Pure Energy Coach's A. Tamasin Sterner Recognized With the 2011 Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry

LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA--(Marketwire - March 30, 2011) - Pure Energy Coach, LLC, a leading provider of training, energy auditing and quality assurance services for home improvement professionals, congratulates President and Chief Coach A. Tamasin Sterner on her receipt of the prestigious 2011 Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry from the Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI), the nation's premier standards development and contractor credentialing organization for the home performance and weatherization industry.

The award was presented during a ceremony at the opening plenary of the 2011 ACI National Home Performance Conference in San Francisco, California. Sterner was nominated by individuals from the home performance industry and selected by a panel of impartial judges for her leadership in advancing quality training and mentoring programs.

"For nearly 30 years, Sterner has been a crusader for conserving energy, a pursuit that's taken her into more than 40,000 homes to advise residents on how to become more energy efficient. More recently she has applied her depth of experience to contractor training," said David Hepinstall, Chairman of the BPI Board of Directors. "Throughout her work in the field and classroom, she has demonstrated a bedrock understanding that the work we do as energy auditors, trainers or QA inspectors depends on effective communication with key audiences, whether they be homeowners, students, contractors or senators."

The Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry is an initiative from BPI in honor of Tony Woods, former President of Canam Building Envelope Specialists Inc. and ZERODRAFT^®, and a pioneer of the home performance industry. During his career, he served tirelessly in the industry as a volunteer board member with BPI, ACI, as president of the Ontario Building Envelope Council and on more than 10 Standards Committees dealing with air leakage control, air barriers, ventilation and more. He has presented on building envelope retrofit and home performance topics throughout North America and around the world. Woods was also the first Canadian to become a BPI Affiliate and brought the organization to the table with the Canadian Government. Woods passed away after a battle with leukemia on May 8, 2009, just over two weeks after the inaugural award in his name was presented by BPI.

Previous winners include Matt Golden, Co-Founder and President of Recurve (formerly Sustainable Spaces) and a driving force behind the formation of Efficiency First – America's Home Performance Workforce, who was honored in 2009 and Congressman Peter Welch (D) of Vermont who received the award in 2010. Congressman Welch led the development of the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) portion of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. REEP in turn provided the foundation for the HOME STAR Act of 2010 legislation. Laverne Dalgleish, Principal in Building Professionals Consortium, received the inaugural Canadian version of the award.

In addition to receiving the Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry, Sterner was profiled as an industry pioneer in ACI's 25 Years – 25 Stories retrospective, part of the organization's 25^th anniversary celebrations this year, which culminate with the national conference this week.

The ACI National Home Performance Conference, taking place March 29 to April 1, 2011, will offer 144 core conference sessions for contractors, builders, energy auditors, remodelers, designers and weatherization professionals, and will connect individuals looking to start or advance their careers in the home performance and weatherization industry with leading trainers and subject-matter experts from across the country. Sterner will co-present two sessions: Sick Houses, Sick People: Recognition & Response and Little (and Not So Little) Things That Add Up: Identifying and Reducing Plug Loads.

About Pure Energy Coach

Pure Energy coaches the future of America's home improvement industry with its grassroots approach to no-holds-barred audits, quality assurance services and training programs. Headquartered in Lancaster, PA, Pure Energy holds contracts with 12 utilities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver residential conservation and efficiency services to their gas and electricity customers. Since 1987, Pure Energy has served over 40,000 households and trained hundreds of professionals. Its 212-acre training facility, the Pure Energy Center located in Lavina, MT, opened in 2010. For more information, visit www.PureEnergyCoach.com.