a Professional Engineer, was already a seasoned engineer experienced in Building Life-Cycle Cost Analysis and more importantly, condition assessment, the key to determining how long property components would last. Poehlmann’s background was business administration, and he took the helm of sales for the startup company.

Educate, Educate, Educate

The first thing Poehlmann and Salgado set out to do was educate boards. They initially invested most of their time educating boards about the value and need for professional reserve studies, one association at a time. They spent many a night conversing about reserve studies in a board member’s living room in Arlington Heights, Naperville, or a downtown high rise. They were not selling reserve studies, they were selling a concept – a roadmap for the future in an equitable way for current and future homeowners.

An Understandable and Useful Tool

Salgado developed a reserve study that would fulfill the board’s fiduciary responsibility while at the same time be easy to use. They knew that a board’s makeup would be from all walks of life and many didn’t have either business or engineering backgrounds. The Reserve Advisors reserve study product was built on the concept of applying engineering concepts to condition assessments and life-cycle analyses. The result was an easy- to-read narrative report telling the story of a community association, its condition, its future and best practices to replace the common elements - stocked full of advice that anyone could understand.

Development of National Standards

As Reserve Advisors grew into a national firm, Salgado and Poehlmann discovered that well-intentioned reserve study providers were sprouting up throughout the country and were not conducting reserve studies in a consistent manner. Early studies were archaic – some didn’t even include funding plans. Providers were small, using different terminology, or worse, the same terminology with a different meaning.

In 1995, at CAI National’s request, Poehlmann, Salgado and a select group of early adopters led a small committee of reserve study providers to develop national standards.

Purpose of the Standards:

     studies in a consistent manner, use the same terminology, and include the same basic components in a reserve study.

 would know that the terminology used by one provider meant the same thing as another, making it easier for them to differentiate providers when purchasing reserve studies.

The National Standards define

the two parts of a reserve study (physical and financial), minimum length of a study (20 years), what property goes into a reserve study, and the terminology used. For example, a reserve component must:

1) be the Association’s responsibility 2) have a definable useful life 3) have a predictable remaining life

4) must be over a certain minimum threshold replacement cost

Once the standards were in place, reserve study providers

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