Emphasizing Energy And Expanding Our Geography
Rodney North, of Equal Exchange, the enduring Massachusetts worker co-op fair trade coffee company, in response to my last blog post, said (I’m paraphrasing here):
It’s great to see how SMC is diversifying. I’m guessing this evolved out of some mix of client demand/SMC interests in renewables & the need to diversify during lean times – yes? I’d be curious to know if this new line of work meant re-training for current SMC staff &/or bringing on new staff w/the necessary skills. And does it now mean that SMC needs to have 2 (or more) pipelines of projects lined up so as to ensure fairly steady employment for staff?
I also noted – for the first time to my knowledge – that SMC finally took on some projects off the Vineyard. . . . I’ll be interested to hear more about how SMC arrived at that change in policy and hope it works out well. As a mainlander I’m happy to see that now some of our communities will enjoy some of the gifts of SMC that the Vineyard has had all to itself all these years.
Rodney inquires about two of the three most important SMC changes of the last few years: concentrating greater efforts on Energy and doing select projects off the island (the third is a rigorous focus on planning for the Next Generation of SMC).
I’ll touch on the first two here.
In July of 2011 I wrote “In 2007, our 17 owners endorsed our business plan to establish SMC Energy. The idea was to bring energy efficiency and renewable energy to residential, commercial, and institutional customers on Martha’s Vineyard. We had been trading in solar and energy efficiency for 30 years, but this was the first time we actively marketed these services outside our own projects. We invested heavily in new learning and the development of this new endeavor.
In every way, SMC Energy has surpassed our expectations during the last four years.”
Its ascendance continues. There is now a very-skilled, highly trained, immensely effective full time staff of four (soon to be five) doing Energy, and many of the rest of us play significant supporting roles as well. It has become an essential part of our core business. One of the most exciting aspects is that we are now able to offer very favorable solar leases to homeowners which do not require any significant up-front payment. This means solar is available to nearly everyone! Solar for the other 99%. Here’s a copy of a recent ad:
Also, because we do many small solar jobs, it puts us in touch with a much larger clientele, and some of the solar jobs lead to design/build jobs. The one pipeline feeds the other.
And way back in August of 2009 I wrote, “We have had a long-standing policy of only doing work on the Vineyard, the place that we know. That one flew the coop when we had the opportunity to do an extraordinary project across the water, for the Woods Hole Research Center, a world class climate change research organization, at a time when our future workload was less secure than usual. It wasn’t the first time we had such an opportunity, but this was the first time we forced ourselves – due to circumstances – to confront the logistical hurdles and internal complications these projects bring.”
That project – a complete deep energy retrofit of an old carriage house for their growing net zero energy campus, has now been complete for some time (photos above). We have done one other in Woods Hole, we are working on several on Nantucket, and, as I mentioned in my last post, we are working on another in Falmouth and one in Vermont. We have learned that in certain circumstances, with very specific kinds of projects that are perfectly aligned with our mission and values, it makes sense to extend our reach when we have the opportunity. Our selective participation in off-island projects now stems more from desire than need. We still believe that our sweet spot is right here on the Vineyard, but we are less doctrinaire about the commitment.
Let us know what you’ve got going – maybe there’s a match!!
25 IN 2012 . . . AND RISING
On the first day of this new year, South Mountain began its 25th year as an employee owned company (and its 38th year in business). It was on January 1, 1987 that we converted from a sole proprietorship in my ownership to a democratically owned worker co-operative. As I’ve so often said, it was a hinge point in the history of the company.
When I started South Mountain in 1975 I was 25. Now there’s a group of us in our sixties who will gradually retire during the coming decades (starting with Mike Drezner at the end of this year) and a collection of new, younger owners poised to lead SMC in to its 2nd generation, and beyond. My personal goal: to still be going strong in 2025, when SMC turns 50 and I’m 75.
The last few years, however, haven’t been easy. We’ve been on semi-permanent scuffle: working hard, all the time, to keep everyone working, to keep adjusting, and to keep expanding the diversity of what we do. In our many years in business there have, of course, been other tough times, but never did it require such prolonged arduous efforts. One thing is for certain: we have left no sacred cow un-skewered.
And we’ve emerged. We scuffle no longer.
SMC is wide awake and our temperature is rising. Now we are faced with managing fulfillment of the many exciting projects we have before us. And I’m one helluva lot happier to bust our tails trying to figure out how to get things done than to bust our tails trying to figure out how to have enough to do.
As we begin the year a quick survey of the projects in progress serves to remind me that we are a very different company than the SMC of several years ago. From many connected new endeavors and approaches a new dynamic of diversity is emerging and rapidly becoming the norm.
