Immediately after finishing his engineering degree at the University of Saskatchewan in 1976, Keith Hanson began building houses. Afterhis two first builds, he upgraded the designs to ones well beyond the building code at the time. Both homes quickly sold at a profit;the innovations made sense and the buyers recognized the value of those innovations. Keith has built homes and helped builders do the same for over fifty years. He has lectured and provided hands-on training during this time and guided the development and implementation of national programs such as R-2000 and the code-based tiers. His involvement, guidance, and assistance has earned him the Maple Leaf Award (the top national award of the Canadian Home Builders' Association) as well as many others from provincial and local organizations.