Our Staff

Kevin Murphy, President and Founder at Newphire Building

B.S. Geography, M.Ed., Licensed General Contractor, Certified Passive House Builder

Kevin was born in Englewood, New Jersey and spent a couple of important years in San Rafael, California, but was primarily raised in Great Falls, Virginia.  His first experience as a builder came at the age of 8 when a large development went under construction a few blocks up the road. Kevin and his friends shared the duties of procurement, site selection, design and construction. They built a two story fort with a rooftop porch that they defended vigorously from marauding competitors. Eventually it became too egregious for the big boys and the beloved fort was bulldozed. It was great fun while it lasted though!

From the age of 13 on, Kevin made his spending money by working on farms, for landscaping companies, or with a local builder. His time working construction was with a hilarious builder who couldn’t stay out of DWI court and a sadistic, gun obsessed, decidedly un-PC, ex-Marine superintendent. (Kevin insists that the aforementioned descriptors of the superintendent are not redundant or a given as his brother Brian is a loving, gentle ex-Marine!). Kevin muses, “There were some very interesting dynamics to negotiate, but we wound up having a good time while building some stunning homes.”

While attempting to find his way through college, Kevin got turned on to the concept of serving in the Peace Corps by an inspirational professor, Dr. Stephen Pontius. It became his primary goal and obsession. In September of 1990, he ventured to Paraguay as an Agricultural Extensionist. He states, “I had requested to work in Africa as a Forestry Volunteer. I was initially disheartened that I couldn’t get the job OR the continent, but in the end, I wouldn’t have changed a thing!” It was a life-changing experience that continues to shape him to this day. He met beautiful people living close to the earth. It was living “green” at its most fundamental level. Everything was natural, and there was no waste.

Kevin reflects, “I learned a lot about myself - primarily the difference between wants and needs. Living in a 10’ x 12’ house with no electricity or running water proved to be pleasant and healthy.” Kevin and his wife, Kris, lived well on $180 per month and still had money for traveling. Kevin became fluent in both Spanish and Guarani, Paraguay’s indigenous language. He undertook a major renovation of his diminutive house, created a massive garden, built and dug a community well, and constructed many rustic beehives while teaching local folks how to capture and manage bees. It was also during Peace Corps that he built his first drum, which became a passionate hobby that still endures. While in the Peace Corps, Kevin began dreaming about building environmentally friendly homes. He compiled a library of alternative building books, cordwood and timber frame house plans, and rammed earth how-to books. His research led him to Cottage Grove Oregon where he learned about cob construction and where he helped to assemble a deluxe, elevated yurt.

After Peace Corps, Kevin and Kris got their Masters in Education with specializations in teaching English as a second language before going overseas to teach for the next seven years. They taught for two years in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, three years in Bahrain, where their daughter Quinnlyn was born, and two years in Venezuela where their son Coletrane was nearly born (Kris returned to the U.S. just over 8 months pregnant to give birth to Cole in her hometown of Arlington, Virginia). The nine years of life overseas provided a “world” of education that have had a profound effect upon Kevin’s views on music, politics, the environment, and most notably, humankind.

In July of 2003, with a two year old and two month old in tow, Kevin and Kris put their wanderlust to rest and settled in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Kevin worked as an ESL teacher in Chapel Hill for three years (putting his fluency in Spanish to good use) before realizing his dream of building super efficient homes beginning in the spring of 2006.

Kevin is a Certified Passive House Builder, a member of the Passive House Alliance, and has served as project manager on three Certified Passive Houses in the state of North Carolina.  In addition, he has built many more homes that are Passive House qualifying, but did not go through the certification process.

Kevin is  extremely proud to be doing inspirational, meaningful work that makes great business sense as well.

Chris Kerscher,  Chief Project Manager at Newphire Building

B.S. Business Management

Chris was born and raised in Allentown, PA.  He has been in the building profession formally for over 17 years since his exit from the corporate world, although he’s really been building and fixing everything he could get his hands on since he was a young boy.

