Material IQ

Every episode of the Material IQ podcast explores in detail the materiality of the built environment: innovation, inspiration, and case studies from leading architects, designers, suppliers, and manufacturers with an emphasis on climate-positive outcomes in commercial and residential design.

Material IQ is a business podcast hosted by Kenn Busch, with 6 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Kenn Busch hosts Material IQ, a business show with 6 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Material IQ

  Material IQ Episode 005: “Specifying Fire Retardant Veneer Core Plywood for Interior Use (CFP 2026-1)”

  Jul 30, 202641 min

  About this episode In this episode of Material IQ, host Kenn Busch sits down with Alicia Powell of Columbia Forest Products to unpack the first domestically manufactured, third-party certified Class A fire retardant veneer core plywood. Powell, whose career spans both the structural and decorative sides of fire retardant wood, maps the two very different corners of the building code these products live in: IBC Section 2303.2, which governs structural framing members and demands pressure impregnation plus an ASTM E2768 burn test, and IBC Section 803, which governs decorative interior finishes like cabinets, millwork, and wall panels and requires the ASTM E84. Both share the same pass thresholds and the difference is time under flame, a distinction that still trips up specs written for the retired “E84 Extended.” The heart of the conversation is the gap between developmental testing (one production run, one lab report, maybe an engineering opinion) and genuine third-party certification: 18 passed tests, an ICC-ES listing, mill-floor monitoring, signed samples, annual retesting, and unannounced audits that can pull the listing. Powell also covers how individual poplar veneers are pressure treated before layup with Columbia’s soy-based, no-added-formaldehyde resin, why the finished panel reverts to Class C once a 1/42″ decorative face is applied while the core stays Class A, the roughly 15% weight penalty versus untreated poplar, the need to test your own adhesives and finishes on a small scale first, and the exact spec language architects should use so the product doesn’t get value-engineered out. Alicia Powell Kenn Busch A look at the internal core. NEW: Earn AIA-approved CEUs just for listening to this podcast!

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  Material IQ

  Material IQ Episode 004: A History of Decorative Laminate

  Jul 20, 202641 minS0

  <p >Formica’s brand historian Renee Hightree Darrington joins the Material IQ Podcast for a rare deep dive into the company’s century-long design legacy — from its 1913 origins as an electrical insulator to the birth of mid-century modern icons like the “Skylark” boomerang pattern and Raymond Loewy’s postwar pastels. Along the way: the real story behind matte finishes, Color-Core, and how paper (not plastic) built an industry — plus an unexpected sustainability angle tying Formica’s history to forest health and carbon storage. A must-listen for anyone who wants the inside track on how one material shaped the American middle-class home.</p> <p>R...

