we're not only sequestering it but planting trees in their place that consume more, you can see that cycle if it kicks off in the development world. It would really rapidly help this carbon problem that we're all...

Evan Holladay: Right.

Ben Kaiser: It's been exciting.

Evan Holladay: There's a lot of different ways that we can go right now and I'm glad you brought up the spar, I definitely want to touch on that. I want to jump back real quick and just go into your reason for getting into development and architecture. What was your why that led you down this path in the first place? I know you said you got into construction and deck building, but was there anything that caused you to be inspired by architecture and real estate?

Ben Kaiser: That's a great question. I have to go back a little bit in my mind to remember that. I have always loved buildings, I just love the act of building and I think in some of us it's almost like evolution has decided who's going to be a great chef and who's going to be a great builder and who's going to be a great mother and a great father, delegating these things across humanity. For some reason, I got the builder gene.

Evan Holladay: [Laughs] I can relate to that gene.

Ben Kaiser: Exactly. In some algorithm that I don't know, I got the builder gene so it's my task to build things for our society and I think just as equally and important as other people's tasks cooking for society or social services. I always think of why do people get these tasks, I think it's a conversation none of us are [Inaudible 17:19] to tell you the truth, I think I'm just doing this because I was programmed to, really. I think the same for social services or chefs or [Inaudible 17:28]. I got the builder gene and I've loved it ever since I was four, so I'll always be a builder. The architecture side was a way to understand the design aspect of that profession, and then bringing them all together is because I just don't like working for other people. Not that I didn't enjoy those times, but I always had different ideas for where to take both construction and architecture, and that's hard when you're working under the directions of others. I think to the same point that we spoke about earlier, if you're developer-architect-builder you're really able to control all aspects of the conversation, too. There's no one to yell at, it's only the eight of us in my firm, there's no one to point fingers at, there's no one to sue, it's really all back to us. That's both for the good and the bad, the good decisions and the bad decisions are all us, there's no one to say, "If we had a better builder..." It's us.

Evan Holladay: Exactly, the buck stops here. We have a similar model at LDG, we have all different arms of the development side all in house and you're right, it makes it so that you can communicate better within your team but then it also makes it so that it is ultimately 100% your responsibility for every aspect of the project. Your development process over the years, how has that changed? How has that grown over the years, did it snowball? Did you start with small developments, one-offs? Walk us through the growth of your company.

Ben Kaiser: Very organic, no planning, things came at us, like I mentioned from my brother and I flipping houses to larger projects, a three-plex then a six-plex and then an eight-plex, then a twelve-plex. Truly just organic growth with, I have to admit, no clear understanding where it was all heading or where it is headed, I still don't know, that's not one of my fortes. It's each project and I think to your listeners and anybody in the development world, it comes down in my opinion just to having integrity and vision and the rest will fall into place if you have those two. I think in the development world - and you know this - in Louisville and in Nashville, they're small communities. If you build [Inaudible 20:28] or you design poorly or you act without integrity it will get around very quickly and it'll stay in that community for decades and decades. I think one thing that we stumbled into is just building honestly and selling a decent product and having a vision that was beyond the idea of construction and more what's good for a city. If you're in the game long enough with that ideal, your company will continue to grow, positive. If you're honest and you're true to your own integrity and vision, the rest will come falling into place. I really do think and credit this direction of ours now which is 100% mass timber for the rest of my professional career, is to that visit to the Bullitt Center. It was that deep dive into the carbon problem that this world is suffering from and what we can do in my meager profession. I can't stop manufacturing, I can't stop carbon production but I can, as an architect, do what I can from my... I think that's the thing that we all need to collectively realize. If we're waiting for the other guy to solve it, it's going to be too late. It really is going to come down to every one of our professions to step in and try to offset this carbon footprint that we're all seeing the result of now.

Evan Holladay: That's exactly right. I think if people rely on other people or think that others will solve the problems or push it all for others to solve then we won't get very far. You're exactly right, you saw an example of what could be done at the Bullitt Center and you took that and you ran with it, now you're fully committed to something that you believe in and will ultimately have a better impact for the world as a whole doing mass timber buildings.

