Our History
Shortly after losing his job as a corporate quality engineer, Jim Coler was on a plane to Arkansas to try something entirely new: he was training to become an authorized Upstate New York dealer of a green insulation product called BioBased. He was also about to become an entrepreneur in the building products industry by taking out a home equity line against the house he had just designed and built for his family six months before.
The company he and his wife, Kathy, formed is called Coler Building Technologies. It is a New York State certified woman-owned business. They have now changed the name to Coler Natural Insulation and have steadily increased sales, service and products each year.
It is their mission to create sustainable environments with branded insulation systems of superior performance, quality and value. The BioBased system received the National Association of Homebuilders “2003 Green Product of the Year” in the year of its inception.
It’s been a quick transition from 10 years in manufacturing and senior levels of quality assurance engineering, to capitalizing on knowledge of building sciences with a new business venture, and then, on to completing customer projects spanning from the Eastern NY to the Western Upstate NY area. However, they earned the contract for the Rochester Water Authority building, which is expected to reach LEED certification, and have worked on churches throughout the state.
Jim Coler has quickly been recognized as an expert on a number
of green building products and technologies at a time when the
country is looking toward “green”er pastures. For example, he
as presented or been a speaker at the Syracuse University Annual
Green Conference; at ReNew NY at Rochester Institute of Technology;
at an annual Environmental Expo called E4; at the Building Owners
and Manager’s Association’s (BOMA) annual show in Buffalo, and
was at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) NY Eco-Living
annual show.