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  Material IQ

  Material IQ Episode 004: A History of Decorative Laminate

  Jul 20, 202641 min

  Formica&#8217;s brand historian Renee Hightree Darrington joins the Material IQ Podcast for a rare deep dive into the company&#8217;s century-long design legacy — from its 1913 origins as an electrical insulator to the birth of mid-century modern icons like the &#8220;Skylark&#8221; boomerang pattern and Raymond Loewy&#8217;s postwar pastels. Along the way: the real story behind matte finishes, Color-Core, and how paper (not plastic) built an industry — plus an unexpected sustainability angle tying Formica&#8217;s history to forest health and carbon storage. A must-listen for anyone who wants the inside track on how one material shaped the American middle-class home. Read a transcript of this podcast episode The following podcast transcript was generated with Whisper AI and may contain errors. Transcript Kenn Busch in conversation with Renee Hightree Darrington, brand historian, Formica Corporation. [00:00] Renee Hightree Darrington: It&#8217;s wild to walk into a space and then see something that your team worked on. It just is wild. And you can name the year and remember all the work that went into it. I would say that we were very lucky to have a design legacy throughout the years that led to the teams that we have today. [00:28] Kenn Busch: A design legacy like no other. The Formica Corporation basically defined an entire category of materials: high-pressure laminates. Hi, my name is Kenn Busch. I&#8217;m the host of the Material IQ podcast. And that was Renee Hightree Darrington, who has been playing a role with the Formica Corporation since the 1980s — in one way or another, leading design, defining design, discussing design. And she has been a great influence on the way I approach my materials coverage in this industry. [01:02] Kenn Busch: So this episode is very cool because it digs into the long legacy and history of materials and their role in defining the middle class and creating entirely new ways to think about design. And I&#8217;m super excited about this. But first, who is Renee? [01:24] Renee Hightree Darrington: I&#8217;m the brand historian for Formica Corporation. But before that role, I&#8217;d spent more than four decades doing product design at some of the best manufacturers in the world with a historic background — Kohler Company and then Formica. At Formica, I worked for 36 years, ultimately leading the global design teams across five continents. [01:49] Renee Hightree Darrington: During this process, I became deeply engaged in our history, just because design and history make sense. And we had a lot of wonderful designers and architects that were curious about our history. So now at this point, after rolling off my design roles, I&#8217;m focusing on documenting and archiving our company history. [02:10] Renee Hightree Darrington: One of my most recent projects, which was a blast — I documented every single HPL design ever produced by the U.S. division of Formica Corporation, for a major donation of both samples and photography to the National Building Museum. So that&#8217;s kind of what I&#8217;m doing right now. [02:32] Renee Hightree Darrington: But how did I get here? I started out with a degree in architecture from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. And I did go back and get my master&#8217;s in industrial design at The Ohio State University. I really do believe in education, which is great being a historian, because you can teach things. So with that, I serve on advisory boards at Ohio State as well as the University of Minnesota. Technical origins: a substitute for mica [02:57] Kenn Busch: Formica has some sort of technical origins, right? So where do we start talking about the beginnings — the beginnings of the high-pressure world, and Formica&#8217;s leadership in making it what it is today? [03:11] Renee Hightree Darrington: Well, ironically, the first order coming out of a rented Formica plant in 1913 was parts for the automotive industry. So go figure. I presented a paper at Ford last year for the International Business Archivists. And for me it was a great symbolic event, that here I was in the automotive industry, which was really the first customer of Formica. [03:38] Renee Hightree Darrington: It was an interesting company because it was started by two engineers that worked for Westinghouse. They had developed some technology. What they did is they were looking to create a laminated insulating material that was to be a substitute for the mineral mica. So it was actually a sort of stone-like product that was used for insulation. [04:04] Renee Hightree Darrington: Now, during that decade, there was a huge explosion of need for electronic equipment. So the demand for mica was more than the supply of that mineral. And it wasn&#8217;t consistent, and it was hard to get, and there were supply issues and all that kind of stuff. So our founders really had the opportunity to create kind of a wonder technical material that could be used in a lot of electrical-type appliances, as well as the automotive industry — timing gears, even shuttlecocks for making textiles. So it was a different kind of material to what we think about today. It really had a very interesting start on its way to becoming synonymous with modern durable surfacing. [04:57] Kenn Busch: This original electrical insulator — it was kraft paper saturated with phenolic resin? Or was there a version of this before that combination became the basis for HPL? [05:11] Renee Hightree Darrington: Fabric too. So it wasn&#8217;t always paper — it was also fabric. And we made shaped products also, so it wasn&#8217;t always flat. There was kind of a combination of things. [05:22] Renee Hightree Darrington: The earliest presses that did make flat material were very small. I think they were like two by three, versus now the big presses out in the world are four, five, six foot by eight, ten, twelve foot long. We can actually produce a larger sheet than that. It&#8217;s just that it&#8217;s harder to handle. But early days, the presses were small. We have photographs of these small presses that the guys were working on. And even the founders worked in the plant — that&#8217;s what&#8217;s so cool about the early days. The founders were actually working on all of that. Radios and the turn toward decorative [05:58] Renee Hightree Darrington: Besides the automotive industry, we also were part of the early innovation of radios — telecommunications. I don&#8217;t know if you remember those old standup radios, those big standup radios where people sat around