about the Building Performance Center

 

The BPC was founded in 1997 by the Opportunity Council (OC), a non-profit community action agency serving Whatcom, Island and San Juan Counties in Washington State. The OC has been a leader in weatherization services for low-income residential housing since 1982.

 

  • The BPC’s purpose is improving the performance of buildings and the health, safety and comfort of the people who live in them
  • We help reduce energy use and expenses through weatherization
  • We find issues of lead, asbestos, mold and poor ventilation in homes where children with respiratory ailments live and prescribe remedies.
  • We are committed to serving our community through the Opportunity Council; profits earned by the BPC are returned to the OC to further their work among individuals and families in need
  • In all of our work, we stress quality work while maximizing energy efficiency

industry leaders

With the OC, the BPC has been instrumental in integrating healthy homes work practices and principals into low-income weatherization programs.

  • We train weatherization contractors to improve building comfort, safety and durability and to improve indoor air quality
  • Our students come from a broad network of community action organizations, and from forward-thinking commercial contractors who provide outstanding building performance services to their clients
  • We also train managers and administrators of weatherization and healthy homes programs, and of training programs like ours

how the BPC is different

  • The BPC is the lead training organization for Washington State’s Weatherization program
  • We developed the program that we teach
  • Our trainers actually do this work in the field, and continually update their skills
  • We offer real-world scenarios in our hands-on lab, built solely to train weatherization professionals
  • Our quality, training and expertise in improving building performance is second to none
  • We are recognized industry leaders
  • Our training facility is state-of-the-art, and is surrounded by mountains, forests, endless trails and a pristine bay

our history

1997 – Building Performance Center founded as new part of the Opportunity Council (OC), which has provided weatherization services since 1979.

1999 – Awarded the first of our ongoing multi-year contracts with Washington State to provide training services to 20+ community action weatherization programs.

2001 – 2003 - With funding from EPA and HUD, developed “Weatherization Plus Health” model, which the OC uses to address health issues in homes where children with respiratory ailments reside.

2003 - Affiliation with the Building Performance Institute (BPI) marks our initial standing to provide BPI certifications testing.

2009  - Qualified by the EPA to conduct Lead Renovator training.
Awarded American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding by Washington State Dept. of Commerce (WADOC) to create a state-of-the-art training facility. Our new facility is one of three training centers in the state. The others are in Olympia and Spokane.

2011 - The BPC trained over 500 weatherization contractors in 2011. One of our instructors became a certified OSHA 500 Trainer, qualified to teach OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 courses.