A family-run property management and apartment development company, Lépine Apartments has been breaking new ground in multi-family real estate and creating new rental markets in eastern Ontario for more than 60 years, building low-maintenance residences while also contributing to the ecologically friendly growth of communities. Surrounded by greenery, an abundance of natural light, and modern heating and cooling systems, Lépine Apartments strives to maintain a focus on conservation, ecology, green living, and durability.

“Another synonym of sustainability is durability,” Lépine says. “We work in rental properties, so durability is a must. Housing is a very expensive product, and you need time to amortize its costs. If in time you do not have a durable product, then you’re back to square one having to replace it again.”

Historically, he says, structures that have stood the test of time are largely made of stone. “In the ancient societies, it’s all stone. You’ll find very few pieces of lumber, if any. Stone and mason concrete product will last multiple centuries, whereas wood will last only a few generations.”

While the common perception is that wood is “greener,” for Lépine, sustainability involves creating structures that will last much longer and have a less damaging impact on the environment. And concrete doesn’t have to be synonymous with ugly.

“We take it literally that you can build a beautiful house to any scale, but if the yard looks like a dump or a parking lot, it looks bad,” Lépine says. “You need to have nice landscaping surrounding a house and the same thing goes for any building. Whether it’s sod, or planting shrubs or trees, we can dress up our massive buildings a bit similarly to the way you would treat a simple bungalow.”

For Lépine, this includes having the vast majority of parking underground, essentially removing It from view. In cases where the company has to extend parking outside the tower’s footprint, the team creates a podium situation and simply puts backfill over the concrete slab, a foot or two of soil on top, and plantings on top of the podiums.

“If you look at the building, it looks like it’s got a massive courtyard of green, not a parking lot,” says Lépine. “Too many places are done with parking lots that then become a coat of asphalt over your spare area or lawn area. So you’ve got concrete and tar on the rooftop of the building and then asphalt and concrete for sidewalks—that’s not too green in my books,” he says.

Parking lots are going to be there for a “very, very long time,” so putting them underground rationalizes the use of land while increasing the density of development done on large lot areas. “It also looks better. It’s more attractive,” Lépine adds. “It’s like the dream house with a white picket fence. It’s not about the fence itself; it’s about the courtyard you have around the house. You want to have your house and your property around it feel like this. You can implement that same logic for 200 units stacked one on top of the other.”

Design has changed over the decades, of course, with new techniques arising and desired styles evolving, but creating a livable, healthy, and sustainable space remains a top priority for the company. One trend Lépine has noted of late is the floor-to-ceiling windows, which, from an ecological standpoint, are impractical.

“This scaling of your windows has to be designed for people living inside, not for people outside looking at the building, which we see too often,” he says. “They’re also the weakest point of the building envelope. No matter what engineering techniques are used, it’s still glass, and glass is weaker than a solid surface that is properly thermally insulated.”

Lépine aims to reduce the ratio of glass in a building to an amount where, when you’re inside the unit, you still have nice views and bright sunlight, but it’s much more ecologically sound. “With floor-to-ceiling windows, you’re not only reducing your wall space, but your thermal efficiency. A solid wall over time will outperform glass.”

For the company, prefabricated concrete is also high on its list of requirements, but the overall industry isn’t quite there yet. “It’s going to take centuries before there’s more and more prefabrication; it has to be an evolution,” Lépine says. “We have to look at it by components: what type of components can we pre-assemble in that plant and then bring to a site for a more mechanical type of assembly line where we can improve quality—not only quality control, or speed and efficiency, but also the durability of the product we build.”

Speed of construction alone should never be the focus, he adds, even if it means saving a few months of interest or gaining a few extra months of rent. “The end game should be to look at the quality of the building and its durability and cost efficiency,” Lépine says. “Every piece of energy you save is less money you’ll have to spend over the long run.”

If you think the cost of electricity is high now, he adds, what is it going to be 50 years from now? Or just 10 years from now?

“It’s important to try to maximize the efficiencies of every component of a building, whether internal or in the common areas or the portions that are the resident base, because it all feeds into the system,” Lépine says. “It’s good to balance everything out and use the most efficient techniques there are. LED lighting came up a number of years ago, and it seemed great, but on the sustainability side, when the fixture burns out, I can’t change a bulb; I have to scrap the fixture and change the whole thing.”

Marrying the two ideas of efficiency and durability is much more difficult than people realize and something many developers don’t understand. “It’s a big balancing act. And when it comes to the total package of pricing a building, how do we translate that into a rent the market can afford? It’s a major challenge.”

Shrink wrapping properties to try to minimize costs is a popular method, he adds, but in the long run, humans can’t stay in a small, confined space for very long, before migrating in a quest for renewal, which in turn puts more wear and tear on buildings.

“As a society, I don’t think that’s the ideal solution; people need space. As builders, if we build a larger proportion of larger units, we know those are going to be more stabilized, people will stay there longer, and buildings will maintain them better with less wear and tear on them.”

Essentially, it’s about the quality of life for the residents, the community, and the citizens for Lépine while still aiming to succeed as a business in an industry where financial viability is key to obtaining financing.

“When you build quality, eventually the market recognizes it,” he says. “You need to brand yourself otherwise people forget who did it. The market’s the market. There’s a high demand for inexpensive stuff, but in residential construction If you build too much cheap stuff, then you’re kicking the can down the road and then a couple of generations later this stuff all becomes derelict, it falls apart.”

While recent—and ongoing—challenges such as COVID, sluggish housing sales, less disposable income, and high interest rates have plagued the industry at large, Lépine is hopeful for the company’s future, but is concerned about the excessive push for going green for green’s sake.

“The young generation is buying into this too much and supporting politicians way too much,” he says. “They cannot even afford what they wish, and the younger generation is shooting themselves in the foot.”

New technologies can take generations to make a difference and in the meantime the push for environmentalism—and the speed involved in doing so—can do more harm than good. “Like any industry, we can do any number of things, but give us the time and the people to do it. All these things are going to cost more, and it can’t be done overnight.”

Governmental support is essential and not always easily or quickly attained, especially in the environmental realm. When attempting to install solar panels on rooftops, for instance, in some cases it took more than a year for Lépine to gain provincial authority and receive the proper meter for the base build.

“We can provide solutions, but we need time,” Lépine says. “Engineering is not up to par; they can’t do the metering properly for a utility company and they’re trying to shove it down our throats. All of these things are created to put in these green initiatives, and what’s worse is when municipalities try to impose it at the permit stage.”

These impositions, he adds, are project “killers” that make developers think twice about proceeding as the projection of the cost of building goes through the roof. But despite the bureaucratic roadblocks, Lépine remains optimistic.

“We have a very far long-term outlook on things,” he says. “Building a building is a feat by itself; it’s a complex project. But building a company, that’s a lot. Building a company that will last for centuries, that’s our hope.”

Some of the approaches he hopes to take as the company grows include creating its own REITs for portfolio of property management, which will help grow the shareholding potential. “Those are some of the stepping stones in growing the enterprise, but it’s about holding these values and implementing them on construction sites so they turn into buildings that are then operated in the long run for decades and generations to come.”

Population growth is not going to slow in upcoming decades, which will lead to even more demand for affordable, sustainable housing—and Lépine plans to be there. “I would like the company to be around in the centuries to come, so these are the principles and values we uphold. We need to hold the line and keep on it. It’s not just a money game; it’s for the long run.”

The post Building Durability: A Future Carved in Stone<p class="company">Lépine Apartments</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Living Stone Design + Build is one of five Sullivan Family businesses, all of which work together to ensure a complete solution for the client. Atelier Maison & Co. provides home furnishings, including its own exclusive line of green pieces. The award-winning interior design firm ID.ology Interiors & Design boasts a nationwide presence. Believing that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats,’ the Sullivan family also founded the non-profit Asheville Design District to create a designated design district that supports local, family-owned design businesses. And finally, Collaborative Living Magazine is the publication that keeps the community abreast of the latest news pertaining to the Sullivan family of companies and the industry in general.