Right now we are finishing the following: renovations in Oak Bluffs and Edgartown; a sweet little high performance home in Aquinnah for the daughter of old friends and former SMC stalwart Bruce Ignacio; a deep energy retrofit to a 1930’s Chilmark cottage where SMC owner Billy Dillon and wife Amy live, and a 70 KW solar electric system and associated energy improvements that will make a large Chilmark property – where we have built three homes over 20 years – energy neutral! Meanwhile, every week or two we complete a new residential solar electric system, and they keep on coming.
We have just begun a remarkable renovation project for the wonderful new owners of a storied Chilmark property that has a very tight schedule and some interesting architectural excursions. Phase One will be completed in June, after which we’ll drink a cup of coffee, take a deep breath while the owners enjoy, and continue in the fall with Phase 2.
We are designing a large barn/workshop/gallery for an artist in West Tisbury; it will include a greenhouse, composting toilet, and rainwater collection, as well as a large solar electric system that will provide all the electricity needs for this 50 acre property (see a pattern here?).
Meanwhile, along with our other design projects, we are working with Vineyard Power on permits and design for two very exciting commercial solar electric projects: 50 Kilowatts on the Aquinnah landfill for municipal power, and three parking lot canopies at Cronig’s supermarket that will provide 210 kilowatts and be the largest renewable energy project – by a fair margin – on Martha’s Vineyard to date, and the first parking lot canopies in Massachusetts.
We are also beginning some new projects off-island as well, including a planned net zero deep energy retrofit of a 50 year old 25 unit affordable housing complex in Falmouth, and a design for a new house in Vermont, which is way off our usual beaten track!!
So our 25th year as an employee owned company looks like it will be a thrilling one. We owe a lot of the excitement to the structure that has allowed us to safely navigate the rough waters of the last few years. With all oars pulling together we’ve been able to haul ourselves out of the storm. For now, we’re clear.
Happy New Year. Onward we go.
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
Still catching up here, but this post brings us right to the present!
August was all about stock market decline and Hurricane Irene. The first affected us deeply; the second did not (except that we sympathized with all our troubled pals in Vermont).
The August stock market decline reminded us once again, that the footing sure is slippery on this hill we’re climbing.
We had completed, during that month, thanks to the fine efforts of Ryan and Matt, three very successful schematic designs for major projects. All three clients loved the plans.
Two of them didn’t like what was happening in the stock market, however. Projects postponed.
The third was uncertain about moving forward for a variety of reasons. Project postponed.
We got walloped, folks, all in one week!
So, although we had plenty of immediate work for all, I was a little worried about our year ahead.
It was hard to be very worried, however, because this perfect storm of postponements and hold-ups coincided with two other things:
- A veritable explosion of interest and new contracts in Energy, partly precipitated by a new leasing system from SunPower (more about that later); and
- Although the postponements made our schedule of actual 2011-2012 ready-to-go projects lighter than I would have liked, I am unable to recall a time in the recent past when we had more active inquiries than right now.
So September and October have been about building it right back up again. Things are looking entirely different than they were during the August swoon.
One of the most exciting things to happen for us in awhile is the SunPower lease program, which allows us to offer solar electric systems in three ways: all up-front purchase (the usual), partial up-front lease, and no money down lease. This puts photovoltaics favorably within the reach of everyone, whether they have savings to spend or not. For anyone with a home, a south-facing roof (or un-shaded grounds), a meter, and an income, solar is ready-to-go! This already looks like it will be very big at the residential scale, and a big backlog is beginning to accumulate.
At the same time, we are working on several commercial-scale solar projects, with others incubating.
The moral of the whole story is this: we will keep running down every opportunity and keep doing everything possible to grease the skids. We will keep adjusting, stay flexible, and become more and more resilient. We will continue to refine our internal processes for getting work done more efficiently and effectively and we will continue to refine and diversify our marketing.
Twenty-eight remarkable people doing different things, doing them together, doing them well. We plan to keep it that way – through constant exploration, open minds, continuous improvement, supporting each other, and making the constant case to the region we serve that we’re the ones that oughta be serving it up!!
We can’t do much about the stock market, or hurricanes, or other forces too numerous to mention, but we sure can hunker down and do everything we can to change with the times and serve our mission too. Hope is not a strategy, so each time we come to a wall too tall to climb, we throw our best hat over to the other side – - so we’re motivated to follow.
Meanwhile we have been doing several kinds of long-range planning, which, given the uncertainties of the times, seems almost like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? I’ll tell about this in the next post and you can judge for yourself. Onward we go. . . .