Chris grew up spending virtually every minute outside.  “I would wake up, have breakfast and right out the door I went," Chris remembers of his childhood. "I wouldn’t come home until I was whistled for by my dad when it was time for dinner.” 

Chris occupied his days by building bicycles and bike jumps of varying safety, and working on carpentry projects with his dad, who was an amateur woodworker.  He mowed lots of yards in his younger days and then worked at the local grocery store in order to save up for his first car, a 1964 GTO convertible!  The car was in sad shape but gave him the opportunity to learn the art of automotive repair.  This early experience later developed into a complete lack of fear of taking anything apart and rebuilding it.  From washing machines and refrigerators to vintage cuckoo clocks, if it was broken, Chris could fix it!  He has loved working with his hands for as long as he can remember.

Once out of college, Chris landed a full-time corporate job, where he remained for 9 years.  After a stint at Liberty Mutual Insurance and climbing the corporate ladder at Saturn Corporation, he made a bold decision to leave his very comfortable salary and follow his passion for building.  Chris initially earned $10/hr as an entry-level carpenter -- “I had three kids, a wife and a mortgage, but I knew it wouldn’t take long to find success when doing something I love this much,” he recalls.

In 2000, Chris moved to North Carolina to be near family and continued with construction work in the building restoration business.  His time in restoration and renovation has enabled him to understand all kinds of residential construction techniques and the benefits and drawbacks of each.  Working with existing structures is particularly challenging since it requires an ability to "see behind walls" and blend new building techniques with the old, seamlessly.

Wanting to broaden his building experience, Chris signed on with a local green builder who was one of the first in the area to build energy efficient, sustainable new homes.  This builder challenged the norm and pushed the performance envelope.  It was the perfect place for Chris to hone his skills as a tradesman and working foreman.  He further developed his proficiency as a framer, trim carpenter, tile setter, job site foreman, and superintendent.  Chris remarks, “We handled everything in-house with our own people, with the exception of sheetrock and roofing."

When business slowed due to the economy, Chris decided it was time to strike out on his own.  He ran a successful home improvement/renovation business until he met Kevin Murphy.  Chris and Kevin started talking and worked on a few projects together.  After more than a year of talking about joining forces, it finally happened on May 19th, 2015.  Chris says of Kevin, “He has reinvigorated me with his inspiring knowledge of passive house construction.  He sets the bar high and has an infectious passion for building attractive, high performance homes."

As a team, Chris and Kevin compliment each other to provide a wealth of analytical and hands-on experience as it pertains to new home construction.  Construction of your dream home couldn't be in better hands.

Ted Sanford, Project Manager at Newphire Building

B.A. Business/Economics, Licensed General Contractor

Ted Sanford was born in Durham, “on the most beautiful North Carolina morning that ever was,” as his mom likes to remind him often. When Ted was two, his family relocated to Hershey, Pennsylvania.  As a young boy, Ted displayed an early inclination for decisiveness and curiosity that would one day become defining adult characteristics. It was in Hershey that Ted undertook his first construction project, a treehouse. Little did he know that one day building houses would be his passion.

Ted’s family later moved to Elmira, New York, where he developed his work ethic as an honor student, an athlete, and a kid who worked and earned from the age of twelve.

After earning a BA in Business Economics from Randolph Macon College in Virginia, Ted worked at Corning Incorporated, supervising the production of laser lenses. This taught him that confinement in a corporate manufacturing environment was not the path he wanted to follow.

As many young people have done, he traveled, working his way to Seattle, Washington, along the way learning an array of skills in construction and auto mechanics, from wiring houses to welding and many more of the essential, hands-on techniques that would later serve him in his role as a GC. It was in Charlottesville, Virginia, that the challenges and creativity of the work he was doing cemented his desire to become a carpenter.

In 1998, Ted’s family and friends asked him to join them in Maine, where they were invested in an adventure in self-reliance that included building their own houses deep in the Maine woods.