All of these organizations are committed to the environment as they collaborate to deliver a full suite of services. This commitment goes back at least 15 years, to when the Green Built Alliance first approached company President Sean Sullivan. “I thought, why would I not want to build better each and every time?” he recalls of the encounter. “And so, we decided to start building certified homes. We build each home to the Energy Star and green certifications.”

The team has had to overcome challenges in order to stick to this commitment. “It was terrible timing,” Sullivan says. “The recession hit and we were left with this model home that we had and no sales team to deploy in a new neighborhood. And so we went ahead and bought the house ourselves and used it as a model home. And we lived there for seven years.”

This challenging situation proved serendipitous when it helped the company improve upon its practices. “Even though we certified it green, we were shocked to discover upon selling it that the house had a dangerously high radon level,” says Sullivan. “And so this made us pause and pivot and really realize that we don’t know what we don’t know. Even though we had been designing green and we had been building green, we weren’t aware of other factors that were contributing to poor indoor air quality. And indoor air quality is super important because when you’re building green or you’re building energy-efficient, you’re building a really tight box. Whether it’s radon, or off-gassing from furniture or building products, or things that are brought in after construction, we became very interested in it. And so we pivoted, and we started working toward finding products that the client could use in their house, primarily furnishings that were safe.”

The team has found great success in providing environmentally friendly products to its clients. “We launched ID.ology Interiors & Design so that they could work with our clients to find all of these selections and make sure that the specifications for a home were safe,” Sullivan says.

In addition, Laura Sullivan, the other half of the Sullivan husband and wife team, began sourcing non-toxic furnishings. “It was very difficult to find, but our clients were receiving it very well. After doing that for a couple years, we really started to feel guilty that we were keeping this to ourselves; it was just such a hard product to find in the marketplace. And that’s really what inspired us to open up the furniture store Atelier Maison & Co. And once we did, we came up with this concept of designing green, building green, and teaching our clients to live green, which is what we ultimately call Whole Living,” says Sean Sullivan.

“We partner with Living Stone in all of their builds,” Laura Sullivan says of the interior design firms. “What we do from a design standpoint is make selections that are low- or non-toxic, such as the flooring, the cabinetry, paints and finishes, interior doors. With all those additional materials and finishes, we’re here to make sure that they are good quality, as well as healthy, and will contribute to good indoor air quality,” she explains.

“Furniture pieces are also constructed with a lot of the same materials as home construction: plywood, glues, adhesives, stains, finishes, paint, that sort of thing,” she continues. “We want to make sure that we have offerings for our clients that are healthy to maintain their wellness as much as we can impact from an interior standpoint.”

To accomplish the Whole Living mission, the team focuses on three target groups. “We have our external clients, the ones who pay us,” Sean Sullivan says. “We have our internal clients, which is our team, and we have our community. We want to build happier, healthier lives in all three audiences.”

This means building green no matter what the circumstance. “Every home we build is going to be certified Energy Star and certified green,” he shares. “We don’t ask the clients if they want that as an option; we just build to those standards and we go ahead and certify it. And when we do that, it gives our clients a five percent discount on their power and gas bill for the Energy Star certification. The green certification makes their house worth more than homes that aren’t certified green.”

But that’s not all. “We’ve gone deeper, a lot deeper than just those two certifications,” he says. “We really focus on the indoor air quality and we’re able to educate our clients all the way through the process so that, hopefully, they will buy non-toxic furniture. At the same time, they’ll also consider anything and everything that they bring into their house after they move in. And for our clients that have any type of chemical sensitivity, we have a couple other certifications.”

Living Stone Design + Build has won industry recognition for its commitment to green building and to excellence overall. In 2023, the National Association of Home Builders named the company Custom Home Builder of the Year. “It’s definitely the most humbling recognition we’ve ever received,” Sean Sullivan says. “To be esteemed among our peers is the greatest recognition we could ask for.”

He credits the team’s win to the “pursuit of health for our clients, building happier, healthier lives for all three audiences, and what the Sullivan family of companies has accomplished. But in particular, our commitment to and involvement with the National Association of Home Builders, the North Carolina Home Builders Association, and the Builders Association of the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

Equally important has been the company’s “pursuit of education and teaching other builders through the North Carolina Builders Institute.” The company launched an internal educational component to teaching its teams based on the NCBI format, called the SFC Learning Institute. “Sean has taken his education and his knowledge as a master builder, and he’s bringing that to our teams internally to make sure they are educated on the latest trends in green building and design, project management, and estimating,” Laura Sullivan says of the institute.

Another factor that earned the company recognition is its First Fridays program, which is another “extension of our mission building happier, healthier lives for our community,” Sean Sullivan says. On the first Friday of every month, employees are paid to spend time supporting one of the three charities that the company has partnered with: Western Carolina Rescue Mission, Bounty & Soul, and The Black Mountain Home for Children.

Now, the team is ready to take its mission of Whole Living to even more clients. The Asheville location is relatively close to the South Carolina border, making expansion into that state an obvious next step. “One of the communities that we build in, The Cliffs, has one development in North Carolina, and the other six of the seven are in South Carolina,” Sean Sullivan says. This Lakes Region of South Carolina is an ideal location, “being such a dense community for building.” The region “has really drawn us to expanding our territories.”

The team has also expanded into Cashiers, North Carolina, with the opening of a second Atelier Maison & Co. store.

With such a strong track record and the support of an entire family of companies, Living Stone Design + Build is more than ready for the coming growth. This environmentally sustainable business will be one to watch as it continues to blaze an ever-growing trail within the industry.

The post Building Happier, Healthier Lives<p class="company">Living Stone Design + Build</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Momentive is a global producer of silicone chemicals, derivatives, intermediates, and final silicone products that go into the full formulation of an article; essentially, “we own the whole silicone value chain,” Yiagopoulos says.

Momentive is a global, decentralized organization, employing around 5000 people across 40 locations, and has a presence in over 20 vertical markets including automotive, consumer electronics, agriculture, health care, and more. The core of Momentive’s identity is creating materials that are game-changing for the final applications they are used in. This philosophy is filtered through the lens of sustainability and the company’s processes involve helping its customers develop solutions and drive a more sustainable world by doing so.

The company’s focus on sustainable solutions has expanded industry-wide in the last couple of years, which has caused Momentive to better understand how the ecosystem is evolving, what the regulatory framework of sustainability is, and how people generally view chemical companies in that context. “Our goal is to understand the needs of the market now and how it evolves, and to design products for the present market and the future,” Yiagopoulos says.

To this end, Momentive focuses on the vertical markets it is active in and the needs of its customers within; for example, Momentive sells in three different areas of personal care, including skin care, hair care, and color cosmetics. The company is also deep into providing thermal protection for electronics, such as its silicone gap filler, which allows for control and protective flow of heat that doesn’t impact battery or performance.

Momentive also provides applications that drive sustainability in the marketplace, like its proprietary NXT Silane tire, the only sulfur-silane solution available that can contribute to significant fuel efficiency. Momentive even produces hardcoated products, including those that enable car manufacturers to replace metal parts with polycarbonate or plastic parts coated with its own AS4700 thermal product, allowing for exceptional abrasion and weather resistance and reducing the weight of an electric vehicle and its energy usage.

Currently, some of Momentive’s peers in the chemical space are focused more on producing large-scale silicone intermediates, while others are deliberately focused on specific vertical markets and application development instead of materials. Momentive is a material solutions provider and is in the unique position of providing those solutions with the knowledge of the application and the design of the material. The company’s uniqueness lies in understanding an application, going backwards into the silicone chemistry to design materials for that application, and delivering for its customers in a way that is sustainable and profitable for everyone.

At Momentive, sustainability isn’t just something that drives the customer-facing practices of the business; it has also impacted the company’s internal development. Momentive has refined a number of its internal practices with respect to management systems and sustainability, looking further into product lines that support sustainability and procuring biodegradable materials or those coming from natural sources.