CATCHING UP WITH A SUMMER GONE BY
I’ve been neglecting to write. Time to get back to it.
Interesting summer. July was all sunshine. Hammock weather.
Lying in mine I read a provocative new book about our future — The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding, 
an Australian who is the former head of Greenpeace International and more recently sustainability advisor to corporations and NGOs. He is now on the faculty at Cambridge University’s Program for Sustainable Leadership. As I read this book I came to see it as the most accessible and full-bodied treatment to date of the effects of climate change on our planet, our economies, our lives.
Soon after I encountered a review of the book by Nick Moraitis, another Australian, and one of the young founders of Make Believe, a consulting firm committed to social change. But it wasn’t just a review; it was a plan. Says Moraitis about his reaction to the book, “ I couldn’t rationally put the book down and exclaim, ‘I agree, there is a more than even odds chance Paul is spot on,’ – and then go back to my personal ‘business as usual.’ This is the type of mind-bending book that demands a personal response, and an action plan.”
So he made one. His plan covers the areas of Personal Finances, Current Work, Education, Promoting the Book, Business Opportunities, and Life.
I liked that – Read a Book and Make a Plan. There is no reason not to prepare our companies, our communities, and our lives – right now! So I appropriated his idea and made one too. I’ve kind of been working on this plan for a long time, in a variety of ways, but I’ve been lackadaisical at best; I know for certain that there are many who have been working on their versions far more intently – and coherently – than I. So anyway, now I’m working on my own Personal (Slow) Action Plan in response to the new reality of life on planet earth and the New Economy it presupposes. My approach is closely aligned with Moraitis’ model, but the categories that work for me are: Personal Life, Work, Education, and Advocacy. In a future post I’ll share the plan, and talk some about how the book affected the thinking of my colleagues here at SMC, and how it is influencing our thinking about the future of our company.
But back to summer. As you can imagine, just about everyone comes to Martha’s Vineyard at some time or another. That can be a good thing.
In late July MA Governor Deval Patrick came to Eliakim’s Way, the West Tisbury zero energy affordable housing we developed, for a “summer conversation” with the Martha’s Vineyard citizens and public officials. It was a very nice scene with the Guv – people standing and sitting around under the trees in a clump (probably 60-80 people), Deval right out front, no separation from the crowd, wearing a Hawaiian shirt & sandals, no microphone. 
He spoke for no more than 5 minutes and then opened it up: “this a conversation, it’s all about you and your issues.” He had several department heads with him to answer questions in more depth, and roving guys with notepads to take down peoples’ names if there wasn’t time for complete answers.
He took plenty of comments and questions and was very loose and relaxed in his responses. When he didn’t know much about the particular issue he would either ask for more elaboration or turn to one of his staff. He had a nice way of saying to the questioner, “So what’s your solution to this issue?” Some good ideas emerged and provoked further discussion.
Nearing the end thunder started rolling and the sky darkened. I had my 90 year old parents there sitting in beach chairs and it became clear that there was going to be a serious thunderstorm. But I couldn’t leave because I had promised my colleague Rob Meyers (who couldn’t be there) that I would inquire about several solar issues. I figured if I didn’t manage to get it done he would probably resign in disgust, so i stuck it out (we need him). As the storm threatened to burst, I was next in the question queue and the person before me was verbose. So I told my folks to head for the car (they move very slowly) and I waited my turn.
It finally came.
I said that one of the reasons the people at Eliakim’s are able to enjoy these zero energy homes is because of a tremendous state program called the Green Affordable Homes Initiative, and thanked him for that (and said it was a shame it was a one-shot deal, and hopefully they’ll get it going again). I said the solar industry is booming in MA due to very progressive state policies and incentives, and thanked him for that. ”But,” I said, “there are several potentially crippling obstacles that need immediate change. One is the state Fire Marshal’s ruling that only licensed electricians can install solar systems. This makes no sense. Electricians don’t build buildings or bridges, they don’t install signs and billboards, they just do the electrical part. This ruling has the potential to cut out the people who built the industry and decrease quality to boot.”
He was nodding all along, and was obviously familiar with the issue. ”I got it. I got it. I’m with you,” he said.
“The other,” I continued, “is the net metering cap [which regulates the amount of distributed renewable energy the utilities must accept and credit at retail prices]. It needs to be raised.”
“I got it. Oh yeah. I’m with you.”
” But why is there a cap at all?” I queried. ”The more the better, right?”
“Yeah. I got you. I got you.” (he was becoming semi-exasperated). “Does everyone understand what these issues are?” And he briefly explained. And did it well.
