SMARTBIM EXECUTIVE BIOS
AROL WOLFORD
President/CEO SmartBIM
Arol Wolford is a pioneer and passionate advocate of building intelligence. Arol has devoted his career to the proposition that sharing information among owners, architects, contractors, and manufacturers is the key to creating better and more efficient buildings. His philosophy has remained the same although the technology available to realize it has evolved dramatically. Inspired by his father's innovations in construction estimating, Arol spent 30 years developing his Construction Market Data (CMD) Group into a global leader in building information. Under his leadership, CMD grew from 5 to 1300 employees, and offered well-known information sources such as Association Construction Publications, Architects' First Source, Buildcore Product Source, CanaData, Clark Reports, CMD National Accounts, CMD Online, Cordell Building Information Services, Manufacturers' Survey Associates, and RSMeans. Arol sold CMD Group to Reed Elsevier in 2000. That same year, he became a Board Member of Revit Technology Corporation, creator of the first parametric building modeler. Revit was sold to Autodesk in 2002. Arol became CEO of SmartBIM at its founding in 2010. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) named Arol an honorary member in 1997, and in 2007 chose him to serve on the AIA 150 Board, the first non-architect to be so honored.
BLAINE WISHART
Chief Software Architect
Blaine Wishart has extensive software design, management and development experience in diverse industries including architecture, engineering and construction, financial, medical, insurance, shipping, software development, publishing, aerospace and manufacturing. He has over 20 years of experience with object-oriented analysis, design and development and has worked on projects ranging from embedded systems to large distributed systems. He is an early adopter of cloud computing, functional languages, agile development, and Internet technologies. Throughout his career, Blaine has been an active contributor to the informal guild of computer programmers, constantly honing his craft and helping others to develop robust, elegant and efficient code.
TOM LUTZ
Senior Vice President Sales
Tom Lutz brings over 30 years of management experience within the construction information industry to SmartBIM. Tom began his career with Manufacturers' Survey Associates (Quantity Surveyors) in 1981 and remained in various executive positions with the team that developed and grew Construction Market Data Group until its ultimate sale to Reed Elsevier in 2000. During this entrepreneurial period of growth Tom provided leadership to teams that developed 11 new businesses and 7 complete products under the banner of CMD Group, including Architects' First Source, CMD National Accounts, CMD Online, Health Market Data and many others. After the sale of CMD Group, Tom moved on to start Vision Planners, LLC, a strategic planning consultancy designed to assist visionary leaders in creating plans to advance their visions.
DENNIS NEELEY, AIA
Senior Vice President Owner Solutions
Dennis Neeley has started and run several successful companies all focused upon the practice and automation of the architectural, engineering, construction and real estate professions. He practiced architecture from 1970 to 1989 as a principal of the firm Neeley/Lofrano. He was managing partner of an 80-person construction/development company (residential and commercial projects) in the San Francisco region. He was the contributing editor of CADence magazine for 5 years, has written two books on CAD and has taught at UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Washington. With the invention of AutoCAD AEC Architectural and Mechanical, he became the driving force in bringing CAD to the architectural professions. He founded ASG, which later merged with Softdesk; the companies created over 30 CAD applications and were eventually purchased by Autodesk. Other innovations have included manufacturer and owner information distributed on cd-rom and via the Internet for companies such as Kohler, Corian, Weyerhaeuser Doors, McDonald's, Chevron, and Hilton. In 1999, Neeley's company Viscomm invented Building Center, an Internet-based software suite of applications for the management of real estate information. Building Center customers include Washington Mutual, American Express, and Deutsche Bank. Viscomm was purchased in 2000 by Bricsnet and in 2001 Neeley took over Bricsnet as CEO. In October 2003, Neeley retired from the technology business and formed a new company, Design-Integration, where he used SketchUp and Revit to create contract documents. In 2004 he "un-retired from technology" and joined Tectonic Network to work with their BIM business division. He has continued to work with the BIM business at Reed Construction Data and now SmartBIM. Dennis is the author of several influential articles on BIM.
MARTIN FLAHERTY
Senior Vice President Communications
Martin Flaherty, a specialist in communications and strategy, has been involved in the green building industry since 2000. He has been a partner in the development of the sustainability certification FloorScore for the resilient-flooring industry and currently for the business and institutional furniture manufacturers industry (BIFMA) the multi-attribute sustainability certification level®. He has consulted to the executive management teams at such companies as The Coca-Cola Company, Aflac, and General Motors, as well as the USGBC, on issues related to corporate positioning and the environment. In 2007, Martin and Paul Shahriari founded ecoScorecard, the web-based tool that lets architects and designers more easily find and spec products and materials by their environmental impact. Using a system of embedded algorithms, ecoScorecard lets manufacturers catalogue their green products and provide architects with the ability to search and evaluate each product based on its environmental characteristics. The program does the calculations necessary for multiple green building rating systems such as; LEED, LEED for Canada, GGHC, Labs21, CHPS, and others. ; and produces the product documentation necessary for inclusion in the submission process. ecoScorecard merged with SmartBIM in 2011.
PAUL SHAHRIARI
Senior Vice President Strategy
Paul Shahriari specializes in the application and implementation of sustainability in the real estate, design, construction and manufacturing industries. He helps architects, engineers, and construction managers establish vision, train teams, develop methodologies and tools and finally create world-class marketing and communications elements. Mr. Shahriari has worked on a variety of commercial and residential green projects whose aggregate value is approximately $30 billion. He specializes in providing a clear and comprehensive understanding of sustainability. By utilizing the framework of the triple bottom line (Environment, Economic and Social), Paul creates methodologies to enhance economic and environmental performance simultaneously. Paul developed Ecologic3, the world's first web-based collaboration software that calculates cost-benefit analysis for LEED projects. With Martin Flaherty, he developed ecoScorecard, the world's first software analysis package that provides environmental product rating contribution calculations and compliance analysis for the manufacturer and design community. ecoScorecard merged with SmartBIM in 2011.