As roughly 22 percent of its sales are in the automotive industry, Momentive has consciously shifted in product development toward aligning with the electrification of transportation. It has also shifted its focus to products that are aligned to the needs of the battery industry globally; products targeting the need to reduce the waste and weight of vehicles; and products that protect surfaces in vehicles and allow autonomous driving.

As the company is a true force within the chemical industry, it makes a strong commitment at all levels of the organization to safety and passing that safety on to customers. Yiagopoulos explains that Momentive has a fundamental position in the chemical industry that every injury or risk is preventable, so the team has undertaken a series of safety initiatives related to occupational safety and product and plant design. Specifically, from a design perspective, Momentive aims to embed the thinking of hazard-free design into its products and understands the need to create an environment where process design is inherently safe.

The team makes an equally significant commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which Yiagopoulos says is very important to him personally because of the number of studies that highlight the link between creativity, diversity, and innovation. To achieve this, Momentive focuses on people, communication, and environment within the context of treating its employees equitably. The company gives everyone the ability to understand their own needs and to forge a personal development plan and fulfilling career path. This approach pairs well with the company’s stance on gender diversity, which has been a persistent issue in the chemical industry. Momentive has programs aimed at creating a gender-diverse population at all levels of the organization, a process that is seeing good progress.

From Momentive’s standpoint, Yiagopoulos sees the chemical industry as progressing strongly along a framework of sustainability. In the future, silicones will be the material of choice in certain vertical markets as other materials simply cannot provide the same level of longevity, performance, and integrity of devices. The industry is moving in these directions, so Momentive, always agile, will grow its presence in markets where durable silicone is required.

Yiagopoulos tells us that 2023 was a challenging year for the business, as the market was volatile, seeing a drop in demand for both specialty and commodity products. 2024, however, is being seen as a bounce-back year for Momentive, wherein it will continue to strengthen its innovation pipeline and transform its asset positioning. The company will be investing in itself, further modernizing its assets and facilities around the world.

Momentive will also see key expansions into areas of Asia like Japan and Korea, with lots of potential to penetrate these specific markets with its products. Momentive will also revisit spaces where it can have a strong position in the marketplace, like the battery and vehicle electrification spaces. Institutional markets will continue to transition, so Momentive will strive to understand its position within it, with the overall question being what its future as a pure silicone player is.

Yiagopoulos says that the key element to sustainability is that it’s not about a singular product; it’s about the way the company treats its people, the systems it establishes, and the value it places on safety, integrity, and inclusion. Sustainability will push everyone in the industry into a new operating model, so Momentive is re-thinking its processes with respect to product design, recycling, and reuse of materials, in a circular manner instead of a linear one.

“We are the stewards of sustainability,” Yiagopoulos says, and thus the Momentive product suite will continue to have a place in helping others forge their own paths to sustainability.

The post The Stewards of Sustainability<p class="company">Momentive Performance Materials</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Offering a unique approach with a focus on energy-efficient facility operations, the family-owned company simplifies managing HVAC projects, design-build projects, and maintenance tasks, to name a few, with precision, care, and commitment to quality.

“My grandfather started the business out of the basement of his house in 1951,” says Todd Albrecht, owner and CEO. “He wasn’t an engineer by education, but he had a lot of skills that would lend themselves to engineering.”

This was during a time when homes still burned coal as the primary fuel for heating, but the conversion to natural gas was emerging.

“We started in that residential world and eventually worked our way after about a decade into the commercial construction business. From there, we splintered out and grew. But we’ve been family-owned and operated the entire time we’ve been in business which is pretty cool.”

Family values
Owning and keeping the business in the family has strongly contributed to the company’s success, he says. “My dad always says one of the greatest compliments anybody can pay me is the employees wanting their sons or daughters working here,” Todd says. For Perfection Group, that’s exactly the case. “It’s not just our family’s history here; we have lots of family members that are non-Albrechts working here,” greatly contributing to the overall culture.

“It’s unique, and it works really well for us,” he says. “It’s about commitment and longevity and having that history with people and their families.”

Everyone comes together like a family to uphold Perfection Group’s newly rebranded mission and vision, which has allowed the company to focus on the purpose of its work, much of which involves sustainability and educating clients about efficiency.

A new purpose
“We’re going after the savings,” Todd says. “30 percent of all the utilities that go to power buildings is wasted. A lot of the time we lead with those types of messages when we talk to building owners.” And more and more businesses are responding favorably and looking to embrace going green.

“Since we’ve shifted our talk-track focus to this higher purpose, going after the savings and the big problem of wasted energy out there in the world, it has completely changed the conversation in a very positive way. People connect to that bigger purpose and it’s making a huge difference.”

Todd’s brother John Albrecht, owner and COO, adds that the company’s energy side of the business works to save money for people in kilowatt hours and gas. “That’s a big saving for the Earth part because of our ESCOs (Energy Saving Companies) business.”

Perfection Group also stands out for its varied capabilities that include service, regular maintenance, construction, green solutions, energy savings, and performance contract work.

“It’s pretty unusual to have all that under one company,” says John. “We can build a building from the ground up brand new, we can service that building for the life of it, and then we can replace all the equipment with new energy-efficient equipment 20 years later, and you’ll deal with just one company.”

While there are service companies, construction companies, and ESCOs, rarely is all that covered in just one company. “We like to say we can take care of everything from cradle to grave, from the beginning to the end,” John says.

Sustainability and “going green” have also proven to be a good fit with Perfection Group’s clients, especially as more clients grasp their benefits. “Government, schools, cities, and counties embrace it first because they have a longer horizon for a payback threshold, and they’re more willing to accept that eight- or ten-year payback.”

Making a difference
Perfection Group is making a difference in a variety of projects.

One such is Utica Elementary School in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where the company modernized the school’s HVAC systems to improve ventilation, air quality, energy efficiency, comfort, and the learning environment while reducing operating costs. Funding came largely from federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funding (ESSER) and a bond issuance.

There is also the Boyle County Fiscal Court in Danville, Kentucky, one of the company’s numerous projects in the area, where it covered upgrades to six facilities.

The energy conservation measures included installation of an energy-efficient multi-zone Variable Refrigerant Flow system at the courthouse, gas-fired generators at the courthouse and jail, and the replacement of 22 roof-mounted package HVAC units at the jail with high-efficiency rooftop units.

The new rooftop units utilized economizers and environmentally friendly R-410A refrigerant. All of these measures brought guaranteed savings of $549,943 annually.

“On the private business side, the number one focus is still, ‘what’s the payback?’ The environmental impact is further down the list of what’s important, but this will change as the technologies get better and the prices get cheaper,” John says.

This commitment to making a difference—not only in people’s everyday lives but in the world—is what drives the company, says Andrew Apro, President of the Green Solutions Group.

“Fundamentally, for the longest time, the company had a culture of sales, and that would drive revenue,” he says. That was important, as the group was selling more efficient equipment, lighting retrofits, and green roofs, and for a long time, it was of financial benefit not only to the employee but also to the organization.

Changing our world
“Now,” he says, “we’ve changed our mission, our vision, our values, and our purpose, and I think we truly believe a well-managed building can change our world, not only because of financial benefit and because our customers save money, but because it has a direct impact on the environment we live in.”

It can be as simple as changing the filters at the office building for better ventilation, Andrew adds. While large, comprehensive energy projects are vital, the simple things, from maintenance to a roof replacement to changing lightbulbs, can make a true difference in the company.

“We’ve changed so much over the years, all of it for the better,” says Andrew. “We’ve become more diverse, but we haven’t lost that touch. Even though John and Todd are the leaders, they understand it’s critically important to feel that way because we then convey that to our customers. It makes for a better all-around experience for the end user who is our client, and also for the world we’re serving, through sustainability.”

The future also looks bright for a company striving to make a difference. As a younger, more idealistic generation enters the workforce, their principles and beliefs seem to align more directly with companies like Perfection Group.

