South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

This blog provides up-to-date news of goings on at South Mountain Company and occasional musings from John Abrams (and others).

Long Term Thinking

Coming Back Around

By South Mountain Co. |

The only time I ever built a physical model of a house was for the Chilmark house my late wife, Chris, our son Pinto, and I designed in 1982. He was 12, and our daughter Sophie, who would be born on the night we moved in (in late 1984), had not yet been imagined. I wonder what became of that foam-core model.

We built that house, lived there until Sophie was 15, and sold it in 1999. In those days, South Mountain’s shop, offices, and my family home were all located on our property adjacent to the Allen Farm. The company was growing, and we needed more space. We couldn’t expand on that site. It was time to move on. We migrated to West Tisbury to develop our current campus and Island Cohousing.

In 2011 I took the South Mountain architects to see the Chilmark house. Some of the younger ones had never seen it. “It’s very dynamic – the levels, the light, the textures,” said Matt Coffey.

The reason for the field trip was that the house was going to be torn down by its owners to make room for a new one. Only 28 years old, it was bulldozed, taken to the landfill and replaced with a high-end contemporary and pool.

It was one of my best buildings. It was hard to see it go, but we had experienced our emotional parting when we sold it 12 years before. Still, it was sad.

After the house was completed in 1984, for a time South Mountain’s work veered off-course. My colleagues and I had been on a design path that combined several threads: a “vernacular modern” style characterized by passive solar, natural daylighting, and dedication to craft and fine materials. But the vernacular and the craft began to take over; modern and solar took a backseat. It was to be a lengthy detour, at least 10 years, before high performance (in terms of energy, daylight, comfort, health, and durability) re-gained prominence in our work.

(Our country was charting a parallel course. Reagan was in office. The solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House were ridiculed and scrapped. Frivolous and tasteless post-modern design was all the rage – goofy pediments and all).

In 2005, I was working with Ryan Bushey (then a young architect, now our Director of Architecture & Engineering and one of my co-owners), on a zero-energy home. The site and solar opportunities were similar to that of the Chilmark house. I took Ryan to see it. Several aspects of his 2005 design were modeled after my 1983 design, but Ryan took it to another level.

The Chilmark house (where my family lived for 16 years) and another one completed in 1981, several miles away (that has been extensively remodeled in a way that took the soul out of the building) are, I think, the best examples of early SMCo work – both designed and built about 40 years ago.

One’s gone. One is a shadow of its former self. Fortunately, there are other decent examples of our early work, but those two have a special place in my heart (absence really does make the heart grow fonder).

I suppose I could have kept and cared for the Chilmark house. But I didn’t. It was important to make a break. The results of the development of Island Cohousing signified that SMCo was all the way back-on-track. And the Cohousing neighborhood was good place to live. It had its downs and ups. Chris succumbed to cancer in our house there in 2017; shortly after Sophie got married on the pond.

One of the prominent features of our Chilmark house was that it was built into a hillside and stepped down the hill in three levels. The lowest step was only 17”, the height of a chair. This was the dining area. A special round table with a large lazy Susan and a laminated semi-circular wood bench on the upper level provided some of the seating (the rest was chairs on the lower level). Everyone loved that table and space. Kids loved the lazy Susan. Dogs loved it that if someone left food on the table it was right at their height, ripe for poaching.

Before the house was torn down, the owner gave that table – lazy Susan and all – to a young neighbor, who grew up playing with Sophie. A few years ago, he passed it on to her. Our Shop Lead, Jim, restored and re-finished it, and replaced the lazy Susan bearings. Now Sophie, her husband John and their three young kids gather round it. Their twins, Bodie and Turner, born just two months ago, will know that table from birth, just as she did. Her three-year-old, Rockland, will probably ride the lazy Susan and tax those bearings just as she did. Maybe we’ll replace them for the third generation.

We find our calling and our path. The journey is complex. Along the way we stray. We find the way again. Things are dismantled and things are saved. Some circle back around.

There’s poetry in that.

P.S. The sweet little horse barn we built for Sophie and her friends on the Chilmark property remains. All is not lost, ever.

The Two Best Vineyard Banks

By John Abrams |

Disclaimer: These words do not reflect the formal position of CCMVHB; they are my own.

One Exists. One doesn’t …yet.

In the 1980s the Vineyard experienced an explosion of population growth and development. Access to beaches and properties once enjoyed by all became limited. Islanders, sensing their way of life slipping away, got organized. After a grassroots campaign and an act by the Massachusetts State legislature, The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank was established in 1986. Funded by a 2% transfer fee paid by buyers of Vineyard real estate, the Land Bank has transformed the island in diverse ways by buying and managing property for conservation and public access. It has expanded and created countless trail systems and provided new ways for the public to get to our beaches. It has initiated farming and affordable housing collaborations. It has helped to preserve wildlife habitats, pond and aquifer water quality, fishing and shellfishing – the essential ecological services we depend on.

The Land Bank has provided significant solutions, but their job is not complete; according to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, nearly 16,000 acres of developable land remain up for grabs on the island, and it took the Land Bank more than three decades to protect 3,500.

