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About Us

The Window Preservation Alliance (WPA) was created because individual window restorers couldn’t realistically exhibit at regional or national preservation events—but together, they can match the presence of large replacement window companies. As a unified group, we can advocate for original windows and make our voice stronger.

The WPA’s goal is to connect anyone who wants to save their windows with the professionals who can help. We also aim to simplify the process of finding the right materials, products, and information for window restoration.

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Below is the current Board of Directors

and active committees.

Our Goal

We aim to connect aspiring window restoration professionals with experts who can help them grow. Our mission is to give preservationists the tools to educate building owners, architects, and decision-makers on the value of original windows.

Formed by a steering committee, the Window Preservation Alliance became a 501(c)(6) trade association, with its first meetup in April 2015 where an enthusiastic group quickly joined as members.

Pink Poppy Flowers
(2025 - Present)

John Rodgers

(2023 - 2025)

Valerie Vides

(2023)

Andy Roper

(2015 - 2023)

Alison Hardy

WPA Presidents

Current Board Members

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Val Vides

Immediate past president

Val Vides, immediate past president, is a New Orleanian by way of Boston and Southern Virginia. Her journey has exposed her to different industries from technology and biotech to becoming a real Willy Wonka and managing a chocolate factory. Val has enjoyed opportunities leading teams, projects, and processes. She has spent most of her career working in operations and HR, helping keep the back operations of businesses going and finding new ways of solving challenges from cash flow limitations to event management. She is a lover of old homes, glass, Hoosier cabinets, records, putting glitter on things, and the creative process of taking something and making it beautiful. Val and her husband started a window restoration business in New Orleans two years ago after a trip to Florida to learn how to restore their own windows. Her focus is mostly on the day-to-day operations of their business and glass epoxy repair. Val enjoys scraping paint and getting into the details and seeing the beauty of the wood hidden underneath. She has two children, two dogs, and one grand dog.
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Jon Sargent

Secretary

Jon Sargent, secretary, is the owner of Fort Collins, Colorado-based Deep Roots Craftsmen, focusing on window restoration amongst a broader workload as a historic preservation general contractor. Jon’s career has been dedicated to historic preservation, with a BA from Wesleyan University in Architectural History and a MA from Savannah College of Art and Design in Historic Preservation. Drawing from work experience in New England, New Orleans, Colorado, and beyond, Jon has led Deep Roots Craftsmen to steadily diversify their window work across commercial and residential projects. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children and getting out into the outdoors whenever possible.
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John Rodgers

President

Born and raised in Florida, John Rodgers, president, graduated from Florida Institute of Technology with degrees in environmental science and management, then joined the desk side of preservation in 2007 as a Main Street Manager and Downtown Development Director in South Louisiana. While working to restore his own properties, word started to spread and it became a hobby, then side job, then second full time job. John founded Phoenix Preservation, with the bulk of work at the time being traditional plaster repairs. Windows quickly became the primary focus. The company and family relocated to Northwest Missouri in 2019 and they are now strictly doing window and door restorations and new wooden storm window builds.
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Phil Polter

Owner of restoration west

Phil Polter, the owner of Restoration West, is a Cincinnati, OH native. His journey in window restoration began by chance in 2017 when he attended a local window restoration workshop. At this workshop, he met Jim Turner (Turner Restoration), who would forever change his career path. After the workshop, he assisted Jim on various projects in Greater Detroit and Western Kentucky. Through Jim, he was introduced to and subsequently hired by Centennial Preservation Group (Columbus, Ohio). He worked with Centennial for nearly two years on the iconic Union Terminal in Cincinnati and the The Russell Senate Office Building in D.C. After and extended stint balancing modern Union glazing, he narrowed his focus in 2021 and formed Restoration West to specialize in the historic restoration of wood sashes and steel windows in the Greater Cincinnati area.
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Chad Nelson

Vice president

Chad Nelson, vice president, made his first wooden storm window in 2020 using off-the-rack pine boards from a big box store and pocket-hole joinery for his 1888 home located in a historic district. In the following months, he reached out to window and woodworking professionals to deepen his understanding of joinery and glazing and started his business, Red Beard Restoration, with a focus on new wooden storm window builds. Seeing the huge demand for primary sash restoration in his area, Chad then began restoring and preserving windows, as well. His business now focuses on window restoration, new wooden sash and wooden storm window builds and Mon-Ray storm window installation. Working on old windows lit a spark, and Chad is now fully invested in historic preservation as a whole, and he is currently a commissioner of Des Moines, Iowa’s Historic Preservation Commission. Having spent most of his post-college life in the military, Chad now finds the act of window restoration a form of creation and healing – for himself, the homeowners he helps, the neighborhoods where he works and the city he lives in.
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Kelsey Moss