Ben Kaiser: I agree. On that point, what's fascinating is that when we all think about the carbon footprint that we're all creating or we think about the idea of the polar icecaps are melting- I just read this amazing story about that grizzly bears are moving north because it's getting warmer in Canada and polar bears are moving south because the icecaps melting and now they're mating which is mind blowing. Evolution is happening, but when we think about the scale of that problem, Evan, it's daunting and you're like, "I can't do anything, I'm just going to live life." But then we [Inaudible 23:26] acid rain, I don't know if you remember that or remember hearing about it but acid rain was a big deal and we took it on starting here in the US and spreading around the world around reducing that aerosol. Believe it or not, the ozone has repaired itself, I read this like three, four months ago. I'm no scientist but if what I'm reading is accurate, we collectively got behind something and repaired the ozone, talk about mind blowing, that ozone layer as a world. It's within our power to take this carbon challenge head on and reverse it, and that's exciting. It's a cool over-arching reason for doing what we do, it's much larger than our returns or pro forma, we're doing what we can to repair the polar icecaps. I know that's a great ambition as a small development company, but we're doing what we can to repair the polar icecaps. If everybody woke up every morning - and trust me, I have plenty of reasons to be a better human - but that's one thing I think, we're trying to do the best we can.

Evan Holladay: I think what you're describing sounds to me like a big why, your why is the polar icecaps, it's future generations, it's the earth. I share a similar why in that I want to make the world a better place and I want it to still be around for seven generations. I think that's very important for people to keep going and push themselves when they don't want to do something or when they're tired or frustrated and realize there's something bigger than all of us. There's some why that is why where here and why we're pushing ourselves for a greater cause than just us.

Ben Kaiser: I'm with you. What year were you born?

Evan Holladay: 1990.

Ben Kaiser: The Gen X and Gen Z an millennials, I think you guys really have a different vision than us. I'm the tail end of baby boomer or something, I don't know where the hell I am but I think your generation is much more tied into this and to the fact that we all have. People 45 and older I think have less of that understanding, but you guys who have grown up in the internet and grown up in the realm of inner connectivity much more than we were, I didn't even see a cellphone till I was 30 which is mind blowing. You guys were born with them and that inner connectivity is both a problem and a potential salvation, I think that connectivity will probably save us because the fact that we all know climate change as an issue was impossible even 15 years ago, 20 years ago. We couldn't have told everybody, but now with the presence of a cellphone we all know what kind of problems are on our hands and with that inter connectivity and that awareness that each of us are part of the problem, it's your generation that's going to save us. I'm just tapping out, Evan. It's up to you.

Evan Holladay: [Laughs] it's all on me.

Ben Kaiser: This Monumental podcast better get going quickly.

Evan Holladay: Exactly.

Ben Kaiser: You've got to save the world.

Evan Holladay: I completely agree and am behind the timber movement but I also know that like anything new, it takes time and persistence and consistency. There's so many things that are moving constantly to help make something actually become acceptable and thought of as the right thing to do. I'd love to hear your thoughts, but I think right now we're in that neophiliac, like the first accepters, the first user phase. It's about trying to get from that new user, that first user phase and jump the gap over to mass market and mass acceptance. What are your ideas and what are your thoughts on that as far as how do we make this into a more acceptable and mass market movement?

