Fenestration Conversations

Hosted by Fenestration Review

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May 2026

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About the show

Let’s talk windows, doors and more. Fenestration Review editor Patrick Flannery welcomes influential executives, brainy experts and entertaining opinion leaders from across the country to get deep into the weeds of the issues facing our industry.

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60 recent

May 15, 202645 min

Episode #80: Aligning your operation - Paul Amato, Tallinn Advisory

Tune in for some high-level thinking about how to make your business run better. Paul Amato is a business and management consultant with Tallinn Advisory and has spent over 30 years in the fenestration and construction industries. He's developed key insights around the concept of "alignment" – getting the different people and departments in organizations to have common goals and the same understanding of how they contribute to them. He joins Conversations to share his tips on how to get aligned and discuss other key factors for success such as finding salespeople with the right mindset; setting up a service-first structure; and creating a strong company culture through communication.

April 27, 202624 min

Episode #79: The Kids Are All Right - Vasilisa Lave, Re:Build

When Vasilisa Lave reached out to tell us what she and her classmates at Bramalea Secondary in Brampton, Ont., are doing, we knew we had to get her on the podcast right away to get everyone in the area involved. Lave has started an initiative called Re:Build where she helps construction contractors and subtrades to support high school trades programs by dropping off their site waste at schools instead of throwing it in a landfill. The woefully underfunded trades programs get the materials they need to help build the next generation of skilled workers. Contractors save tipping fees and get to see the smiles on young peoples' faces. It's a huge win all around. Lave will even contact other high school programs to find the one closest to your job site. Listen to her explain Re:Build, then reach out to her today via email re.buildpmca@gmail.com or on Instagram @re_bu1ld to plan your next delivery.

March 23, 202644 min

Episode #78: Don't Stress Out - Sandra Primiano, Dialogue

Contractors work in a high-stress jobs for sure, where frustration, time pressure, conflict and long hours can grind us down. We view workplace stress as part of the lifestyle, but Sandra Primiano from online mental health services provider, Dialogue, says it has very real and measurable effects on productivity and quality. Those effects can include workplace accidents and addiction problems, so it's something we need to pay attention to. Primiano joins The Conversation to explain how job stress leads to decreased performance; what signs might point to a co-worker who is struggling; and some practical tips for mitigating issues when they arise.

January 16, 20261 hr 3 min

Episode #77: A Way Up Instead of a Way Out - Eddy Atausi, Noble

We're all looking for top engineering talent and the fenestration and glass industry has a lot to offer any technical person who enjoys innovation and experimentation. But our companies just aren't on most engineers' radar screens, making it important for us to be proactive in attracting and retaining talent. Eddy Atausi has made the unusual choice to learn as much as he can about fenestration and glass so he can bring his talent recruitment and development skills to us. He joins Pat Flannery to talk about what works in our market when it comes to getting the best people to make our products and processes.

November 21, 202558 min

Episode #76: The Future of Sustainable Glazing - Joe Menchefski, Better Buildings for Humans

On his podcast Better Buildings for Humans, Joe Menchefski explores ways to make our built spaces healthier and more liveable with top building science experts from around the world. As part of the team at Advanced Glazings, a Nova Scotia fabricator specializing in aerogel products, Menchefski has deep knowledge of innovative energy-efficient technologies. Who better to ask about the state of sustainable building today and what to expect in the years ahead? Tune in to hear two professional talkers go at it in this episode of Fenestration Conversations.

September 26, 20251 hr 0 min

Episode #75: Reflections on a Career in Windows – Skip Maclean

Skip Maclean has retired from ODL, his last stop on a 53-year journey through the Canadian window and door manufacturing industry. Along the way he rose to the top, chairing innumerable committees, serving as president of Fenestration Canada and being honoured with its 2019 C.P. Loewen award. He did it with humour, humility and intelligence, and counts many of today’s industry leaders as his proteges. Maclean joins the Conversation to share his memories and accumulated wisdom.

September 8, 202549 min

Episode #74: Principles of Marketing – Alison Simpson, Canadian Marketing Association

Our business is making things, not talking about them. So it’s no surprise that many of us struggle with the demands of promoting our businesses to potential clients and customers. Alison Simpson, president and CEO of the CMA, has been helping major corporations do just that throughout her career and she joins Pat Flannery for a lively conversation chock full of good advice. She also has details of an exciting program enabling small businesses to obtain government funds to hire digital marketing experts and to upskill their existing IT staff.

August 1, 20251 hr 15 min

Episode #73: Two Numbers – Chris Magwood, RMI

Chris Magwood of the Rocky Mountain Institute joins the podcast to discuss the One Number approach to sustainable building regulation…and he has some objections. While a performance-based approach aimed at regulating the whole-life carbon impact of a construction project should be our ultimate goal, Magwood feels the upfront impact of embodied carbon needs to be evaluated separately, but adjacent to, the long-term impact of operational carbon. Listen now to find out why, and for Magwood’s assessment of where we are in being able to do the carbon impact modelling we will need to meet the future sustainable building regulations under discussion today.

June 6, 20251 hr 13 min

Episode #72: One Number – Jonathon “JoMo” Layton, Layton Consulting

How would it be if all the databases and charts and spreadsheets and regulations and tiers defining whether our products comply with sustainable building laws just…went away? Replaced by one number: – the only number that matters – the amount of carbon dioxide emitted over a building’s lifetime as a result of its manufacture, construction, use and disposal. Partner at Layton Consulting, Jonathon “JoMo” Layton joins the podcast to chew over this radical idea and lend his expertise to the question of whether it could work and how it would affect us all.

May 9, 202547 min

Episode #71: The next hot topic – Robin Urquhart, RDH Building Science

High-profile wildfires doing substantial property damage to urban areas in B.C. and Alberta have spurred NRCan to look at creating Canadian building standards for wildfire resistance. The consultation process has just begun, but it seems likely that some day soon we may see new codes requiring resistant windows, doors and other components in wildfire-prone areas. What might these rules look like? How do we determine if a product is sufficiently resistant to external fires? And what is the science behind making frames and glass that resists fire and prevents heat transfer to the home interior? Robin Urquhart has worked on rebuilding communities destroyed by wildfires and joins the Conversation to share his deep knowledge of this topic.