and turned the dial and they were able to connect with the world for the first time. That was one of our other first customers. And that&#8217;s where the product became flat, because we were used as the insulating board in the back. And then the fronts were wood. [06:35] Kenn Busch: Oh, okay. [06:38] Renee Hightree Darrington: The expansion of the radios is kind of where we led into our decorative side, because that same radio manufacturer started to want to use our materials on the front. And they were asking us if we would have the ability to make that black or brown sheet look more like a wood, because walnut and wood was the material of choice back in the 1910s and &#8217;20s. So it was the radio industry that sort of helped us get into decorative. [07:10] Kenn Busch: I don&#8217;t want to skip past the terminology here, or the company name. I think we kind of alluded to it, but literally the company name is because the material you were making was a substitute for… [07:22] Renee Hightree Darrington: For the mineral mica. [07:24] Kenn Busch: For mica, right. And so is that the honest version of where the brand name comes from? Because I actually got into a discussion with somebody a couple of months ago. They had a different take on it. I&#8217;m like, no, I&#8217;m pretty sure it&#8217;s because it was a substitute for mica. [07:43] Renee Hightree Darrington: It is absolutely that. [07:45] Kenn Busch: And it&#8217;s also become the quintessential reference point for high-pressure laminate, right? [07:51] Renee Hightree Darrington: It is. What HPL actually is [07:53] Kenn Busch: I headed you off a little bit ago. You were about to tell us why the printed design became an integral part of what we understand as Formica, as the radio industry was asking you for something to replace wood. [08:08] Renee Hightree Darrington: Yeah, exactly. Well, actually, I should probably step back and talk about the basic makeup of HPL — high-pressure laminate. Sometimes we do industry slang for it, right? HPL. But the laminate comes from the original process, where there were layers of either fabric or paper that were saturated in thermosetting resins and then pressed under heat and pressure. And with this, you have a very durable, flexible, wipe-clean surface. It&#8217;s a very strong surface. First, it was ideal for insulation materials. And then later, of course, we turned it into decorative. Radio City Music Hall and the cigarette-proof laminate [08:48] Kenn Busch: I want to ask you a little bit about the Radio City Music Hall thing. As you were saying that, it occurred to me: well, if you can make it in New York, you can make it everywhere. And you&#8217;re talking about Formica basically going global. But what was the material used? You said it was like a black lacquer. Where were they using it? And how did Formica execute it at that time? [09:10] Renee Hightree Darrington: Well, we sold the sheets and it was used for furniture. [09:12] Kenn Busch: For furniture, yeah. [09:13] Renee Hightree Darrington: Black lacquer furniture, and then for wall paneling. And it&#8217;s interesting because Radio City Hall was not only one of the earliest installations of that material, the insulating material — it also was the first time in a major installation where, again, a product developed by Jack Cochrane… [09:40] Kenn Busch: So a quick editorial note here. Jack Cochrane was Formica&#8217;s director of research in the 1920s and &#8217;30s. He developed lighter-colored laminates in 1927. He introduced urea-based resins in the 1930s, which helped shift the company from electrical insulation into decorative surfacing. And as Renee is going to tell us, he was involved in some other very critical technical leaps forward for the company. [10:09] Renee Hightree Darrington: Again, a product developed by Jack Cochrane was a no-scorch construction laminate. Or back in those days, you would call them cigarette-proof. In 1931, he created a laminate that included a thin layer of metal foil in between those papers. And this created the surface that was effectively cigarette-proof. [10:34] Renee Hightree Darrington: And as you know, back in those days, smoking was very bold, right? Everybody smoked. There was a lot of smoking happening. And that was something that was always a category even wood and other materials had to deal with. So Radio City Hall was also one of the first installations of that cigarette-proof or no-scorch construction laminate. [10:56] Renee Hightree Darrington: And when you think about it, everybody thinks of Formica for mid-century modern kitchen countertops. Actually, our earliest forays were more into the commercial segment — either transportation design, like big ships, trains, early airplanes, as well as some significant architectural installations that kind of affiliated with it, like bus stations and transportation halls, that sort of thing. [11:28] Kenn Busch: Because of the durability? Because of the consistency? [11:32] Renee Hightree Darrington: Yes and yes. Durability. [11:35] Kenn Busch: And the value, I suppose, too, right? [11:37] Renee Hightree Darrington: Yeah. And also in those days, because of our printing innovations, we were able to offer a substitute for what was considered very expensive and potentially rare materials. Like with the wood grains. [11:52] Renee Hightree Darrington: Back to Jack in 1927 — he created a technique that he was able to patent to do light wood grains. Because imagine, if you&#8217;re using phenolic resins, the earlier ones were darker, like walnuts. But there was a trend for lighter wood grains in the latter part of the 1920s. So he also patented a technique for creating blonde wood grains, basically, that were very popular. So here the palette was opening up, that we could do both light to dark wood grains, substituting the very expensive sapeles and all of the different kinds of exotics out there, which was fantastic. So it was something that architects and designers were looking to use if they didn&#8217;t have access to those more expensive materials. Printing on paper [12:39] Kenn Busch: So the printing part — as that was introduced, you couldn&#8217;t print right on the brown or dark-colored kraft paper. You had to add a lighter-colored layer of paper to print on to carry some of these designs? How did this combination of materials evolve? [12:59] Renee Hightree Darrington: Well, the original wood grains for the radio industry were on the dark kraft paper. And so therefore the images were more muted and not as crisp like they are today. Because today we have the ability to print photorealistically, which is fantastic. Depending on the texture, it looks like