Government Relations profile: Kraig Stevenson.

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ICC Government Relations Senior Regional Manager Kraig Stevenson (left) with Ralph Nagamine, Development Services Director, County of Maui; Ron Darville, Chief Code Compliance Officer, County of Kauai; past ICC Board President William Dupler; and Tim Hiu, Acting Building Chief, City and County of Honolulu, during the Hawaii Association of County Building Officials' 43rd Annual Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.

If it weren't for a German Shepherd, Kraig Stevenson might have never given a second thought to building codes. For those of you who know him, that may sound hard to believe, but the man who goes after code adoptions with the tenacity of a bulldog owes his career, ultimately, to the common boyhood dream of having a dog. Stevenson believes very strongly in balance in the built environment — a balance that exists between individual and public rights, where builders and building owners have the right to create and operate their vision of a building, but the public has the right to be inside them (or next to them) and feel safe. That philosophy of balance stems from two experiences in his upbringing that changed the way he thought about buildings. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, where Stevenson still lives and goes skiing and trout-fishing, he was told that he couldn't get a dog because there was no doghouse for him. And so, at age 12, he went down to the local home and garden store, picked up some 2x4s and a "how to build a garden shed" manual, and built both a doghouse and a kennel for his new pup to the exacting requirements listed in that paperback manual (with some slight modifications, of course). It was in studying that manual that he came to understand the rationale behind building things a certain way to keep them safe and standing. But another boyhood experience deepened that understanding. While working in his father's store, the fire marshal came to do an inspection, and his father was none too happy with the report. Young Kraig wondered why his dad didn't know what the codes were, and the incident sparked his interest in understanding how codes related both to customers and life safety and how it impacts business owners. It's that balance that has informed so much of Stevenson's philosophy on the built environment, both when he was working construction in college and wanted to learn more about building manufactured housing to code, and as a plan review engineer for the legacy organization International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) helping architects and code officials come to a common understanding. Working on both sides and seeing the disconnect between the two inspired him to get involved with regulatory policy and creating an effective message that not only the citizenry but also local officials would understand and resonate with, both for ICBO and later ICC. Now, as a Government Relations Regional Manager representing the Pacific Northwest, he relishes that he has to work with so many states that achieve that balance differently. It gives him a chance to gain multiple perspectives from different places and bring them to each other, so that they can benefit not only from his experience, but that of communities in as varied climes as Alaska and Hawaii. Recently, he helped the city of Boise, Idaho, through the process of adopting the International Green Construction Code for the first time — his role wasn't a major one as it has been in some of his hard-driving defenses of code adoptions in some other states — but he was proud of helping them adopt and amend the code to strike that balance for the benefit of their community, and accomplishing it in an open, transparent process in which the public was involved in every step of the way. It's not an easy task, turning a shed into a doghouse. But that's what the codes are for, and that's what Kraig Stevenson has been doing all his life — making sure that when the builder's dream is realized, that it's done to protect the dream that ends up living inside it.