One of the fondest memories of my youth is sitting in school around 6th grade, with stormy weather outside, and my thoughts drifting to my tree house. I couldn’t wait for school to end, get off that bus, run home, climb up the tree, and hang out during the storm in my “house” in the tree. Just a few years later, when I was 16, I started work as a carpenter’s apprentice on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In the early 1970s I began the journey to being self employed, first as a framing and trim subcontractor. In 1981 I turned down four years of highly profitable work framing a large condominium project, and instead stepped into my first job as a general contractor on a small, elegant house. From 1983 to 1986 I designed and built three spec houses. It was while working on the third that I began to look at my materials and practices with an eye towards how toxic so much of my work was for me, and our planet. Over the next few years I began this now decades-long journey of trying to uncover how to build more responsibly.

In 1993 I formed a partnership with Cary Thompson, and built what we labeled the “Environmentally Responsible House” at 2270 Monroe Street. We did meticulous research and carefully thought out each detail of this 1,500 sq. ft. house designed by Rob Thallon and Jim Givens. Features include: passive solar orientation, concrete floors for thermal mass, radiant floor heat, solar hot water, off set stud walls on 8” plates, HRV, ACQ pressure treated wood, recycled decking from old wine vats, plant oil finishes, and certified cedar shingles. All framing and cabinetry wood came through a highly responsible process–this was before FSC wood was available. I worked with a wonderful forest owner who developed a responsible forestry plan certified by the Rogue Valley Institute. The trees were very carefully cut so as to minimize the impact on the forest, and the logs were horse logged out of the woods, milled and graded on-site, then air-dried at the building site. For a guy from Cape Cod who loved trees, this responsible logging and milling process, deep in the majestic doug fir forests of the northwest, was an epiphany. I was hooked. Following this successful project, I went on to build Eugene’s first permitted straw bale and Rastra block house.

Also in the mid ‘90s Cary Thompson and I began the Eugene branch of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild. Thanks to the tireless work of many participants over the decades since, the Southwest Oregon chapter of the guild continues to educate our community through monthly presentations at BRING.

In 2001 I went to Boulder for the last two years of my daughter’s Waldorf high school, and joined up with Eric Doub of Ecofutures. Eric and I became involved in a wide variety of projects, all with a green to deep green building focus.  Following my daughter’s graduation in 2003 we returned to Oregon, where I finally set about designing and building a home for ourselves. Then in 2006 I had a dream about making more of a difference in this world, and ECO was born.