Youth on a mission
“Some of the younger talent we are interviewing and looking to bring on to our company have their own mission,” says Andrew. “They want to do something impactful beyond the paycheck. And it’s a fantastic industry because we can help a client in a lot of ways, and provide an environmental benefit.”

This passion for serving clients while making a difference in the world is one that Andrew deeply understands. Working on the energy side of the business, his main focus is helping clients reduce their consumption, overhead, and operating costs, and modernize and fix all buildings to make them as healthy and sustainable as possible.

“We’re proud of the work we do in the educational environment, both the K-12 level and higher ed, because we believe those are spaces that need to be efficient; they need to be healthy buildings,” he says. “And we have to balance that efficiency, that comfort, and that health. Those three things are critical to any building, whether commercial, restaurant, or school.”

Andrew notes that many of the school and office buildings the company goes into have hardly any fresh air coming in. “Our focus is designing to enhance that. We need outdoor air. One, it’s good for efficiency, and two, it’s good for health, which is critically important. We’ve opened many people’s eyes to building health and sick building syndrome. It’s not only been great for our business, but it’s also been super impactful on our mission.”

The meaning of work
And that mission is one Perfection Group aims to instill in all employees, both current and future.

“The vast majority of the people we hire are skilled labor,” says Todd. “We’re trying to get that group to understand that the work is more than just hanging sheet metal or doing maintenance on rooftop units. There’s something bigger you’re doing here, and you need to understand the impact you’re having on the world. And that message is resonating.”

It’s a message that’s been entwined in the company’s DNA from the very beginning: a focus on making facilities more efficient that has powered the company’s sense of purpose.

“We believe a well-managed facility can transform our world,” he adds. “By making those facilities more efficient, making them run better, seeing the energy savings reduce operating costs, we’re not only improving the customer’s bottom line, but we’re also improving the world we live in.”

While understanding efficiency is the name of the game, there’s no sacrificing comfort, he says. It’s a fine balancing act.

“When we go in and evaluate these facilities, we look for savings, but we also have to balance people’s comfort and the building’s health. We understand that kind of holistic picture. We like to think comfort, efficiency, and health, and how they are three concentric circles. And our job is to hit the target right in the middle where those three circles combine.”

The post Transforming the World One Building at a Time<p class="company">Perfection Group</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

In 1946, it was the introduction of the radial tire, which offered greater flexibility and fuel economy than what was offered by the industry standard, the bias ply tire. In 1992, Michelin introduced its first Green X tire aimed at improving the fuel mileage of a vehicle. In recent years, Michelin has focused on issues of ecological sustainability and how its products can contribute to the achievement of a net zero carbon world by 2050.

Word from the top
To learn more, we spoke with Andrew Mutch, President of Michelin North America (Canada) Ltd., from company headquarters in Pictou County, Nova Scotia.

Mutch, who’s been in the presidential role since 2019, joined the company upon graduating from the engineering department of the University of Prince Edward Island and the University of New Brunswick in 1987.

“When I graduated, I knew I wanted to work for an international company but one with a local context, so that I could see a bit of the world but I could always come home,” he says.

Michelin, which has 74 plants and over 132,000 employees worldwide, and had opened its first North American plant in Pictou County, Nova Scotia in 1971, was a perfect fit. It gave Mutch opportunities to work as an industrial engineer and in various management positions in all three Nova Scotian facilities—Pictou, Bridgewater, and Waterville—as well as in Oklahoma, where a facility opened in 1971, and in South Carolina, at the company’s North American headquarters, before “coming home to the Maritimes.”

People, planet, profit
Underpinning Michelin’s drive toward a net zero carbon world is its sustainable strategy based on a philosophy of balancing people, planet, and profit. As Mutch explains, “Every direction and every decision Michelin takes must balance those factors because you can’t be sustainable if you’re only great with people and profitability but not respecting the planet. But at the same time, we have to be profitable so that we can invest in our people and re-invest in innovations that will benefit our planet and that includes how we make tires, how we reduce our footprint from a manufacturing perspective, and how our products will make a more sustainable future.”

Michelin has set a goal of producing net zero carbon emissions across all its manufacturing sites and is looking at how alternative energy options, such as wind, solar power, and biomass, can be used in its facilities.

Mutch told us he is excited about working with a Canadian company that uses a pyrolysis process to convert biomass into a low-carbon fuel oil that can be used in boilers in place of the natural gas currently used. This method has the potential to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the areas environmental scientists classify as Scope 1 (direct use of fossil fuel through combustion).

“We ran a test in our Waterville facility that was operationally successful. We’ve engaged with the provincial government and other stakeholders so they can learn and benefit from our experience with this low-carbon fuel,” he says. “We don’t want to keep all this knowledge to ourselves; we want to share it so everyone can advance.”

Additionally, in keeping with its commitment to the planet, Michelin plans to have 100 percent of its materials coming from sources that are renewable, meaning it can be replaced within a human life span of approximately 70 years, or are from recycled feedstocks.

Supplanting the supply chain
Controlling things inside the fence line is only part of the story. Ultimately, products need to get to market, which also has an impact on GHG emissions.

A project initiated at the Pictou County plant, where the majority of winter tires are produced and shipped across Canada, is looking at changing the current delivery model. Today, a product could be shipped first to one large distribution centre, then to another, and then to the customer’s distribution centre, and finally to the customer’s warehouse. A delivery model being trialled by the Pictou County plant sees tires delivered directly into the hands of the customer.

“This pilot improved availability for our customers, reduced logistics costs, increased sales, and lessened the impact on the environment because less fuel was being used,” Mutch explains. “It’s end-to-end thinking. It’s about working with customers, identifying the touch points, decreasing them, and optimizing the process.”

And it’s a perfect example of Michelin’s people-profit-planet model because, while helping customers and saving shipping and distribution costs, it has also saved 50 tons of CO₂ emissions from going into the atmosphere.

Greener with the Green Freight Program
A significant portion of the CO₂ emissions that create global warming comes from the commercial long-haul trucks and trailers essential to the supply chain and moving products across the continent. Michelin has been contracted through its GreenerFleets business to help many active Canadian fleets navigate and access funding through the Canadian government’s Green Freight Program. Acting as a consultant to fleets enrolled in this incentivizing program across the country, Michelin is helping them optimize the energy efficiency of their entire fleet and reduce GHG emissions.

One way of doing this is to reduce the rolling resistance of tires, because the higher the level of resistance, the greater the load on the truck’s engine, leading to increased consumption of diesel and more GHG emissions.

Michelin, recognized as a leader in fuel economizing in the long-haul industry with its X Line Energy Z+ commercial tire, is continuing to invest in technology at its Waterville plant to further reduce the rolling resistance of its tires, lowering diesel consumption and GHG emissions while still meeting all performance requirements.

In its role as consultant, Michelin is engaged with helping 93 fleets across Canada reduce their costs and their environmental impact by helping them apply for federal grants to retrofit their vehicles with lower rolling-resistance tires and improved aerodynamics on their trailers, which will improve drag reduction and again lower fuel consumption.

Michelin also provides digital tools to help fleets optimize performance—maintaining proper air pressure in tires and giving feedback to drivers as to how to be more energy-efficient in the way they drive.

“It’s a wonderful virtuous circle we’re involved with, and we’re excited to be part of it,” Mutch says, “because it’s estimated that in the next four years, those 93 fleets will be saving 159,000 tons of CO₂.”

Not only is the Waterville facility playing a dynamic role in the Canadian trucking industry, but the Michelin X-One double-wide tires it produces are contributing to global strategies for emission reductions.

As Mutch explains, “Because of the Infinicoil® technology that is in those tires, they have lower rolling resistance which reduces fuel consumption. Since the trucks only have half as many tires, they can carry a larger load than when riding on single tires and reduce the number of pressure checks and rotations.

Turning up the tires for EVs
Although all of Michelin’s passenger tires are suitable for electric vehicles, both cars and small trucks, the Bridgewater facility is preparing for the next generation of tires that will optimize the performance of EVs and accommodate their characteristics.