Ben Kaiser: Great question. You probably are aware they've been doing this in Europe for about 20 years now, they've been doing this up in Canada for around 12 or 14, so we're really late to the game in my opinion. It's innovative for the United States, but it's not innovation. That's where we've learned a lot, from Europe, in the way Europe's doing. They're a little more aggressive on environmental concerns, I think that much tensor of all the countries as well as the limited resources, they don't have as much resources we do and access to resource, things are more expensive there. They're, like I said, 20 years ahead of us so we don't need to look too far to the explosion of getting there. That said, everybody is widely aware that when the United States takes on a new product whatever it is, then that's where it really takes off because we're the largest market and we're also a very large influencer to other large markets like China and India. [Inaudible 29:36] in Europe for 20 years, right now in the last 2 years is when the market's exploding in the realm of mass timber buildings. When we Googled mass timber buildings 4 years ago we could barely find anything, and now if you Google it three and a half years later it's mind blowing how many things are underway. The tipping point has come. That said, designing a building, the Carbon 12 and working on a spar, we have a long way to go. The majority of people that we talk to don't know what CLT is, don't know what mass timber is, don't know what tall buildings using mass timber does for the environment or for anybody so what you get in that realm is resistance. We get resistance and you know this world, from appraisers, investors, bankers, insurance companies, we just get resistance because they're like, "The status quo is a better way to go. Why in hell are you innovating with our money, with our insurance, with our banking, with our lend?" It dawned on me, I was in this conversation a couple days ago, that in the world of development and construction just the very fundamentals of how it's done [Inaudible 30:56] innovation because banks and investors, the driving force behind years of my world in development, don't want to innovate, that's the last thing they want to do. They want to do what was successful down the street over and over. They don't want to try something that hasn't been done so the foundation of development is anti-innovation which is funny. I think it's interesting that the inroads we've made is only because we had a very good investor who was aggressive and thought a little bit differently as well as the fact that we needed all the aspects which allowed us to innovate. It was hard because we had to prove to everybody from the life safety issues and permitting to the fire marshal, to our investors, to our subcontractors, to electricians and plumbers what CLT is and how you do it. Even though we had never done it, we had to convince them to try it but the cat's out of the bag now. I think people are now scrambling because I think we're all aware that one, not only is it good for the environment but the market is becoming more savvy. In your world of development there at Nashville, you're driven by your market so your tenants or your owners, the buyers of your products and they're becoming much more savvy to the story behind what you're building. If what you're building is still the same old same old you probably will lose market. The Gen X, Gen Z are realizing that this is experience-based purchasing, whatever they're purchasing and if your product - whether it's an office building or a condominium or a retail space or a grocery store - there better be a good story behind it, or else it's going to have a little bit harder time against the building down the street which has a good story. Mass timber, in my opinion, is absolutely the best story you can tell.

Evan Holladay: In your experience with Carbon 12 and as you've moved forward in the mass timber movement, have you seen prices go down? Have you seen acceptance from general contractors? That's always something that I had looked in to [Inaudible 33:24]. I had started to [Inaudible 33:25] their company in college before I was at LDG Development. The hardest thing was not only the financing and appraising but even the construction, the permits, the approvals on the regulation side. Is that something that you're seeing changing more and more or is that still something that's going to have to be overcome on every project?