a real veneer. But in those days it was more of a challenge. And this innovation to do it on a lighter opaque surface actually helped lighten and brighten the print and allow us the wider range. Why matte finishes exist [13:34] Kenn Busch: And the evolution of the textures of laminates. I think one of the great things I learned from you was that stipple finish that was introduced maybe in the &#8217;50s or something like that. That wasn&#8217;t necessarily an aesthetic decision — it was a durability decision. Am I recalling this right, Renee? [13:55] Renee Hightree Darrington: I would say that in the early days, the laminate finish was more of a glossy finish. And in fact, when I joined the business, we used to have a buffing machine. So you&#8217;d press it in a matte finish and then you&#8217;d buff it. It was kind of an interesting technique. And you probably see that finish out there today. But it was more geared towards more glossy finishes. [14:18] Renee Hightree Darrington: But then the matte — we call it matte, not super matte — the matte finish with that slight little subtle texture to it, that was meant to be a more forgiving texture in general. And matte texture came about, I would say, in the late &#8217;40s, after World War II ended. So that was an innovation. [14:43] Kenn Busch: And sometimes I speak in front of groups of students and I&#8217;m talking about that innovation. And I&#8217;m pretty sure I learned this from you, right? The idea that these little micro-pebbles, this little tiny stipple finish, was really to minimize the surface contact as people engaged with the material. And minimize — let&#8217;s say if you were going to scratch it, you only scratched just the very tops of those little stipples, instead of digging into what would be maybe a lacquer finish or a smooth, shiny finish. Am I remembering that right? [15:21] Renee Hightree Darrington: Yeah. And it hides it, too. Most matte laminates are, I don&#8217;t know, 15 to 18 degree gloss. And that&#8217;s kind of the average gloss level of what your average scratch or scuff that somebody would do, overusing the material. So when you have a high gloss, which is at 90, if you take a deep scratch through it, it&#8217;s going to go down to that 18 degree gloss and you&#8217;re going to see it — versus with a nice subtle matte finish. Melamine and the arrival of color [15:52] Renee Hightree Darrington: And there&#8217;s lots of technologies out there today. So I need to say that this is the melamine technology, which was really key to the laminate industry in total. Today there&#8217;s so many more technologies out there that are anti-scratch and anti-fingerprint that are fantastic, like our Fenix product. So I&#8217;m talking back in the day where melamine was used. [16:19] Renee Hightree Darrington: And actually, melamine wasn&#8217;t the original surface — not until about 1938. When melamine was available, that allowed us to create the brighter colors that you wanted to see. Before, it was more of a muddy resin in general. So really, the introduction of melamine gave us the color clarity, the heat resistance that was needed, and the durability. And that allowed us to do the wonderful light and dark patterns and much more brilliant colors than we had even before. [16:56] Renee Hightree Darrington: And that&#8217;s why, when you think about mid-century modern — besides the war happening right until &#8217;45 — all the stuff that came after that, there was a lot of light aquas and pinks and all those lovely colors being used at the time. [17:09] Kenn Busch: So just to make sure we&#8217;re tracking on the terminology here: when you say melamine, you&#8217;re talking about melamine-saturated decor papers, right? Because the resin used in the core, the kraft papers, is a phenolic resin, which cures darker. But it&#8217;s more cost-effective. [17:28] Renee Hightree Darrington: Well, it has some benefits that melamine doesn&#8217;t. [17:31] Kenn Busch: Ooh, do tell. [17:31] Renee Hightree Darrington: I mean, the reason we have that core is that the phenolic resin is very flexible. So the sheets won&#8217;t break. Melamine has a tendency to be less flexible. [17:42] Kenn Busch: Brittle. [17:43] Renee Hightree Darrington: So by marrying the two different kinds of resins, we get the best of both worlds. We get a durable, clear topcoat that&#8217;s hard and scratch-resistant, but then you have a nice flexible sheet so that the fabricators and the millwork houses can easily work with them. We can roll them up in a hat box and ship them to your house directly, for instance. So all the resins have a specific purpose. Postwar design and the American middle class [18:08] Kenn Busch: So on this design journey — let me know if I&#8217;m kind of skipping over — I really want to get into talking about the colors and the designs that made the whole mid-century design movement pop. And Formica&#8217;s role in that, and really shaping what people thought of as the emergence of the American middle class, which was something brand new in the world. [18:33] Renee Hightree Darrington: Even though we were starting on that journey towards decorative laminates in the early &#8217;30s, our main focus was more the commercial segment. Like I said, transportation and commercial buildings and that sort of thing. Our plant was utilized for the war effort, and we actually went back to our origins by creating gears and propellers for airplanes, and equipment for radios. So our plant totally shifted for World War II efforts. [19:05] Kenn Busch: So cool. But after the war? [19:08] Renee Hightree Darrington: We were able to step back into being decorative again. And one of the first things that we did was we worked with — he&#8217;s not as well known, unfortunately, but he was one of the early modernists — his name was Morris B. Sanders. We worked with him. He lived in New York City. He put up one of the first modern brownstones in the city. He created a design with us called Moonglow, that is patented. Moonglow, G-L-O. This was done in 1948. [19:38] Renee Hightree Darrington: So this is kind of the first partnership we had with an outside designer, to help us understand what the new aesthetics of the coming age were. He was the first one that we started working with. Then we had two very famous industrial designers that were using our material. Brooks Stevens, Luxwood, and Skylark [19:56] Renee Hightree Darrington: First, we worked with an industrial designer named Brooks Stevens. And me coming from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, growing up in Wisconsin, I&#8217;m so proud to say that Brooks Stevens from Milwaukee was a customer. He was wor