Then the heavens let loose. A mighty downpour. Got my folks to the car and gone. . . .
It was good. He is clearly in the loop and committed to positive change. My follow up with his staff proved this to be true, and there is good movement happening in state government with both the issues I raised (and I’m happy to report that there already was before I raised them).
A few days later it was August. I’ll talk about that in the next post. Soon. That’s a promise (you might think it’s a threat!).
IS ZERO ENERGY POSSIBLE?
Indeed it is!
Last year we completed an eight house cluster of permanently protected affordable housing designed to be “Net Zero Possible”, meaning that if you live carefully in these homes you may be able to produce as much total energy, on an annual basis, as you use.
After careful monitoring of the energy use in the eight houses and extensive data collection, our systems engineer extraordinaire – Marc Rosenbaum – has analyzed the data in depth. We also ran a net zero energy contest and two households managed, during the first year, to make more total energy than they used (and others came close). Zero energy can be a reality! We hear many claims about energy use, energy savings, and net zero energy, but it is rare to see measured comparative data.
ASPARAGUS, SOLAR, & SMC
The thing that intrigues me most, right now, is my semi-pathetic asparagus bed. I’ve been wanting to plant asparagus for years, but until this spring I didn’t manage to get around to it. I love the idea of a vegetable that you plant once and harvest for decades. Are there others? Well. . . sort of. Rhubarb, but is that a vegetable or a fruit or just something else entirely? Horseradish, but who eats much of that? There may be others, but asparagus is the main one. When I finally got around to it, most of the crowns made plants, but it’s still a work in progress.
A few weeks ago I was wondering – at the same time that I was watching my colleagues, Phil and Jon, cover the roof of our house with solar electric panels – why I’m so psyched about the asparagus bed.
CRAFTING A BUSINESS OWNED BY ITS WORKERS
During the past year I have been in correspondence and conversation with a number of people who are transitioning their companies to employee ownership, starting worker co-ops, or thinking in new ways about worker ownership and cooperative business.
Among them: Rick Dubrow and Cindy Landreth at A-1 Builders in Bellingham, WA, who are working on an employee buyout of the business they bought in 1976 from the original owner who started it in 1955; Jamie Odegaard who, with four friends, is starting a worker owned building company in Western Massachusetts; James Kosacz, the president of Autoworks in Kittery, ME, who is considering selling to his employees; Mark Skimson, in Terrace, BC, who is leading an effort to make a co-op purchase of a small ski area called Shames Mountain (following the path blazed by Mad River Glen in Vermont); Jeffrey Hollender and Gregor Barnum, formerly of Seventh Generation in Vermont (Jeffrey was the founder of 7th Gen) who are developing a major new – and very exciting – co-operative enterprise.
And the list goes on. Read more
Where Will All The Solar Go?
This was published as an op-ed today in the Vineyard Gazette.
Wind turbines get all the negative ink. Noise, vibration, flicker, interruption of beloved views. Big troublemakers, aren’t they?
Solar panels, on the other hand, are considered to be quite benign. The Nantucket Historic District Commission doesn’t like them much, and some people would rather see roofs without them, but by and large they have come to be widely accepted.
But what about when we scale them up with considerably larger installations that can make a meaningful contribution to our energy supply? Are they really so benign?
LARGE SCALE PV ON MV
Stanford Ovshinsky, one of the great thinkers of our time, is 88 years old and starting a new business. “His audacious goal,” according to an article by Laurence Fisher in Strategy + Business Magazine, “is to drive the unsubsidized cost of solar power below that of coal – to create, in effect, a Moore’s law for energy.”
There’s no reason to doubt he can do it. Read more
A MUSEUM FOR MV? BY SOUTH MOUNTAIN? (Part ll)
So. . . we got the job.
The next two and a half months (mid-November through January) became a wild whirlwind of committee meetings, inquiries, design excursions, public meetings, and pedal-to-the-medal production of the deliverable products we had promised. The holidays didn’t help, and it didn’t help either that we were establishing an intense collaborative relationship with a firm we had never worked with before, and doing it under the gun.
But we got it done. We’re very proud of the products of this work. And pleased with the collaboration with the Museum staff and planning committee, and with Oudens Ello, the Boston firm with whom we partnered. Talented architect Ryan Bushey, the youngest SMC owner, did a superb job leading our charge – pulling together complex programming information, working closely with our Boston team, and pulling a few late-nighters to get all the drawings done.
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JOHN ABRAMS is co-founder and CEO
of South Mountain Company and the author
of COMPANIES WE KEEP read more
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COMPANIES WE KEEP is published by Chelsea Green Publishing
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