Ben Kaiser: A matter of things are going to have to be overcome on every project, but I'll give you a quick story. Before that, all of us in our world of development, architecture and construction read the paper every morning. When you read about Paradise California and you were reading that people were caught in the cars trying to get away from those fires, they were burning as they were driving away from the fires. I grew up with forest fires, but I didn't grow up that forest fires that were raging so fast they were catching people driving away from them. Each morning we're reading about grizzly bears mating with polar bears and people burning in their cars and flooding in Florida and now Brooklyn in the last event. In the back of our mind when we go to work, we're aware of these huge transitions in the world's environment. We go to work, an idea pops up whenever that idea that pops up is, you run it through the filters of what you just read in the morning. Like I said, 10 years ago I've tried these buildings, you weren't reading that every morning so your filter would not be that. When we come up against subcontractors or other GCs or other developers I think they are so anxious for something that helps their profession meet the challenges of what they just read, subconsciously, consciously, none of us can avoid the newspaper and the news anymore. I'll give you a quick anecdote: when we went in with Carbon 12 to the city of Portland 3 years ago now to try to permit it, they sent a pretty skeleton crew to the meetings from the city and they were really sent there to say no. They were sent there to say, "You can't go to 95 feet with wood" and they had their arms crossed and sitting at the table like this just staring at us and shaking their head, and this was the structural engineer of the city and the fire life safety guys, and it was really, "No until you prove it to us." Essentially, "No, you do all the work to make sure you can do it." That was a heavy lift and it took us quite a while to do that, and we had a great team that accomplished it. We have great folks here in our office, Kristin Slavin, Scott Noble and Taylor Cabot, we overcame those huge hurdles. We just went in with a spar which as we talked about briefly, this 450 foot tall mass timber building. We went in probably a month ago and the meeting at the city was completely the opposite. They brought all their best people, there were 10 people in the room and head of all the departments. They were all leaned in and they were all saying, "Yes, how can we help?" rather than, "No, go prove it." That happened in 3 years in the city of Portland, Oregon and it was mind blowing to see the transition and there's only a few buildings that have been done but, like I said, it was a confluence of a product that meets the challenges of what you just read that morning. That is what's coming together and the city is now helping us in any way they can realize this vision because it's helpful for us, it's helpful for the city, it's helpful for the state of Oregon because we have huge horse fires, it's helpful for the US forest service - we've had great conversations with the forest service because the forest service is really dying to find a useful way to use these small diameter logs that are dying from [Inaudible 37:44] or drought kill effects. You can marry those logs into those CLT panels. The city is realizing all of this and saying, "Why would we say no to a thing that helps the city, the state counties, all of our shuttered mills? Our US forest service is looking for something to help work these [Inaudible 38:08] forest fires and bring an income base back as well as sequester carbon." They'd be ignoring everything that's going on around them to say no, and that's happened in 3 years. That's spreading across our country and what's really cool, Evan, is that we've given probably 300 tours of Carbon 12 - and Carbon 12 by the way is just, the address is 12 Northeast Fremont and 12 is the atomic weight of carbon so it works. Anyways, we've given about 300 visits from around the world and some of the most intriguing folks were from Japan, many architecture firms as well as investors have come because you can imagine, if you could do a 55 story building in Tokyo, it's timber jointed condominiums, that is their entire history mixing with carbon sequestration mixing with exposed timber on the 55th floor. That would open up Asia and the carbon footprint of construction in the world is just behind driving cutters. Cutters have always gone beaten off on generated carbon, the world of construction is just behind it, it's huge, their carbon footprint of construction because the majority is concrete and steel around the world. As this idea spread, if it spreads quickly - which it is - it'll make a dent quickly with the adoption. Once we get over these first hurdles which are numerous, we don't think it's going to be difficult at all.

Evan Holladay: That's very cool, I didn't know that all these people are coming to look at your project as a beacon of hope like the Bullitt Center was for you. That's very powerful. Something that comes to mind for me as a developer of affordable and workforce houses is, is there a time when timber will be competitive enough with your 2x4 construction or your concrete and your steel where it can be price competitive as well as story competitive?

Ben Kaiser: You'll appreciate this. One metric I don't want to forget, I think it's one of the most intriguing of these projects is Carbon 12 weighs 80% less than had we done it in concrete. 20% of the mass is in Carbon 12, 80% reduction. Forget everything else for a second, Evan. Forget carbon sequestration, forget everything, just use the old equation of energy=mass. 80% less mass, you can equate that to 80% less energy in the construction and that goes across the board, so that's shipping and trucking with all of our product weighing 80% less coming to our site. Your action time, crane usage, job safety, that's mind blowing to me, that aspect that 80% less. Remind me again that question you just asked?

Evan Holladay: Just on pricing, when will it be...?

Ben Kaiser: Here's the other exciting thing, and this is happening as we speak. We've been talking to a German company. We do everything in Revit, as you guys probably do. 3D modelling programs. We were close but we didn't quite get it to work, but now we're very close where our Revit models will communicate directly with a CNC machine on the factory floor at these wood manufacturing facilities. Imagine in your world, in my world when you as an architect draw a building, all the drawings go out to everybody. All the subcontractors, the framing contractors or the concrete steel subcontractors and then they give you shop drawings and they send them all back, you review them and you mark them up and you send them back and they review them and send them back. The concrete guys are doing form work drawings and sending them back. Skip all of that, Evan, our Revit model is communicating with a CNC cutting machine. It's cutting the building from the architect's office so when you talk about affordability, it won't be much longer before the firm you hire from LDG will be ordering the building skipping all of that shop drawing crap, all the opportunities for mistakes, all those costs incurred and getting your building delivered from the architect's office to your job site. Our [Inaudible 43:16] came in 19 flat beds, one after the other, round trip and we were just directing the pieces right off the truck into the building. Imagine your affordable housing project and your 250 units, your architect has ordered it. Not your GC, your GC will definitely be there involved and there's all the other aspects but the architect ordered the building, the building got delivered to you pre-finished. That building was pre-finished, all the fasteners were on, everything and we're investigating different ways of integrating sprinkler systems, lighting systems into the CLT panels and you're really just 3D printing a building. You can start as an architect putting everything you need in it, and doing it in the dry, safe environment of an architect's office as opposed to a field or a construction site or a job trailer. I project within 5 years, architects will be ordering flat back sky scrapers and having them delivered, and if you want a new home for your family, Evan, it'll be on your SketchUp model at home. You'll order your building cut at the factory. People always talk about within a 16th of an inch or steel. Well, CNC machine communicating with Revit, there's 0 tolerance. It's 100% what you draw is what you get and with all the clashing computer programs you can see where things are running into each other. It is exactly the right direction for affordability, we're not there yet but soon your architect will order the building and save 40% on all that intern stuff of shop drawings and anything else that goes along with it. Single family homes are a little bit different because of the insulation that's needed and all the cavity stuff for 2x6 framing, but I think we'll get there. Definitely for the old 5 over 1 model, for any mid-rise, all high-rise is definitely going.

