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First Home Builder Signs Up to Participate in
Southern Nevada Green Building Partnership

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thresholds verified by a third party; and managing potential pollutants generated in the home by providing mechanical exhaust fan to the outside from the kitchen range, bath and laundry; there are also mechanical ventilation requirements for the bedrooms.

“We are pleased that Signature Custom Homes and the Plaster family have taken the historic step to sign up as the first home builders participating in the Southern Nevada Green Building Partnership,” said Irene Porter, executive director of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, which is the administrator of the local Green Building Partnership. “Signature Homes and the Plasters have 30-years experience in quality home building. They’ve demonstrated that they’re leaders in the area of energy efficiency and conservation, and they have been very active and generous, whether that be civic, cultural and governmental involvement for the benefit of the community,” Porter said.

The Southern Nevada Home Builders Association is the oldest and largest local trade organization representing the residential construction industry with nearly 700 members working in all facets of the home building industry. Association members build 90 percent of the new housing constructed annually in Southern Nevada. It is an affiliate of the National Association of Home Builders, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association founded in 1942 to enhance the climate for housing and the building industry. NAHB is made up of 850 state and local associations.

Plaster’s interest in the environment runs deep. In addition to growing up in an environmentally conscious family, the graduate of the Meadows School earned a bachelor’s of science degree in natural resources, which is a combination of geology and forestry, in 1999 from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. During that period, he also studied sustainable development in Costa Rica.

He went on to earn a master’s degree in geography in 2003 from Texas State University in San Marcos. While working for a custom home builder in Austin, Texas, he toured five homes under construction using green-building standards. Austin has one of the oldest green building programs in the United States and most builders participate in that program, Plaster said. The time and experiences in Austin sparked an intense interest in learning more about green building, and perhaps, one day, building green homes himself.

He has networked with other custom home builders involved in green building; he’s attended green building conferences, including the green building conference sponsored last year in Albuquerque, N.M. by the National Association of Home Builders, which developed the Model