Meanwhile, the pandemic real estate boom has intensified our affordable housing crisis. Despite 25 years of progress, the situation is worse than ever:
• There is a $780,000 gap between what the average Island family can afford and the median home sale price ($1.15 million in 2020).
• Only 38% of our housing stock is available for year-round occupancy
• Over 600 year-round residents and their families are waiting for year-round rentals, including 210 children.
• Rents are 30% above the statewide median costs while wages are 27% below the statewide median income.
• Over 300 year-round residents are currently on waiting lists to purchase homes within their financial reach.
• More than 1,200 Vineyard residents pay more than half their income for housing costs.

Another way of life is slipping away fast. Only a major long-term funding source can preserve it. It’s time for The Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank, the other most important Vineyard bank. This is not to take anything away from the importance of existing local commercial banks; only to say that the Land Bank and the Housing Bank are the vital cornerstones of a balanced and prosperous future.

Island Housing Trust’s “Eliakim’s Way” neighborhood is West Tisbury.

We’ve tried before. A 2005 Gazette editorial stated: “The housing bank initiative has cleared its first major regional hurdle now that all six towns have thrown their support behind the idea, which aims to create a bank of money for affordable housing using a transfer fee on most real estate transactions. The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank is the model . . . “

With overwhelming support from the Vineyard, the Housing Bank failed in 2005 in the state legislature due to the strong lobbying of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, who disliked the concept of transfer fees. At the time, the median home sale price was approximately $500,000.

That was then. This is now.

With median real estate prices over $1,000,000 and the need greater than ever; there have been multiple calls for a renewed effort to establish a Housing bank.

They are being answered.

The Coalition to Create The MV Housing Bank (CCMVHB) is a citizens’ campaign to establish a regional Housing Bank for Martha’s Vineyard.

The campaign is led by a 12-person Steering Committee co-chaired by Julie Fay and Arielle Faria. (Other members include Kimberly Angell, Makenzie Brookes, Caitlin Burbidge, Stan McMullen, Elaine Miller, Lucy Morrison, Juliet Mulinare, Doug Ruskin, Abbie Zell, and me.)

We are supported by one paid staffer (Laura Silber, our Coalition Coordinator) and a growing “Coalition Council” whose members include selectpersons, town affordable housing committee members, county commissioners, business leaders, realtors, young professionals, housing activists, and those in need of housing – from every town.

Meanwhile, there is a dramatically different political climate in the Commonwealth. At this moment the towns and cities of Nantucket, Provincetown, Boston, Somerville, Brookline, and Concord have all passed Home Rule Petitions to create Housing Banks. All are based on transfer fees. A coalition of these communities has formed which includes the Vineyard. The island coalition is working closely with our state representatives – Dylan Fernandes in the House and Julian Cyr in the Senate.

To meet the goals of the Housing Production Plans created by the six towns in 2018, we will need to create hundreds of units of community housing during the years to come.

It is time for action.

The plan to model the new Housing Bank after the existing MV Land Bank means there is no identifiable group of people (besides the pool of unidentified future buyers of Vineyard real estate) who will be adversely affected, and because this would be an entirely new funding source, it would not tap into or alter existing funding streams like the short-term rental tax or Community Preservation Act funds.

Some ask why not try to use some of the existing Land Bank funds? Not only is it a flawed strategy to pit one good thing against another – conservation vs housing – but there just isn’t enough money; the Land Bank needs its funds. More than 60% of its budget goes to land management and to service existing debt; it needs the rest to continue its work.

Another common question is: will this lead to extensive new development? We will certainly need some. But the Vineyard has 18,000 existing buildings. Some of these can be purchased and re-purposed as affordable housing. Accessory dwellings (ADUs) can be built on developed properties. I hope the Housing Bank will prioritize expenditures on already-developed land and mechanisms like down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.

Winners of the “Jenney Way” housing lottery, crossing the threshold of their new home.

During the first half of 2021, CCMVHB is forming committees in each town, bringing the concept to town boards, and designing the new housing bank. During the year that follows, we expect to create warrant articles in all six towns and bring them to town meetings; if successful in all six towns, we will advance to the state legislature.

Between now and then, there are plenty of questions to answer: how much will the transfer fee be, who will be exempted from paying, who will be served, and for what uses will funding be available? In terms of governance, I hope the Housing Bank will adhere closely to the Land Bank structure – run by an elected commissioner from each town, a representative from the Commonwealth, and professional staff. Each town would have a Housing Bank Town Advisory Board which would have to approve development in its town. This combines regional vision and oversight with ultimate local control and is a tried-and-true method that has worked for the Land Bank for 35 years. There’s no need to re-invent this wheel.

Community consists of a place and those who have a relationship with it. Land conservation is important. People conservation is equally vital.

School teachers and social workers, farmers and fisherman, nurses and nannies, truck drivers and technicians, artists and arborists, plumbers and plasterers, carpenters and curmudgeons, troublemakers and troubleshooters, those of different ages, abilities, incomes, colors, religious beliefs, and gender identities – we need all of these people to maintain a living, breathing community.