Evan Holladay: That's really interesting. That's going to be a pretty cool day when you can, like you said, get on Revit or get on some computer software and design your house or design your building and have it shipped to site just like that.

Ben Kaiser: Yeah, have it shipped. When I was a little kid - and this is before your time - as a builder I would go into this lumber yard and there was only a big desk with all these grumpy old men standing on it. When you got to the desk, you had to ask them for exactly what you needed. "I need 42x4x8's, 52x6x10's, I need 3 pounds of 10 penny nails, five pounds of 8d brights, 16 pounds of 3d [Inaudible 46:16]" none of which anybody understood except 3 old grumpy men, so I was always embarrassed and shy. That's insane, remove the entire timber industry from the market, from the actual users and I think we've done the same in construction. We've removed the idea of building because concrete and steel- I know in your house you have a drill and a saw, I know you don't have a settling torch, a concrete form work and steel bending tools. What we're doing is taking the thing that we all know, that's in our history, in our DNA like I said and bringing it back to wood. We all know wood, you can sand it, cut it, load it, ship it. It's taking the oldest way of building and putting it back in the hands of the market just like Home Depot did for lumber. Why are we hiding it, buying from the users? Put it on a shelf, let them see it and I think this is a similar idea. We're giving the architecture back to the user.

Evan Holladay: That's a great way to put it. I want to quickly jump into the spar and what that is, what's the idea behind it and then also take that and segway that into talking about your vision for the future cities.

Ben Kaiser: Quickly the spar we're working on, it's a 450 foot tall class A office building here in Portland. We're working with a company called [Inaudible 47:53] which in my opinion is the best engineering firm in the world around mass timber buildings out of Vancouver BC, and we're in tight communication with the forest service as an inspiration project that inspires all of us to better manage our forests, to conclude forest fires and to get back in getting these mills going for smaller diameter logs that are the problem right now. Talking to the users, it will be mostly a public building occupied by public entities, that's what we're striving for. We're in the drawing phase right now, designing and drawing the floor plan. This is a longer term project, of course, it'll take us a while. It's a very expensive project as well beyond anything that we've done but we're so inspired by the materials that it would be good to celebrate at a scale that would be the tallest in the world and keep Portland in the lead on the environmental movement which we're all proud of. I'll keep you up to date on that.

Evan Holladay: That's great. I saw a few of the renderings on your website and it's pretty awe inspiring just to see that high of a timber structure. It gets you thinking what's possible.

Ben Kaiser: It's done with a Revit model, figure it, you're doing the whole thing in the office. You're not doing it on a job site or in a concrete guy's firm, you're doing it in an architectural office, that's the exciting thing. To your second question about a city, I really could envision mass timber replacing concrete. I know we're not purists, we're total fans of using an aggregate so where concrete does a great job, use concrete. Where steel works the best, use steel, where wood works the best, use wood. We'll never do a basement out of wood, of course. Basements will be concrete, parking garages will be concrete and in regard to the sheer capacity of a core, we're big fans of steel for the core because it's lightweight, it's does extremely good under high amounts of compression so we'll continue to use steel where it does the best job, but where wood can replace both of those, definitely. We'll always do an aggregate building replacing as much of the concrete and steel as possible with these mass timber products. I can envision whole cities adopting that attitude and drastically reducing the carbon footprint but still using materials where they do their best job. That, I think, is the way of the American city is with that vision.