During his two years working in Maine, Ted further honed his skills in building construction, and began to develop a personal aesthetic that has come to characterize his work. The long Maine winters are not friendly to builders, however, so, he set out once again to explore the landscape of possibilities in the south. Perhaps it was fate that brought him full circle to North Carolina and the place of his birth (or just the kinder climate.)

After working for a large Triangle developer, Ted set up his own company, Immaculate Construction, in 2006, and earned his General Contractor license the following year.  Over the years, with an in-house crew, he developed a base of loyal clients and a reputation as a trustworthy, approachable contractor delivering quality work in imaginative remodels and custom cabinetry.

Anyone who knows Ted has probably heard him say, “If it ain’t tight, it ain’t right.” In a nutshell, that folksy colloquialism sums up Ted’s attitude toward his projects: they are immaculate. They are elegant. They demonstrate his dedication to doing things right, from the basic integrity of the foundation to the smallest finish detail. Ted is one of the few people on the planet who can frame a house, build cabinets, do high-end trim, set tile, finish sheetrock, weld and fix your car…Ted is a true, rare, twenty-first century Renaissance man.

Ted met Kevin in 2018, as Newphire was undergoing rapid growth. While Ted had always been conscientious about energy efficiency, he was intrigued by the value and potential of high-performance construction he saw in Newphire’s projects, and was excited to join the company.  As a project manager, Ted is proud to work with a team dedicated to satisfying clients who demand both quality construction and a commitment to the environment.

Ted is a devoted and loving father to two amazing daughters and lives in Graham, NC.

Jay Bauer, Project Manager at Newphire Building

B.A. English Literature, NAHB Certified Green Builder

Jay was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Much of his youth was spent outdoors and in the mountains near his childhood home. He began skiing at the age of five and climbed his first “Fourteener” (a peak over 14,000 ft) in sixth grade. Growing up next to the Rocky Mountains gave him a strong appreciation for the natural environment that he carries with him today.                           

His interest in building began at a very early age when he became the official nail and screwdriver holder for his father with projects around the house. Through helping his dad Jay discovered the satisfaction of using hand tools, driving a nail with a hammer, snapping a chalk line and cutting that line with a handsaw.  More importantly he learned how building anything requires patience and an ability to creatively solve problems. Those responsibilities grew over time as his dad's home projects graduated to “flipping” investment properties and the major renovation of his family home. These experiences, along with a natural curiosity in how things work and go together were seminal to becoming a home builder. 

 In 1989, after graduating from the University of Colorado (Go Buffs!) Jay spent the better part of a year on a crew building a home outside of Telluride, Colorado. The home incorporated a passive solar orientation with extended overhangs, in-floor heating, and the use of reclaimed and site milled materials. Looking back on this experience, Jay realized he had learned not only invaluable carpentry and building skills, but had taken part in building his first “green” home.

His budding building career then took a significant detour when he spent the next few years living and teaching English in Japan and traveling throughout Asia.  The time spent in Japan gave him a keen appreciation for design, aesthetics, and living efficiently (his entire apartment was about 130 square feet!).  After returning to the U.S. he continued teaching English at Regis University in Denver, before a move to San Francisco in 1996 began his career in higher-education publishing. For several years Jay worked in the areas of marketing communications, project management, advertising, and sales for both small and large academic publishing companies, including McGraw-Hill, Addison-Wesley/Benjamin Cummings, and Stanford University Press.  It was also during this time in the Bay Area where he met and married his wife, Michelle, and where their son, Adam, was born. 

In 2003 Jay and his family left Silicon Valley and settled in Chapel Hill, home to Michelle’s Alma Mater, UNC. The move allowed them to slow down, to live more deliberately and spend more time with their growing family which now included their daughter, Julia. Shortly after arriving in North Carolina –and doing a good bit of soul-searching–Jay decided to rekindled his interest in home building and sought to combine it with his lifelong love for the environment. He spent two years working as a carpenter renovating Victorian homes and mill houses in Hillsborough, NC., all the while pursuing his interest in the growing field of “green” or High Performance building.