Kelsey Moss is the owner of Moss Restoration LLC located in St. Louis. She got her start in wood windows after buying a 1920’s home, most of the windows had broken ropes and didn’t open. After learning to restore her own home she went to work for a restoration company before starting her own preservation focused company. Kelsey enjoys managing and teaching best practices to her ever growing team of window people. She loves collaboration with other window shops near and far and helping fellow tradespeople launch their preservation businesses. When she is not windowing you can find her hanging out with her wife, son, and dog probably riding bikes.
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Jackson Hoggard

From watching his parents and neighbors restore their own windows as a child, to helping out around the family business as a teenager—when it was still in their garage, Jackson Hoggard grew up immersed in the practice and business of window restoration. As a young adult, he saw the success of the business, Double Hung, and the efforts of his father David. He realized his passion for evangelizing window repair. Driven by his desire to save windows from the landfill, Jackson got a degree in construction management from Cape Fear Community College and then traveled the southeast working for two of the nation's best builders. He helped deliver over $600mm to the built environment over the span of eight years. He also gained valuable industry insight, expertise, and relationships that help him spread the truth and science of window repair nationwide.
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Joe Hayes

Parliamentarian

Joe Hayes, Parliamentarian, first began working on old windows in 2009 when he bought a house built in 1916. The house had original windows but no storms, the glazing putty was virtually nonexistent, and most of the cords were broken. His first priority for the house was to get the windows performing better—also his first introduction into the care and maintenance of historic wood windows. At the time, Joe was working as a Montessori elementary teacher. Every summer he would pull out his tools to tackle ever-larger house projects. He kept coming back to the windows as he learned more about how best to address the issues he was seeing. In time, Joe decided to step away from a career in education to follow his passion for working with his hands. He quickly found out that the Twin Cities was thirsty for window restoration services. Since 2017, he has been operating and growing Hayes Window Restoration. When not working on windows, Joe enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters, canoeing, gardening, and playing music.
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Caitlyn Barhorst

Owner

Caitlyn Barhorst, owner of Restoration West, was born and raised in Lubbock, TX. Their family lived in Doha, Qatar for a year while they were in 8th grade, and getting to travel sparked their interest in architecture and more specifically, old buildings. Caitlyn got their Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from Texas Tech University, then went on to get dual Masters’ Degrees in Architecture and Historic Preservation from Ball State University. While living in Muncie, they were able to research a historic one room schoolhouse owned by their extended family and became interested in the windows that were in need of restoring. After a short time living abroad in Germany, Caitlyn moved to Utah as the Historic Preservation Planner for Park City, where they were able to assess and help homeowners preserve their historic structures. After that, they went into the private sector and worked at an architecture firm in Salt Lake City. Working closely with historic structures in Park City and Salt Lake City made Caitlyn realize there were not many tradespeople working in historic trades in Utah, so they decided to create their historic window restoration business: Restoration West. Caitlyn has been working on windows full time since August of 2023, and is passionate about teaching more people about restoration, tradespeople and homeowners alike. In their free time, Caitlyn enjoys restoring their own c. 1910 historic home, training their rescue dog Brillo, and fostering other dogs looking for their forever families.
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Adam Butler

Treasurer

Adam Butler, Treasurer is the owner and President of Iconic Windows. His passion for historic preservation and carpentry started when he was a child. He looked forward to the weekends to watch TV, like many kids. But instead of cartoons, he sought out episodes of This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop! Adam is a native of suburban Philadelphia and earned a BA from College of Charleston in beautifully historic Charleston, SC.
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Kevin Elzinga

WPSC Chair

Kevin Elzinga, WPSC Chair, grew up on a dairy farm in Jarvis, Ontario where he learned creativity, tenacity, and skills to fix anything. After working for Verizon Wireless for 19+ years, tired of retail life, Kevin searched for a new career. He had lived in homes older than 100 years, and owned two houses in Heritage Hill in Grand Rapids, MI and needed help restoring their 110+ windows. But he could not find anyone skilled to do the work. In 2014, he took precious vacation time to attend a two-week training held by Michigan Historic Preservation Network, and a new interest emerged: historic window restoration. Kevin set to work planning, dreaming, and visioning. In 2015, he started Heritage Window Restoration (HWR), specializing in late 1800s to early 1900s windows. HWR installs aluminum storm windows, wood storm windows, and refinishes doors.
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Justin Fink

After 16 years at Fine Homebuilding and GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, where he created hundreds of articles, videos, and podcasts about all things building, Justin Fink decided to start something new in 2020 to mark the birth of his son. In founding the new company, Fink and Son Woodworking, Justin wanted to reinforce the message--to the world, and also his son--that pursuing a career in the trades is a worthy option. Typical Fink and Son projects include window restoration and window reproductions, storms and screens, recreating damaged or missing architectural components ranging from corbels to clock tower faces, and more.
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Stacy Grinsfelder