Typically, EVs are heavier than internal combustion engine vehicles because of the heavy battery or batteries. EVs also have more torque available at any speed. Any time the driver steps on the energy pedal, full power can be rapidly transmitted to the tire.

In addition, Mutch says, EV drivers might experience “range anxiety,” concerned with how far they can travel before needing to recharge. “So the challenge for the tires is they have to be able to handle more weight, manage the torque, and have improved rolling resistance while meeting all the other characteristics of starting, stopping, turning, and handling,” he explains.

Just as improved rolling performance reduces fuel consumption, these next-generation tires will also reduce the amount of energy used by the battery, increasing its range and lessening the range anxiety of the driver. “We have to be prepared for this emerging market and we are installing the technology and capacity to do that,” says Mutch.

A future for hydrogen
He went on to say that while Michelin recognizes EVs are a good solution to the GHG issue, “we don’t believe it’s the only solution and we believe there is a future for mobility with hydrogen. It’s going to have a place somewhere and, at a global level, Michelin has been working on hydrogen for the last 20 years and formed a joint venture with a company that makes hydrogen fuel cells capable of powering the largest commercial vehicles,” he shares.

“Nova Scotia has a unique opportunity because of all the investments in hydrogen that are coming to the province, so rather than just export hydrogen, what can we do to develop a domestic use for it in Atlantic Canada? We’re exploring ways where we can start to build an ecosystem in Nova Scotia to make use of domestic hydrogen and install transition technology so that eventually we can get to things like fuel cells.”

Green mobility
In addition to helping its customers reduce their GHG emissions through the supply chain, Michelin also has a goal to reduce its own CO₂ emissions to meet international goals.

Last year, Michelin invested $300 million in a plan to modernize its Nova Scotian plants and electrify some of its processes. These include the investment made in Bridgewater to bring in electric curing presses—replacing the steam-powered ones—which will be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. The company is also improving safety and ergonomics at all three of its plants, and in addition to the progress it is making on energy in the plants, it is also diverting waste streams and finding alternative uses for them.

The Bridgewater facility has been able to divert 100 percent of its production waste from landfill since 2017 and Mutch says the other two sites are making good progress toward that figure. He adds that, “from 2010 to now, we reduced our GHG emissions by 41 percent, so we are well on track to meet the 2030 goal of 50 percent.”

Powered by optimism
In an age of doom and gloom forecasts regarding global warming and climate change, we asked Mutch about his perspective on the net zero carbon future.

“Our planet needs our help,” he says. “It needs us to be advancing as fast as we can and we need to be responsible corporate citizens, pushing as hard as we possibly can to reduce our emissions and take our footprint to zero,” he says.

“Am I optimistic? Yes, I’m always optimistic. But is it easy? No, it’s hard because it takes a lot of work, and support from corporations, governments, and academia, and we need new avenues and incubators to bring all these things to fruition. But if you have a goal, and put your energy into renewable energy, then I believe you can advance.”

The post Sustainability, Net Zero, even Rolling Resistance – Michelin’s on a Roll<p class="company">Michelin North America</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Pulling together architecture, engineering, and design, Cushing Terrell “designs systems and spaces that help people live their best lives,” says its website. In practice, the firm serves a variety of market segments from commercial and government to education, retail, healthcare, infrastructure, and residential with a team encompassing more than 30 disciplines.

It is that breadth of specialization that truly makes Cushing Terrell stand out, and it has been embedded in the business from the beginning.

The company was founded in 1938 in Billings, Montana. Architects Ralph Cushing and Everett Terrell—with Cushing possessing significant engineering expertise—joined forces with the core belief that a multidisciplinary, integrated design practice would deliver the best results for their clients. That is exactly what they achieved with their first project in 1938: the construction supervision of Billings Senior High School.

It was unique to have multiple disciplines under one roof in 1938. Cushing Terrell’s Director of Sustainability, Ashleigh Powell, believes in the vision of the founders and notes that it is still unique to this day.

“With our structure, all disciplines can be at the table early in a project, collaborating around strategies right at the onset, where you can make the biggest impact. It was our foundation from day one, and it continues to define how we build teams and deliver services,” she says.

It is not just in the execution of a project; Powell points out that when the firm is considering projects, this multidisciplinary structure allows the team to develop more creative solutions for proposals.

Today, against the backdrop of decarbonization efforts, sustainability is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the business, and this area of focus is yet another example of the company being ahead of the curve. It started in 1975—before most people or businesses were thinking about sustainability—with the introduction of the firm’s energy conservation practice.

It is also what attracted Powell to the company. “When I moved to Austin in 2005 to pursue my masters of sustainability at the University of Texas School of Architecture, Cushing Terrell was the only company that mentioned sustainability in their job posting. It was a differentiator; it grabbed my attention.”

Powell learned through the interview process that the firm had already established an internal green advocacy council, so it was an easy decision to join.

In the ensuing years, its sustainability practice gained momentum through the U.S. Green Building Council, which launched its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program in 2000. With more than 100 LEED-accredited professionals in the early days, Cushing Terrell’s sustainability practice grew, certifying green building projects in all its specialties.

Around the time of the pandemic, Powell saw a notable shift in the approach other companies were taking to sustainability. “More companies were getting more serious about developing their own sustainability practices in alignment with their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments and/or decarbonization objectives,” she shares. “So we’re now doing more work with clients to develop custom sustainability standards or to design within their existing standards.”

In sharp contrast to the doom-and-gloom tone that dominates much of the news related to environmental sustainability, Powell sees positive changes taking place behind the scenes. “It’s really interesting to be able to peek behind the curtain. These companies’ commitments are closely tied to their corporate structure, and it’s a top-down commitment. In some cases, even CEO compensation is tied to meeting those goals.”

She notes that the early decisions about the structure of Cushing Terrell positioned the company for this work. “We need everyone at the table to help companies with those wide-reaching goals. We couldn’t be as effective if we didn’t have the multidisciplinary team that we do.”

The team is also geographically diverse, with employees living and working in many parts of the United States. The rapid expansion of remote work through the pandemic was part of it, but once again, Cushing Terrell was ahead of the trend.

“I remember as far back as 2008, the president of our firm was talking about remote work. He said it shouldn’t matter where you sit, and that has allowed us to attract the best people to our team, regardless of where they are,” says Powell.

The firm counts some very large companies among its clients—Google in California, Texas, and Washington, and Dell, for example—but when a sustainable future is the objective, businesses of all sizes have a role to play, and Cushing Terrell can help.

“Right now, we’re helping a local company inventory their Scope One (direct) and Two (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions. For the company, it translates to energy efficiency and resilience but it’s really about alignment with the imperative to decarbonize their operations.”

Powell points to two projects that are particularly notable for the company, in that they embody the full range of Cushing Terrell’s capabilities.

Ten years ago, the team led the design and construction of the visitor center at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada. With upgraded insulation, daylight harvesting, geothermal heating and cooling, and onsite solar generation, the facility was on track for net-zero energy consumption. After its first year of operation, energy data showed that it had exceeded that by a wide margin. In fact, it was feeding twice the amount of energy back to the grid than it consumed, and it has done so for the past decade.

The other project that Powell highlights is Romney Hall at Montana State University, a project that called for modernizing the building constructed in 1922. Ultimately, 17 new classrooms were added along with centers for math, writing, veterans, and students with disabilities. This structure is now more accessible and more energy-efficient, all while preserving the character as well as the embedded cost of the materials already used in its original construction.

Projects like these reflect why Cushing Terrell has been widely recognized with industry awards. The Romney Hall project received recognition for adaptation and reuse. Interior Design Magazine placed the company in the top 100 firms in its inaugural sustainability category of the ‘Interior Giants’ ranking, and in 2023, it was given the prestigious ‘Mountain States Design Firm of the Year’ designation by Engineering News-Record (ENR).

It may be a cliché but, in Cushing Terrell’s case, the company’s success is truly about its people.