Evan Holladay: That's great. Let’s jump into our Monumental questions. What does success mean to you?

Ben Kaiser: I was asked that one time a couple years ago in I think a speaking event and my immediate gut reaction at the time, and I think I still will lean on that, is if my daughter likes it. Whatever that is, if it's doing a bike race or if it's building a building. If it is living up to what she thinks is interesting, exciting and full of potential, has integrity, then I see it as a success, whatever it is. If it's building a building or going on a walk around the block, if she's seeing it as a success, I'll see it as a success.

Evan Holladay: That's nice. Do you have a morning ritual or daily habit that contributes to a good day, a successful day?

Ben Kaiser: I have a little 50 minute bicycle loop at most mornings to clear my head, it's before I take my daughter to school. It's steep uphill and it's on the uphill that I think of all the problems of my day as lactic acid is building up and I'm going through all the people that are causing me a pain in the ass. Then at the top mound is where I appreciate everything that I've got going on well in my life, and there's a lot so I try to start my day with appreciating everything that's going right and there's a lot for all of us. The key is to focus on that rather than the difficulties. I get all built on the exercise up, I drain all the negatives and try to start the day with a positive...

Evan Holladay: I like that a lot. That sounds like me on the steer master. What is your favorite book or book you're currently reading?

Ben Kaiser: Years ago I read Agony in the Ecstasy, it was the story of Michelangelo, I don't know if you've read that.

Evan Holladay: No, I haven't.

Ben Kaiser: If you haven't, pick it up. What was so fascinating for me in that book is that he and Leonardo Da Vinci were living at the same time in Florence during the Renaissance and would pass each other in the streets which is just mind blowing...

Evan Holladay: It is.

Ben Kaiser: ...both of them fantastic inventors, artists, they were both working for the pope at different times doing armaments, they were creating new ways to give battle for the Colosseum in Rome independently, both of them, mixing all that with just being two guys during the Renaissance in Florence, Italy in the 1400's. It was so fascinating for me to think both what they produced and what they allowed themselves to invent and come up with and draw and doodle. Just the Renaissance itself was this time of unbridled innovation. Following up on that, I think these last years in the world are similar. This is our own Renaissance, it's more electronic based but it's an amazing transformation that we're all going through. That book probably kept me on my path of building, both of them were builders, of course and both of them were architects of a sort, sculptors so pretty well rounded guys. I just loved the idea of those two guys passing each other in some evening in Florence...

Evan Holladay: Yeah.

Ben Kaiser: ...which I think is even funnier, pretty competitive. That's a great thought, especially in your profession and what you do.

Evan Holladay: I'll have to add that to the list. In closing, how can people follow you or reach out to you?

Ben Kaiser: Jen Dylan in our office has a great website, it's kaiserpath.com and we're very open to discussions like this with people because we understand that we did pick up the mantel from the Bullitt Center so we'll do anything we can. We're not in it just for the products we build, hopefully sell the ideas to others because we're pretty big proponents of it. Anybody can reach out, we'll begin to chat.

Evan Holladay: That's great. Thank you very much, Ben. I appreciate our time today. This was honestly a blast learning from another developer and leading the way for mass timber buildings. That's pretty awesome.

Ben Kaiser: I really appreciate you reaching out too, Evan. I'll definitely look up LDG and next time I'm in Kentucky I'll look you up, it'll be fun to have a beer or something.

Evan Holladay: I love it. Thank you, Ben.

Ben Kaiser: Thank you, take care.

Evan Holladay: What did you guys think of today's episode? I really had a blast sitting down with ben and really feeling his passion and his energy in what he does every day towards building a more sustainable and better future for generations to come. I love that, I love how somebody can really dive in deep to what they're doing and have true meaning and a true why behind what they're doing. Make sure you are finding your why every day in what you're doing. With that, I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you liked it, please share it with friends. Give us a review on iTunes, do whatever you got to do to get the word out about Monumental and with that, have a great day.