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  Material IQ

  Material IQ Episode 003: “Engineering a Better Panel with Climate-Positive Plywood”

  Feb 12, 202641 minS0

  <p >In this episode of Material IQ, host Ken Busch sits down with Chris Tutuska of Funder (Genesis Products) and Meghan Bell of Garnica to explore a breakthrough in decorative panel technology: thermally fused laminate (TFL) pressed on a sustainably engineered poplar plywood core. The conversation dives into how Garnica’s meticulously cultivated, plantation-grown plywood—virtually void-free and carbon-neutral—solves historic challenges in using plywood in TFL applications while delivering superior strength, lighter weight, greater thickness accuracy, and improved tool life.</p> <p >Beyond performance, the three discuss the environmental and health benefits of responsible forestry, carbon sequestration, and alignment with i...

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  Material IQ

  Material IQ Episode 003: “Engineering a Better Panel with Climate-Positive Plywood”

  Feb 12, 202641 min

  In this episode of Material IQ , host Ken Busch sits down with Chris Tutuska of Funder (Genesis Products) and Meghan Bell of Garnica to explore a breakthrough in decorative panel technology: thermally fused laminate (TFL) pressed on a sustainably engineered poplar plywood core. The conversation dives into how Garnica’s meticulously cultivated, plantation-grown plywood—virtually void-free and carbon-neutral—solves historic challenges in using plywood in TFL applications while delivering superior strength, lighter weight, greater thickness accuracy, and improved tool life. Beyond performance, the three discuss the environmental and health benefits of responsible forestry, carbon sequestration, and alignment with initiatives such as the AIA Materials Pledge and LEED. Read a transcript of this podcast episode The following podcast transcript was generated with Whisper AI and may contain errors. Meghan Bell • 00:09 Architects and designers are so wonderfully placed to be able to instill change in the market. When you feel so good about something you&#8217;re more motivated to get up and go to work, you&#8217;re more motivated to get up and do the next thing, and I really do feel like we&#8217;re making a difference. Kenn Busch • 00:26 Hi, I&#8217;m Ken Bush. This is the Material IQ podcast. And if your goals include making a difference by using the most sustainable materials you can find without compromising design, durability, or breaking the budget, then I think you&#8217;re really going to enjoy this conversation. We&#8217;re here today to talk about a material that we all know, TFL, thermally fused laminate decorative panels and another material that we all know, plywood, coming together to create something new for the North American market. The company Funder, part of Genesis products, has launched a new TFL material with a plywood core instead of the typical particle board or sometimes MDF, a plywood core that is sustainably grown and sustainably produced by a company called Garnica. The you heard at the top of the podcast is Meghan Bell. She&#8217;s from Garnica and she talked a little bit about why it feels good to specify a material like this, why it helps make a difference. And we&#8217;re going to dig deep into that, but first of all, who is Meghan? Meghan Bell • 01:35 So I am the product specialist as well as I look after architect and design development for North America. I&#8217;ve dove into the trees and really the process of how the plywood&#8217;s made, doing research on the standards of our North American standards, as well as other standards, to understand why Kenn Busch • 01:57 Garnica is so superior. And from Genesis Funder, we have Chris Tytuska. Chris, tell us a little bit about you and a little bit about Genesis, if you would. Yeah, so Chris Tytuska, product director Chris Tutuska • 02:09 of the three Funder facilities here. The three Funder facilities are part of the larger 14 plants. The business that I&#8217;m particularly involved with is the kitchen and closet industry, and we call that the industrial side of our business. Within that space, we have a lot of capabilities, servicing the whole kind of cabinet and closet industries. From the lamination side, we have all surfaces covered. Roll lamination, we do low-faces, weight papers, 2D foil lamination, HPL lamination, and what I&#8217;m involved with TFL lamination. Kenn Busch • 02:48 And Genesis has a very elaborate door program as well. Laminated doors made out of 3DL or five piece wrapped doors made out of other types of lighter weight surfaces. Slab doors. Drawer boxes made with wrapped components or plywood. Even powder coated wood components. And an acoustic line, acoustic treatments made out of a sustainable material called Quel. and that&#8217;s Q-W-E-L. But all the laminate materials are available as coordinated matching or complimentary surfaces. So you can get your matches made by Genesis rather than as a designer or a manufacturer trying to hunt around and find all these different materials that will somehow look just right when they&#8217;re all used together. Chris Tutuska • 03:36 Right, so in our surface synergy collection, we do