“I’ve been with the company for 17 years,” says Powell. “It’s unique in the industry to have that kind of tenure, but not here. A lot of our people have been with the practice for a long time. There’s a really strong sense of community and family. We celebrate our mission, vision, and values, and there’s a personal alignment in our commitment to the communities where we live and work.”

That commitment manifests, in part, in the pro bono work Cushing Terrell does. The company has always done pro bono work, but two years ago, it organized that practice. Nominations are gathered from staff and the community at large, submissions are vetted, and a deserving project—typically a charity or non-profit organization—is selected.

This kind of integrity is one of the company’s values and also shows up in the way it makes the same commitments to sustainability as its clients do. “We’ve taken the approach over the years that if we’re going to sell a service, like green building certification, we should experience it ourselves and certify our own offices,” says Powell.

The company’s Billings office was thus LEED-certified in 2002, which was very early for that designation. That ‘walk the walk’ commitment continues to this day. The company is a signatory to multiple emissions-reduction commitments, and its Boise office was the first in the United States to be platinum-certified in the LEED v4.1 commercial interiors rating system.

After 85 years of being one step ahead, what is next for Cushing Terrell? More of the same, starting with a more data-driven approach.

“We’ve created a post-occupancy research group. They’re conducting onsite analyses after the completion of projects, surveying the occupants, measuring acoustics and daylight values in the space, and more. That helps us complete the learning, bringing feedback back to the design teams about how those designs are working and being used in the real world,” Powell explains.

Naturally, Cushing Terrell’s integrity is also a big part of the company’s future. “We’ve been focused on operational energy in our sustainability practice; now, we’re looking more holistically at the embodied carbon footprint of the materials used in the building. Our commitment to a sustainable planet also extends to people. We’re getting involved in the Design for Freedom movement, which aims to reduce the forced and slave labor that goes into the manufacture of many building materials.”

Learn more about Cushing Terrell and its sustainability practices by visiting https://cushingterrell.com/.

The post Ahead of the Curve in Sustainable Building Practices<p class="company">Cushing Terrell</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Founded in 1979 by Lawrence Gates and Mark Hafen, Animal Arts remains a leader in designing healthful environments for animals, taking into consideration the unique needs of shelters to provide care and well-being for animals through innovative designs that incorporate state-of-the-art concepts, materials, and air-handling systems to lower stress, promote comfort, and minimize disease transference.

Winning numerous awards over the years—including 49 Architectural Excellence Awards from dvm360/Veterinary Economics, including the 2022 Hospital of the Year – Ethos VERC, Honolulu, Hawaii, and 2022 Merit Award – Veterinary Clinic of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to name just a few—Animal Arts considers not only the animals’ well-being but also the people who tend to them, understanding that performance and productivity are positively impacted by the surrounding environment. To that end, the company’s design aspects embrace sunlight, ventilation, ergonomics, and noise reduction, striving to support clients’ needs and interests while producing innovative and cutting-edge solutions for both humans and animals through ingenuity and creativity.

“Our company provides architectural services, but really we focus exclusively on animal care design,” says Heather Lewis, Principal. “Most people go to architecture school because they want to make a difference in the world, and then you come out of school and it’s hard to make that difference. Animal care is a field where we can do incredible work that has real value, both to individuals and to communities.”

Along with a passion for learning, Animal Arts employs a “relentless” participation in the concerns of the animal care industry, a desire to give back and share knowledge in a way that helps individuals and communities. “We love diving into the details to provide exceptionally useful solutions for our clients,” says Lewis. “By knowing the details, we can strive for the most innovative solutions.”

Dedicated to compassion, collaborative communication, and being accessible, the company is committed to creating humane projects that do no harm.

“We’re all passionate animal lovers here, so we don’t do things like laboratory animal work that conflict with our core values,” says Lewis. “It’s really just focusing on the humane side of animal care, including veterinary hospitals, which have always been our bread and butter.”

The company’s projects range from privately owned hospitals to corporate veterinary hospitals, very small storefronts up to very large specialty hospitals, equine veterinary and animal shelter projects, both privately and publicly funded, service dog training facilities, and university veterinary teaching facilities.

“Animal care has grown tremendously in the last few years, in part because a lot of people got pets during the pandemic, which has had an overall impact on the entire industry,” Lewis says. “Animals have now fully integrated into people’s lives as family members, and we’re doing some really neat things as a result of that.”

The company’s growth has been rapid since the beginning of the pandemic, resulting in taking on larger projects and restructuring to maintain superior customer service. The Arizona Humane Society’s new 65,000-square-foot shelter which just opened in Phoenix is one such notable undertaking.

“One of the neat things about this building is it has an animal trauma hospital,” Lewis says. “They have animal EMTs who are deployed if someone calls and says an animal has been hit by a car. They will go and retrieve them and take them to the trauma hospital for care.”

The thought and planning process that goes into designing animal shelters and hospitals is intricate, beginning with working with the client to help size the veterinary hospital or shelter, ensuring it has the right capacity for animal housing and operations or treatment spaces within it.

“We assist our client from day one on how to help their vision come to fruition,” Lewis says. “Unlike a lot of architecture firms, we’re very heavy on what architects call programming, which is that early planning, and that’s where our expertise is very helpful. That’s a huge part of what we start with.”

The company also brings unique vision, she adds. “We really want to know what that client wants to do from a vision standpoint. We want to make sure this project aligns with the client’s values, that it’s doing what it wants to do in terms of serving the customers that are coming to this building, and that it fits in the community.”

Animal care spaces are highly technical, so Lewis and her colleagues strive to ensure the client can use the facility efficiently from the moment it opens, which involves deep diving into knowledge about all the utilized spaces.

“If it’s a veterinary hospital, we will set up that workstation for the veterinarian to examine a pet. We understand all the things the veterinarian is using, and we’ve envisioned how they get placed in the space,” she says. “We work around the workflow.”

The well-being of the animal is always foremost in their minds, she adds, so one of the most exciting and most passionate things for Lewis is designing around an actual animal and ensuring stress and anxiety are reduced, no matter what building they’re in.

“We also really want to be people-focused, so we’re thinking of all the users of this space,” she says. “Our vision statement is ‘design for every life,’ whether that’s the life of an animal or the life of a staff member working in that building. We’re designing around the occupant, and that’s really where we focus our vision.”

Some unique considerations include designing warm surfaces for cats to lie on to make them happier, more relaxed, and in the case of a shelter situation, ultimately more adoptable. In addition to making spaces animal-centric, Animal Arts also designs them to be human-centric, which means a comfortable work environment, fresh air and daylight, the right ergonomics, and break rooms that provide for a variety of activities and personal needs. “We love designing around the people and the animals. That’s really what motivates us.”

Environmental sustainability is another important motivator. While some areas—California, for instance—already have set a high bar for standards and codes, Animal Arts still pushes itself to higher levels, particularly in terms of energy reductions.

A lot of sustainable design is just good design, she adds, but understanding the client’s needs and desires is always paramount. “That’s where I try to really look at what our clients’ values are and go back to that client-centric approach that we have to find the solutions that make sense for their business or their community.”

Animal care facilities necessitate unique considerations such as adequate airflow to prevent dampness caused by water usage for cleaning, odor elimination, and sanitation. “Animal health care has very high ventilation requirements that sometimes exceed human health care requirements, which is something that most people don’t realize,” Lewis says. “Whenever you’re using a lot of airflow, you’re also using a lot of electricity. So we really focus on energy use reduction with animal care,” she shares.

“One of the things we see in many animal shelter projects is indoor/outdoor spaces for dogs. We might not see that as much in cold climates, but we see it a lot in hot climates. It’s the trickiest and probably the most important thing to design well, because once you cut 20 holes in the building, you have a leaky building that’s very energy intensive. We want to provide indoor/outdoor spaces for the animals, but at the same time put environmental sustainability on the list so the client isn’t paying huge utility bills, and the animals have comfortable spaces.” One solution is designing doors that close after the dog has gone through them to keep air conditioning or heating inside the building.

