Mark Nowak - Senior Member

Mark Nowak is a senior member of Newport Partners LLC and one of its members who founded the company in 2002. He has a broad range of responsibilities for Newport including association management, building technology research, and codes and standards advocacy.  Prior to joining Newport, Mr. Nowak was vice-president of contract research for the NAHB Research Center where he was employed for nearly 17 years. He also worked at the local government level in Virginia as a building inspector and assistant town engineer. Mr. Nowak holds a BS degree in engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and is a LEED Accredited Professional.

Mr. Nowak has focused his work over the years on the adoption and integration of products and materials into the building industry. His understanding of the building industry encompasses construction, engineering, technology research, cost analysis, laboratory and field testing, field demonstrations, survey design and execution, code development, and related  policy analysis. In his early career he helped pioneer the use of statistically-defensible sampling as a tool for assessing buildings impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters and applied successfully to Hurricanes Andrew, Iniki, Opal and the Northridge Earthquake. Mr. Nowak’s recent work has emphasized sustainability issues including analyzing and developing industry policy positions on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), thermal performance of building materials, and durability of materials and buildings. He served as president of the Steel Framing Alliance from 2008 to 2001. He also conducting one of the first in depth energy simulation studies of the methods necessary to reach conceptual goals of improving building performance by 30% to 50% over mid-2000s energy codes and standards.