have, you know, we start out with the TFL patterns cores, solids and wood grains. And we match those. We feel that our surface synergy program is the most accurate in the industry for matching across the different surfaces that any manufacturer, cabinet, closet producer might want to use because we know that it&#8217;s a challenge and pain point for people that have had scar tissue using kind of generic industry cross reference sheets. And so we stand behind the accuracy of these matches across TFL, across the edge banding, across HPL, across 3D and 2D vinyls. And so, you know, if you, you know, are selecting something out of our program, you can kind of have a little bit of ease of mind that this is going to match. I don&#8217;t have to go through all of the development work to and frankly, it&#8217;s usually a hard push to get all of that and it takes time, time that a lot of people don&#8217;t have. And so that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to address is taking some of that upfront work out. Kenn Busch • 04:50 And that&#8217;s a huge, that&#8217;s been a huge bugaboo the whole time I&#8217;ve been in the industry is how do I value engineer this, this project or this interior, you know, space without compromising my design integrity, you know, without, you know, you&#8217;ve got to versus over engineering or trying to use the same material on every possible surface, right? So you guys are that consultant, right? You&#8217;re the, you&#8217;re the, that, that source, that resource for, let&#8217;s say a curated matching program across so many different materials. And I&#8217;m trying to remember what your motto is. Is it, is it, there&#8217;s nothing we can&#8217;t do or is it Chris Tutuska • 05:26 resistance is futile? Maybe a little bit of both. So all of these components and materials we&#8217;ve been Kenn Busch • 05:34 been talking about, you know, these are laminates and overlays and substrates that are available out in the market that Genesis uses to create value added components for commercial and residential interior design. But the TFL, the funder TFL panels are actually produced in-house. Is that right, Chris? Chris Tutuska • 05:51 Yeah. And we produce TFL on any number of core substrates. That could be particle board. That could be MDF. That could be plywood. of those even delve into some odd board sizes and then some also some some makeups, whether that&#8217;s a moisture resistant, fire resistant, FSC certified, ULEF, you name it. You know, there&#8217;s a there&#8217;s a whole host of cores that we use to meet certain product and project specifications. Kenn Busch • 06:23 You said plywood under TFL? Yes. What? Yep. Tell us why you&#8217;re doing that. Chris Tutuska • 06:31 So plywood, especially in the cabinet industry, a lot of the manufacturers use it as a lever to have an upcharge that is basically just by switching out the core, they can demand a higher price. The consumer in America knows that that is probably a higher quality product that has better resistance to moisture. definitely stronger than when it comes to MOE and MOR as far as being able to hold more weight. And even with doing that, it&#8217;s a lighter weight product. So overall, it&#8217;s a step up in quality and I think it&#8217;s been communicated that&#8217;s a step up in craftsmanship. So it allows them to charge Kenn Busch • 07:19 a higher price for it. So plywood is an unusual material for TFL, at least in my experience? Is this new to the market overall? Chris Tutuska • 07:31 Yeah, I&#8217;ll address why it&#8217;s been kind of a challenge in previous versions. And so previous iterations of plywood used in the TFL application. For one reason or the other, there&#8217;s been some voids and some whether it splices, whether it&#8217;s actually voids from you know, knots in the actual slicing veneers that make up the plywood platform. Those are a problem if you don&#8217;t have consistency within the plywood platform, because if you can think about having a core that is experiencing a lot of pressure in a short amount of time, if there&#8217;s nothing pushing back and there&#8217;s a void in the core, that plate cannot touch and cure the melamine treated paper to the substrate. Kenn Busch • 08:20 What do these voids mean in the finished panel? Chris Tutuska • 08:23 People that buy our products, they don&#8217;t want to see a big kind of milky white spot anywhere from three inches to four inches wide. What we&#8217;ve developed with Guernica, because of their consistency of their plywood platform and they&#8217;re basically virtually void free core. We have a very low scrap rate. We have a material thickness accuracy, probably nothing that I&#8217;ve ever seen in plywood. And so, yeah, it&#8217;s just, and we can get into more of the details on what that means to the end user, the manufacturer. But yeah, that&#8217;s exactly why this product addresses some of those previous problems with plywood previous attempts to launch it in the market. Kenn Busch • 09:14 Meghan, you&#8217;ve got some expertise in this plywood that we&#8217;re talking about, right? &#8211; I do. &#8211; I&#8217;ve been really amazed to hear how much has gone into engineering this perfect substrate that Funder is now