Air quality and lighting are also environmental design aspects that can greatly affect both animals and humans.

“We might design the entire building to have daylighting so we don’t have to rely as much on artificial lights, and so people can actually see outside, which makes them happier employees,” says Lewis. “It’s known to have really good impact on productivity, so you get a win/win/win: you get daylight, which helps you reduce artificial lighting costs; it helps your employees be happier people; and helps the work be more productive. We’re going to be looking for all these things that unite what we do—what is important to our customers with environmental goals.”

Sound is yet another factor Animal Arts takes into serious consideration. Pets can hear into the ends of the non-audible, ultrasonic spectrum of noise, hearing sounds that humans cannot.

“An animal could be hearing mechanical noise or high-pitched noise made by speakers or lighting fixtures that we’re not even aware of and be stressed by that,” says Lewis. “We look at lighting that eliminates buzz and flicker which will eliminate a lot of those unnecessary visual impacts, as well as noise impacts in the building.”

The company also does a lot of dimmable lighting as animals’ eyes are better at low light levels than humans. Having areas lit like a surgery suite at all times is extremely hard on animals, so in their housing areas the lights can be dimmed down to reduce anxiety and stress.

While taking on new projects and design ideas is exciting, the company’s growth has led to both accomplishments and challenges, particularly in terms of maintaining its focus on customer care.

“We’ve restructured our company to have individual studios inside our larger company that allow us to continue to have that intense customer focus as we grow,” Lewis explains. “We have to continue to be intelligent about how we grow so we don’t get larger than we can handle from an operations perspective and can continue to provide that good customer service, which is really important to us.”

In the coming years, that customer service will involve helping clients do their best work in the animal care space, she adds, along with continuing to lead in animal care by participating with others in the industry who have new ideas, new research, and new knowledge.

Other goals include working with leaders who are trying to address access to care issues, and continuing to participate in thought leadership and work with other people in the industry to make lives better for both people and animals in communities.

“This is a dream job. I love our people. I love that we’ve hired so many people that are so much better at doing things than I am, and that’s the whole goal,” Lewis says. “If you’re a leader, surround yourself with people who are excellent. And we have a lot of excellent people.”

The post Architecture for Animals – Design for Every Life<p class="company">Animal Arts Design Studios</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Headquartered on Bainbridge Island, Washington, this employee-owned business is dedicated not only to creating sustainably constructed buildings that showcase excellent craftsmanship, meticulous attention to detail, and exceptional value, but also to fostering strong community relationships.

Founded in 2006, Clark Construction has participated in numerous multi-million dollar projects around the nation, all while remaining dedicated to its group, its partners, and the environment.

“It’s pretty exciting to see the growth and what the company is evolving into,” says President and Founder Rachele Turnbull. “When I started the company I wanted to do construction, but I wanted to do it with my father. My father had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and dementia, and he wasn’t able to work alone. So I started the company to work with him.”

Turnbull’s father had been a builder in Oregon since 1987, building small and very affordable homes in his community. In fact, he was most proud of building a house and selling it for less than any other house on the market, says Turnbull.

“That was a source of pride for him and what he wanted to do,” she says. “We started Clark and I had a few people that I had worked with on the island that wanted to join and do projects. I talked to other architects and people I knew who wanted to build homes or do projects, and they said, ‘Hey, can you take these projects?’ And I said, ‘We can do that.’ And from there, we just continued to grow.”

Turnbull has a background in large commercial construction, working over the years on projects including university buildings, hospitals, high-tech facilities, and clean rooms, to name a few.

“When I came to Bainbridge, I was doing some commercial work as well as some residential, and I felt that smaller commercial and residential construction could really use the sophisticated tools and management style of the larger general contractors in big commercial construction,” she says. “That’s how I always ran every one of the projects I worked on, with the same systems you would see when you’re building hospitals and universities. And that resonated with a lot of my clients.”

Clark Construction is employee-owned, so as the company continues to grow, those who join aren’t just getting a job; they’re joining a company where they can also be an owner. Of the approximately 80 employees today, about 40 are owners.

“This is also their company,” says Turnbull. “They have that pride of ownership. When we have meetings to talk about what projects we’re taking on, we always ask them, ‘Is there something you want to do? Is there something that resonates with you that we should go after?’ And we’re building the company based on where the employees want to go and where our clients want to take us.”

This includes the company’s commitment to sustainability, innovation, and affordability, which is always going to be the core of what they want to give back to the community, adds Turnbull. “We always say, people before profit.”

That commitment to sustainability is holistic, she says. It’s not just about green building practices, but also about building sustainable places that people can afford and maintain. It’s also about sustainability within the company, educating and elevating the people and creating a place where the family can grow, learn, and build their entire career in the company. “Sustainability is what we strive for in everything we do,” Turnbull says, “not just in the building we do.”

This means it’s not only building materials Clark is focusing on. One of the company’s projects, the Loom House, is the first fully certified Living Building Challenge residential remodel ever built.

Established in 2006, the non-profit International Living Future Institute established the challenge to support the evaluation of sustainability in the built environment through a stated philosophy, an advocacy tool, and a certification program.

“I believe it’s still the only one, and it’s [aimed at] those projects that are not sustainable for anybody to build,” Turnbull says. “Somebody has to be willing to push the envelope at some point, and these clients did.”

The Loom House, a 3,200-square-foot home made up of an existing north and south home connected by a large outdoor courtyard, was completely renovated to improve the building envelope, provide self-sufficient systems, and offer updated interiors while preserving the original architectural character of the home.

The owner’s electric vehicles and bicycles are housed on the property in a new, 725-square-foot detached carport and storage room, and the interiors feature locally made, custom furniture and home accents made of organic materials.

Surrounding land includes Japanese maples, blooming trees, rhododendrons, and azaleas, while urban agriculture is provided by a mycological foraging forest on the property, with a variety of edible berries and vegetables.

South home’s photovoltaic system powers the entire property while battery storage ensures energy resiliency. Resources are handled and conserved with the use of a greywater treatment system and rainwater cisterns.

Clark’s reHOME Project is notable for demonstrating how it’s possible to reduce construction waste, keep materials out of landfills, and offer affordable homes for communities by applying smart design and strict sourcing strategies.

The award-winning project at Morales Farm emerged from the combined efforts of Clark Construction, Coates Design, Housing Resources Bainbridge, and Friends of the Farms, and features three small cottages constructed with donated labor and salvaged components to offer local farm workers inexpensive living. More than 26,000 pounds of building supplies, with a market worth of nearly $125,000, were kept out of the landfill during the construction process.

“We learned so much and can push that forward to our other projects,” Turnbull says. “Not ones that we want to be LBC [Living Building Challenge] certified, but ones that want to do whatever they can that’s realistic and practical and sustainable.”

The City of Bainbridge Island awarded Clark Construction another unique project involving converting the former Harrison Medical Center into a new police station for the Bainbridge Island Police Department, and a Municipal Court.

“When we were awarded that project, it was really exciting because a lot of demo of new materials was necessary,” says Turnbull. “We had a recycled-material project going on, and I thought, it’s such a great symbiotic relationship between the two. Instead of going in and demoing and tearing things out, which would have been much less expensive, we disassembled everything and reused the product.”

This involved and costly process—funded by Clark—even required volunteers to pull drywall screws out of the studs so that the company could reuse the studs for the reHOME Project.

“That was something really exciting that we could do, where we could pay attention to multiple projects with demolition in them,” says Turnbull. “We focus on what makes sense to reuse, and then everything else, of course, is not put in a landfill but recycled.”

The company also addresses affordable and income-qualified housing, completing projects for tribes as well as for a development group in Port Townsend.

Turnbull is excited. “Not only are we building affordable and transitional housing at as low a cost as possible, but still building a great structure,” she says. “We’re excited that we’re able to take a lot of those things that we’ve learned in projects like reHOME and Loom and put them forth for our income-qualified partners.”

Turnbull is also proud of the ongoing community involvement, and employees who strive to ensure Clark continues to achieve success.