It was this pursuit that led to a meeting of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA) where he met Paul Konove, one of the area's foremost builders of homes using solar technology and sustainable building practices. After this meeting Jay quickly realized he wanted to build homes that melded great design with state of the art high performance building strategies. As luck would have it, Jay went to work for Paul and spent the next 14 years as the Construction Site Supervisor and Lead Builder at Carolina Country Builders. 

During these 14 years Jay would occasionally cross paths with Kevin Murphy at High Performance Building conferences, in the aisles at Fitch Lumber in Carrboro, and at parent-teacher nights at McDougle Elementary where both of their kids attended school. Jay knew Kevin was building impressive homes and holding them to high standards of energy efficiency.  So, in 2019 when Paul Konove retired, Jay reconnected with Kevin, who by that time was making huge waves in the local High Performance Building circles with Newphire Building.  Jay thought working with Newphire made good sense; Kevin graciously agreed.  

Jay says, “Newphire Building, under Kevin’s leadership, is building stunning homes designed by some of the best architects in the area, and building them to outrageous levels of energy efficiency. It is the perfect place for me to continue my career as a builder and utilize the high performance building strategies I've learned over the last 19 years. I'm absolutely honored to be working with Kevin and the dream-team of builders that make up Newphire Building.” 

When not building beautiful homes designed by amazing architects for superb clients (!), Jay can be found with his family—including their dog Luna— hiking one of the many trails in and around Chapel Hill, traveling to locations near and far, attempting to garden, dreaming of skiing, and working on his tennis game.

Karan Gupta, Project Manager at Newphire Building

BS Economics, MS Environmental Management and Forestry

Karan, who also goes by KG, is a Chapel Hill local -- he moved to town with his family in 1995, when he was in third grade. It was a ninth grade English assignment to research careers when he first got the idea to be a general contractor, despite having no real exposure to the construction industry. In twelfth grade environmental science, he developed a passion for conservation, reinforced by a childhood of outdoor adventures with friends.

In 2005, he moved to New York to pursue a Bachelor's degree in economics, and through a class on the environmental impact of energy infrastructure, saw an opportunity to blend his fields of studies to make an impact on an issue he cared about. In his senior year, he began his career with a startup in the utility industry, gaining experience with the financial analysis and implementation of commercial and industrial energy conservation measures. After navigating an acquisition by a national utility company and then a merger with another, he was ready to change focus. 11 years after his English project, he thought back to his interest in general contracting, and combined with his prior education and work experience, saw his future in high-performance building.

In 2012, he moved back to Chapel Hill, where he met future Newphire Building Founder and President, Kevin Murphy, and also became credentialed through the Passive House Institute United States (PHIUS). During the same period, Karan obtained his Master’s Degrees in Environmental Management and Forestry at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, where he completed fellowships with the Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps and with Project Drawdown as a research contributor to New York Times bestseller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. His big idea was to address both sides of the carbon equation -- reduced emissions through energy efficient buildings and increased carbon sequestration through use of cellulosic building materials.

In 2017, Karan once again left home, this time to Kansas City, where he was an integral team member at another startup -- a manufacturer of prefabricated, high-performance wall panels for new construction. In 2019, with some accumulated expertise in on-site and off-site construction, Karan started Elemental Consulting, specializing in new buildings, retrofits, community development, and prefabrication and manufacturing.

When Kevin offered an opportunity to join the Newphire team in 2021, Karan jumped at the opportunity to work with his friend and be back home close to family, and so he moved to Chapel Hill for the third time. The newest member of the Newphire team, Karan is also the youngest and best-looking. Only two decades after first discovering an interest in general contracting, he is following a high school dream. He hopes to further elevate the Newphire team's game by bringing new technologies to office operations and applying integrated design process and off-site construction techniques.

When he's not working, he can be found goofing off in the woods or at a bar, doomsday prepping, or at a local metal concert.