Stacy Grinsfelder has been writing the Blake Hill House blog since 2014, documenting the restoration and rehabilitation of her historic 1800s home. She is also the producer and host of the "True Tales From Old Houses" podcast. Stacy launched True Tales From Old Houses in 2018 to connect and share stories with old house lovers and devoted DIYers. The goal of the show is equal parts entertainment and education. Since the launch, she has become a trusted voice in the old house community. During the pandemic, Stacy began online and in-person window consultations, and she developed a beginning-level hands-on workshop method geared towards DIYers who want to learn to repair original wood windows while providing a service to long-neglected old buildings. The inaugural workshop took place during the summer of 2023 in Silver Lake, NY. Several additional workshops are scheduled for 2024. Stacy believes everyone's chapter one looked different, and meeting someone where they are is the best way to encourage responsible stewardship of old buildings while gently nudging people toward best practices. She and her husband Andy have four children. They currently split their time between Blake Hill House in Western New York and Salt Lake City. Stacy is an avid runner, frequent traveler, and enthusiastic extrovert.
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committees

Following is a list of committees that are currently active. If you'd like to volunteer and/or get involved in WPA leadership

Events

Kelsey Moss, Chair

The Events Committee plans and delivers programs and activities that advance the organization’s mission of preserving historic windows and educating the public. Through workshops, lectures, and community events, the committee builds awareness, fosters engagement, and generates support to sustain preservation efforts.

Finance

Adam Butler, Chair

The Finance Committee provides oversight and guidance to ensure the organization’s financial stability and accountability. The committee develops and monitors the annual budget, reviews financial reports, supports long-term planning, and helps ensure compliance with all financial policies and reporting requirements. Its role is to safeguard the organization’s resources so it can effectively carry out its mission.

Member Outreach

TBA

The Member Outreach Committee strengthens connections between the organization and its members. The committee welcomes new members, supports recruitment efforts, fosters ongoing engagement, and encourages active participation in programs and initiatives. By building meaningful relationships and ensuring members feel informed and valued, the committee helps grow and sustain a vibrant preservation community.

Mentorship

 John Rodgers, Chair

The Mentorship Committee supports learning and leadership development by connecting experienced members with those seeking guidance. The committee fosters knowledge-sharing, skill development, and professional growth through structured mentorship opportunities. By cultivating supportive relationships and encouraging collaboration, the committee helps strengthen expertise and ensure the long-term success of the preservation community.

Sponsorship

Jackson Hoggard, Chair

The Sponsorship Committee develops and manages partnerships that provide financial and in-kind support for the organization’s programs and initiatives. The committee identifies potential sponsors, cultivates relationships, and creates sponsorship opportunities that align with the organization’s mission. By building strong partnerships with businesses and community stakeholders, the committee helps secure resources that sustain and expand preservation efforts.

Architectural Specs

Caitlyn Barhorst, Chair

The Architectural Committee provides expertise and guidance on matters related to historic architecture and preservation standards. The committee reviews projects, offers recommendations, and helps ensure that restoration and rehabilitation efforts align with established preservation principles. By promoting architectural integrity and best practices, the committee supports the organization’s commitment to protecting historic character.

WPSC Events & Specifications

Kevin Elzinga

The WPSC Events & Specifications Committee plans educational programs and technical workshops while maintaining preservation specifications and best-practice guidelines that align with WPSC . The committee ensures that events provide practical, standards-based information that supports high-quality historic window restoration. By combining hands-on learning with clear technical guidance, the committee helps promote consistency, craftsmanship, and preservation excellence.

Sustainability & Energy Efficiency

Jon Sargent & Stacy Grinsfelder, Co-Chairs

The Sustainability & Energy Efficiency Committee promotes environmentally responsible practices that enhance building performance while preserving historic character. The committee researches and shares best practices, evaluates energy-efficient solutions, and provides guidance on improving comfort and efficiency in historic structures. By advancing sustainable strategies that respect architectural integrity, the committee supports both preservation and long-term environmental stewardship.

Public Outreach

Chad Nelson, Chair

The Public Outreach Committee promotes awareness of the organization’s mission and engages the broader community in preservation efforts. The committee develops communication strategies, supports public education initiatives, and builds relationships with community partners, media, and stakeholders. Through outreach campaigns, events, and educational resources, the committee helps expand visibility, strengthen public support, and inspire involvement in historic preservation.

Social Media

Caitlyn Barhorst, Chair

The Social Media Committee manages the organization’s online presence and digital engagement efforts. The committee develops content, shares updates about programs and events, highlights preservation success stories, and promotes educational resources across social platforms. By fostering meaningful online interaction and expanding digital reach, the committee helps strengthen community awareness and support for the organization’s mission.

Nominating

Stacy Grindsfelder

The Nominating Committee oversees the process of identifying and recommending qualified candidates for leadership positions within the organization. The committee evaluates board and officer needs, recruits prospective candidates, and presents a slate that supports the organization’s mission and long-term goals. By promoting thoughtful leadership selection and continuity, the committee helps ensure strong governance and organizational stability.

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