using in their TFL. Please give us some history of Garnica and how this perfect plywood core came to be. Meghan Bell • 09:36 Garnica is a Spanish company out of La Crona La Rioja. It all starts really at the nursery in the mother tree. So each clone is taken from the mother tree by a clipping, it&#8217;s planted in the earth by the mother tree. It grows for one to two years. And then they do a secondary clipping where they basically take down the tree. They put it into an irrigation trench essentially where it can re-root and then it&#8217;s moved over into the plantation. Now in the plantation, it grows for 12 to 15 years and every one to two years, they go through an aggressive pruning where they trim the branches up as far as is healthy for the tree. Now this helps the tree grow very straight, very tall and very fast. It also allows for those growth rings to grow around the scars of the initial trimmings. And then that gives clear veneers up incredible lengths of that tree. So when you&#8217;re doing the rotary cutting process, you&#8217;re starting at the outside, gets turned into a cylinder, and then it&#8217;s like an unraveling kind of like paper towel. So when that unraveling starts, you have clear veneers until you see those scars. Now those scars are quite small because we&#8217;re just trimming limbs, little limbs, and it&#8217;s every one to two years, they don&#8217;t have enough time to grow that large. When it comes to a lot of plywood manufacturers, many of them source third trees from the wild. So what happens there is there&#8217;s no control, right? There&#8217;s no control over the way that tree grows and so it can grow in all different directions as well as having large limbs and those would contribute to voids within the core. Kenn Busch • 11:19 So I understand Garinika started cloning poplar trees right around World War II. Tell us more about these clones. Meghan Bell • 11:28 We have about 230 clones available. around 10 clones are the most commonly used. In 2025, we used wood from 32 different popular clones. Kenn Busch • 11:40 When you say clone, this is, is it the same as the mother tree you mentioned earlier? So tell us a little bit about the family tree of your trees. Meghan Bell • 11:52 Well, the trees actually, when you go to Benios 1 and you go to the plantation and you see the nursery, the mother tree is actually like growing in all different directions. And that&#8217;s &#8217;cause we&#8217;ve taken lots of clippings and she&#8217;s grown and she&#8217;s grown. And there&#8217;s multiple different mother trees in the line. And then down the line are each of her clones. So the mother tree, there&#8217;s probably many different mother trees. And then the clones are clipped off of those and put in the ground next to them. And that&#8217;s how they&#8217;re able to root. Kenn Busch • 12:24 Oh, it&#8217;s so nice you keep the families together. Are there certain traits that are passed along from these different mother trees to the generations that follow? Meghan Bell • 12:40 They try to keep the same genes in the way that they grow straight, they grow tall, they grow fast, but what&#8217;s different is they change them for droughts, they change them for pests, and they change them for like growing well in an area. So they&#8217;re color coded after they&#8217;re taken from the nursery and then those color coding&#8217;s determine which plantation they go to. Kenn Busch • 13:09 And then at what age are they harvested and what is the process for creating this famous plywood that funder is so in love with? Meghan Bell • 13:19 Mm-hmm, so the trees are brought from the plantation to the log yard. there, they&#8217;re go through like a metal detector because any sort of small nail or anything can ruin the lathe knife. So they go through the metal detector, then they&#8217;re debarked and then they go into the rotary lathe. So one knife strips the tree into a perfect cylinder. The second knife is much sharper and gives the veneers. The veneers that come off are pristine. I&#8217;ve been there. I&#8217;ve seen it. It&#8217;s, it is gorgeous to look at. You wouldn&#8217;t believe that. There were any limbs in the first place. Then they go through. Now we can peel at the four by eight, as well as the eight by four, the five by 10 as well as the 10 by five, because we have our own trees and we&#8217;re able to cut them into certain lengths. And that allows for no splicing within the core. So it&#8217;s whole piece of near then all the way through, which then talks to what Chris was talking about, about those splicings causing issues when you are pressing a TFL. Kenn Busch • 14:25 So how thick are these slices? I mean, walk us through just sort of a 101 of how plywood is made from the veneer slices. Meghan Bell • 14:33 The veneer slices, it&#8217;s kind of like an unraveling of paper towels. So essentially it goes through the lathe and the knife draws it out and it&#8217;s like unraveling that paper towel. So they&#8217;re quite thin. And then those veneers are then stacked at right angles to each other. So the long grain is called long grain, and then there&#8217;s a cross grain. Now we have the best veneers on the cross grain, which is right underneath the surface. And that