The Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute (CFSEI) has announced its keynote speakers for the 2014 CFSEI Annual Expo and Meeting, which is being held on May 19-20, 2014 at the historic Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. The speakers are Keith Lindemulder, LEED AP, Environmental Business Development Manager at Nucor Corporation; and Benjamin Schafer, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University.

“Sustainable design and seismic performance are topics of keen interest for our attendees, and we are pleased to have these two highly regarded experts address recent advancements and provide their analyses on the impact that these issues will have on our industry,” said Maribeth Rizzuto, LEED AP-BD&C, managing director of the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute.

Keith Lindemulder will address attendees on Monday, May 19 with a comprehensive overview of “green building” and its impact on the design professional. He will cover key terms and measurements such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), and Health Product Declarations (HPDs), among others. Lindemulder has more than 25 years of experience in the building component and cold-formed steel industries working on projects ranging from single-family residential to high-rise commercial, and is a National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Certified Green Professional.

On Tuesday, May 20, Dr. Ben Schafer will discuss the results of groundbreaking seismic research that his team conducted in “CFS-NEES: Exploring Cold-Formed Steel Seismic Performance in Full Buildings.” The research demonstrated how a cold-formed steel building behaves under a magnitude 6.9 earthquake, generating information that allowed researchers to determine how parts of the building transfer forces and how components such as drywall, interior walls, staircases and weatherproofing add to the building performance. These results open the door to revising national building codes.

The CFSEI Expo offers several educational and networking opportunities for attendees. The educational sessions will cover blast design; ASCE 7-10 wind loads; metal buildings; cold-formed steel studs; updates to the AISI Brick Veneer Cold-Formed Steel Framing Design Guide; a preview of AISI S310-13, North American Standard for the Design of Profiled Steel Diaphragm Panels; and a look forward to the Diaphragm Design Manual that is due out in early 2015. Winners of the 2014 CFSEI Design and Distinguished Service Awards will be announced.

For more information or to register for the Expo, please visit www.cfsei.org.