“It comes from our people,” she enthuses. “Those are the people that come to work at Clark. If you didn’t already have that ingrained in who you are, you wouldn’t even gravitate to our company.”

Along with success in the sustainable construction industry, Clark has the distinction of being female-founded, not that common in a male-dominated field.

“Less than 11 percent of the construction / general contractor community are women, and less than four percent in the trades,” says Turnbull. “We focus on what’s important to women workers, and that shows in the fact that about 40 percent of our team is women.”

Turnbull prefers the term female-founded to female-owned, as owning implies one woman owning more than 51 percent of the company, which has never been her intent.

“It was about having multiple women and multiple underrepresented groups being able to own the company,” she says. “That is the vision I had and the direction the company wanted to go. So, using the phrase ‘female founded’ is important. I don’t think people realize that being women-owned requires that kind of constraint in the company.”

As for bringing more women into the industry, Turnbull believes there’s a lack of awareness in girls and women who believe construction is a “guy’s world,” but she says it’s amazing how many people on the development side in particular are women.

“It’s a fun dynamic to be working in. We have women consultants who are the engineers and the architects, tons of women in those industries. For the developers we’re working with, South West Group has a woman in charge of all the projects we’re working on,” Turnbull says. “There are a lot of women in the industry, and to have another woman in construction that they’re dealing with is really nice.”

While there are not as many women running the construction side of projects, women in construction do get excited to hear about female founders and leaders in the industry. It allows girls and women to see themselves in those roles. They can see the potential.

“That’s really exciting because we can also say this is a project that has a woman architect, a woman developer, a woman manager,” she says. “To say we’re able to do that is incredible.”

As for milestones, while many businesses in the building industry might say they want to be a huge company with 300 employees, that’s never been Clark’s goal.

“We don’t say we want to do $100 million in revenue or even $2 million in revenue,” Turnbull says. “We say we want to expand our reach in our community. We’re getting well known for that out there. Our milestones are expanding our reach, and who we are in our community, to more of the region.”

The company currently has a lot in the works, including projects in affordability and community land trust homes, as it continues to glean invaluable knowledge from past projects and moves forward sustainably and with integrity.

“That’s what we want here. We want to be the first company on everybody’s mind,” says Turnbull.

While unearthing builders who are focused on community, sustainability, and people as a whole isn’t the easiest task, Clark Construction will continue to forge its own path. “That’s what we want people to think of in the community. We want to be the example, not just for builders, but for any company in the area. We want to be the example.”

The post Putting People Before Profit<p class="company">Clark Construction</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

While custom-building a second home is the romantic dream of many, the realities can be daunting. That’s why insightful project owners in the Greater Houston Area of Texas call Frankel Design Build. The company provides building services so comprehensive that Frankel is the only name they need to know for projects completed on time, on budget, and to a superb standard.

As Houston’s most comprehensive full-service design-build firm, Frankel Design Build offers its customers every service they need to make their new home a reality—all under one roof. From full, skillfully executed architectural drawings and sophisticated interior design to construction, swimming pools, and stunning outdoor living areas, the Frankel team leads in green design and home care complete with warranties.

For over ten years, the company has delivered “LEED for Homes®” standards while giving clients what they want in terms of style, design, finishes, and function—and all of it a pressure-free experience. And that’s not just talk. The company’s work features in the Earth Month Clean Building and Energy Efficiency Project that’s being headlined by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) this year.

With family values at its core, clients become part of the Frankel Design Build family on every project. “Our project owners are all unique people who come to us because they typically know other people we’ve worked for. They know we’re good listeners. We’re good problem solvers. And we’re here to help them come up with something that they may not have thought of themselves,” says Scott Frankel, President.

Part of this preliminary ideation process is a beautifully appointed showroom where interior designers consult with clients to help them curate an ambiance for their homes that reflects style and glamour and suits their lifestyle.

Excellence rarely goes unnoticed. In 2021, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) awarded Frankel Design Build one of the highest honors in the industry—its Custom Home Builder of the Year Award—a well-deserved recognition of service quality that exceeds expectations.

The company has also won a host of awards for its sought-after LEED-certified green building projects. Frankel prides itself on designing these energy-efficient dwellings that are as comfortable in winter as they are in summer.

These homes also provide better air quality thanks to fewer allergens being circulated inside and improved water consumption which also means a healthy reduction in cost as well as a significantly lower power bill. Add to that the fact that LEED-designed homes have a higher resale value, and this important feature becomes less of a luxury and more of a necessity for any prospective homeowner.

Ensuring customers’ ease and comfort is a big part of the Frankel Design Build commitment. The company works within a forty-mile radius of its hometown, putting all projects within easy reach of all collaborators. It’s also gaining popularity in Washington County.

In addition to customers receiving professionally rendered 3D representations of their proposed homes, making wise and informed design decisions easy, clients also benefit from a comprehensive warranty offer that protects homeowners from construction faults in workmanship and materials.

Frankel Design Build also offers home maintenance that includes keeping clients’ swimming pools clean and beautifully blue. Cementing its relationships with customers in this way allows the team to continue evolving its offerings as customers get to order its home-owner maintenance services online at the click of a button.

As part of its commitment to excellence, the company also belongs to several industry associations. These include the Greater Houston Builders Association (GHBA), the Texas Association of Builders, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), and others.

Established in 1988 by Jim Frankel, the company evolved from a one-man contractor outfit to a construction leader with over thirty employees. Today, the company includes a construction department, home care and maintenance, architecture, and interior design departments, together with purchasing and estimating.

It also offers its expertise as a full-service pool company that custom-builds every pool in-house. “The company has adapted and evolved to the demands of our clients. Our ability to work together makes our team great. Each person plays a key role in our success,” says Alexis Guillory, Brand Manager and Construction Selection Coordinator. Since Jim Frankel’s sons, Scott and Kevin, joined the company in 2015 as co-presidents, the firm’s revenue also grew by over 500 percent.

And the expansion continues. “I know this is a difficult time for many companies, but we’re actually hiring. We’re moving in a positive direction, growing every year,” Guillory adds.

Not the sort of company that ignores everything but the bottom line, Frankel Design Build is a generous patron of charitable events and efforts that benefit local schools. It constantly encourages clients with school-going children to share news of such opportunities with the team, so, naturally, the schools and recreational centers it builds are particularly close to its heart.

And the company is always looking for ways to support the work these schools do once they’re up and running. “If we’re going to be building beautiful homes there, we want to make the entire community better for our clients,” says Guillory.

Familiar with the current climate of local construction, Frankel Design Build is more aware of the transient nature of economic turns than most.

A case in point is how COVID-19 changed the way people view and use their personal home environments. Spending more time at home, good aesthetics, and more space suddenly went to the top of everyone’s wish list, together with much more emphasis on outdoor entertainment areas. Home offices flourished and swimming pools became more desirable as local recreational centers closed.

Of course, as architectural trends evolve, so do people’s dreams for their homes. And, as the company expands further into Washington county, local preferences will also dictate changes in its designs to adapt to regional tastes and the particular environment.

Guillory points out that the company’s target market of second-home, ranch-style projects set on generously proportioned land around Houston is also growing. The team is charged up and vigorously exploring this relatively new market.

Guillory outlines the opportunity: “It’s really rare for builders to do all their designing in-house. Most times the process involves the client going to an architect, taking the plans to a home builder, and then bringing in an outside interior designer. Instead, we offer all those services under one roof,” she says.

The beauty of this company’s design capabilities is how dynamic and versatile its creatives are. In both its architecture and interior design, it might work in a modern European mode, or in traditional, contemporary, and transitional styles, bringing a freshness to more typical styles.

Priding itself on curating its team as carefully as it does its design principles, Frankel Design Build is confident that its professionals not only meet the high standards its clientele expect but often—pleasantly—surprise them. Above all, project owners know that they can rest assured, with their luxury home projects in exceptionally capable hands.

The post Dazzling Houston with Award-Winning Construction<p class="company">Frankel Design Build</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.