allows us to be able to give exceptional screw holding capabilities, um, as well as a pristine surface for that TFL or any sort of laminate or wood veneer on top. Kenn Busch • 15:21 So the plywood that the funder is using is your pop poplar core. And are these the same poplar trees we think of here in North America? Or is this a different European poplar is a different animal, so to speak? Meghan Bell • 15:37 It is a different animal because we have very stringent rules on how they grow and how they&#8217;re taken care of. So the trimming of the tree, all the different things, those contribute to the way that that tree grows and gives you the pristine veneers that we&#8217;re able to offer. Those aren&#8217;t going to be able to be offered from any of the popular trees in North America because we source Kenn Busch • 16:01 from the wild. How long does it take for these popular trees to mature? So anywhere from 12 to Meghan Bell • 16:10 to 15 years, we generally harvest at 20 centimeters in diameter. Kenn Busch • 16:18 So you let it get big enough, you don&#8217;t like, you don&#8217;t, you don&#8217;t come forward on its 15th birthday or something like that? Meghan Bell • 16:25 No, and we do have very stringent rules for the environment as well. So we use, because poplar is a species that does not need a canopy and we are consistently replanting. We have a clear cutting process, but there are certain times of the year that you can&#8217;t clear cut in certain areas. For example, the European mink is an endangered species. So when they&#8217;re going through their reproduction stage, we have very stringent rules on what times of the year we can pull and what time of the year we can&#8217;t insert in areas. Kenn Busch • 17:00 So the title we were playing with for this conversation is TFL on engineered plywood AI that the AI a materials pledge in action. Meghan Bell • 17:12 So the ESG is. Kenn Busch • 17:14 Mm hmm. Yes. Meghan Bell • 17:15 Yes. When it comes to Gernika, Gernika has the trees. Also the plywood panels themselves sequester carbon. There&#8217;s 22 tons of carbon sequestered for every hectare every year. popular plywood panel sequesters 700 meters cubed over the course of its life of CO2. We are a carbon net positive product. We are carbon net positive as a company and so that addresses any social governance when it comes to Kenn Busch • 17:46 environment. And that&#8217;s amazing. But just to take a quick glossary break here, carbon negative and climate positive basically mean any product or process that stores more carbon than is released in its production and use. And carbon net positive is the same thing, I guess, right? We&#8217;ve got to be careful about this terminology. Make sure we get everything just right. Meghan Bell • 18:10 Correct. So we do that by using as much of the tree as humanly possible and ideally all of the tree. So any sort of limbs or leaf foliage that falls off the tree is then in the earth and it gives kind of like a fertilizer for the trees to grow. Then we also have the trimmings and the barking that can go towards energy in the plant or like turned into a material that can be used for MDF or HDF. And then actually the very center of the log that&#8217;s in the rotary cutting process, like when you unravel your paper towel, you have that tube at the end. That is used as fence posts all over Spain and France. Kenn Busch • 18:56 So you make use of every fiber almost? Meghan Bell • 19:01 As much as we possibly can, yes, and that helps to negate the carbon footprint. Kenn Busch • 19:07 And the great thing about trees and carbon capture is the captured carbon stays captured, stays sequestered, until that would rot or burns, right? So theoretically decades, maybe hundreds of years. Meghan Bell • 19:23 Exactly. So by using it in buildings and things like that, you&#8217;re able to lower the buildings carbon footprint. Kenn Busch • 19:32 Chris, was that a goal when you guys were looking for this new substrate for your Everply Plus? Chris Tutuska • 19:40 It was an enhancement that is definitely something that we can sell on. I think it&#8217;s important to some customers in certain spaces, whether that&#8217;s an architect that&#8217;s seeking a certain certification or a green level for their building or their project or someone that needs points to achieve that. Kenn Busch • 20:03 In addition to all of the other benefits that this allows you guys to offer your customers, right? Lighter weight, better performance. Take through these one more time for me if you would, just because I think it&#8217;s a really powerful story. Right. I think so some of the challenges that Chris Tutuska • 20:22 have been addressed and we talked about them at a high level earlier, but one of the main things is thickness accuracy. In years past, with previous iterations of plywood, when you think about manufacturers that have, whether it&#8217;s a CNC machines, whether it&#8217;s boring operations, whether it&#8217;s operations that create different thicknesses and channels. When you have a material that was more variable than I talked about in previous versions of plywood, it throws havoc into widths, depths, and everything like that.

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