Taking bold measures about affordable housing will ensure that the Vineyard community we know and love won’t recede like the eroding shoreline.

Support the CCMVHB effort by
– Visiting ccmvhb.org to learn more, and informing your peers.
– Emailing info@ccmvhb.org to join the Coalition.
– Making a donation to The MV Community Foundation earmarked for CCMVHB to cover campaign expenses
– Following our progress on Instagram and Facebook @ccmvhb.

An island united can get this done once and for all. Our two essential Banks, working side-by-side, can assure the future we all wish for rather than the one that circumstances will otherwise dictate.

Silver Linings

By John Abrams |

Photo by Timothy Dewitt for the Vineyard Gazette.

Several years ago, I read an article in The New Yorker called “Estonia: The Digital Republic”. It named the small Eastern European country “most digitized government in the world”. In Estonia, government services – like legislation, voting, education, justice, health care, banking, taxes, policing, driver’s licenses and registrations – transact online in a fast, easy, secure, reliable, and effective system available to everyone. I remember thinking at the time, “This wired-up nation is providing a glimpse of what a more rational and inclusive future could look like.”

I was reminded of this last week when Joe Tierney, who runs our local building department, notified us that building permits are now available online. No more driving to town hall hoping to find Joe or his assistant Jeff. No more paper to copy, collate and deliver. One silver lining of our pandemic-hammered newly shuttered socially-distanced society. No way that’s going back to normal when this is all over. Yes, some personal contact will be lost. But more will be gained. Progress never comes without consequences.

We are no longer at the beginning of this pandemic. We are nowhere near the end. With many lives lost, others threatened, and all of ours fundamentally different than they were a few months ago, it might seem too early to be looking for the silver linings.

But it’s never too soon for that.

In many ways, our lives today are more stressful than ever: Widespread illness and death. Massive job losses and economic disruption. Deficient federal leadership (the silver lining here is that Trump is clearly taking himself down and all the way out.) Those who are already poverty-stricken endure even more hardship. The curtailment of freedoms we treasure. The confinement. The constant veil of uncertainty. Walking around in masks like it’s Halloween (you can’t even recognize friends and neighbors in the grocery store aisles).

But in other ways, you could say our new life has picnic-like qualities (although it does seem a bit like a dog came by and swiped all the sandwiches when nobody was looking).

In mid-April, I scribbled a note to myself: “I love the Vineyard roads during these shelter-in-place times. Mostly empty. Like the winter of 1975 – nearly half a century ago – when we would drive from home in Chilmark to Vineyard Haven. Often, we wouldn’t pass a single car during the 20 minute trip. It’s kind of like that now. Instead of staring at the car in front of me, I can watch the road ahead and look left and right as I drive. I appreciate the signs of gratitude for the grocery and hospital workers. The cherry tree in front of Edu-Comp is in full bloom, at one of the busiest intersections on the island, now quiet. As I head up-island, I enjoy the living tree canopies that reach out over the road – for light – and join with their counterparts on the other side.”

Silver linings.

Here at South Mountain, as in so many other companies and households, we spend our time gathering and collaborating on Zoom. We’re getting used to it. And better at it. So much so that the idea of meeting in a room sitting around a table is starting to seem old fashioned, like making a call standing in a phone booth after putting a dime in the slot. You’re right. . . it’s not that good of a replacement, but virtual meeting comfort and competence will surely serve us well, far beyond this pandemic. And when the time comes that it makes sense for certain meetings to be face-to-face, it will be all the sweeter.

Silver linings.

Here are a few witnessed on MV, from the mundane but poetic, to the lifesaving and essential:


• Kim’s puzzle exchange at the end of our road. She and Livey do puzzles. They ran out. She said, “Let’s make a puzzle exchange.” I sketched a crude drawing and got some old lumber from the SMCo yard. Our friend Rob built a sweet little shed. Kim and Livey made signage and instructions for use. When Kim announced it on the “Islanders Talk” Facebook group, 200 people responded with likes and comments. Countless puzzles came and went.

• Civil engineer Chris Alley waking up the morning after his office closed with nothing to do and deciding to walk Barnes Road, every day, bit by bit, picking up trash, including 400 discarded nips bottles in one stretch.

• Parents faced with their childrens’ at-home education discovering new ways to relate to their kids and new respect for the teachers they sometimes criticized. By the way, March of this year was the first month without a U.S. school shooting since March 2002. Eighteen years.

• Breaking free from the traditional political handcuffs caused by six different towns co- existing on one small island. One town wants this, another wants that. Regionalization used to be rejected by parochialism. But now, like never before, the towns are collaborating and acting in concert. Selectpersons, health agents, hospital – all on the same page. One island, one town at last.

• An outpouring of support for essential community institutions – non-profits that serve those most in need and iconic local businesses in trouble.

Silver linings galore.

More than anything, maybe, this time is a rest for the planet – a vivid testimony to the importance of consigning the sacred growth-at-all-cost economy to the dustbin of history. Overcoming the pandemic foreshadows the real work ahead: the long and hard but fully negotiable road to an absolute reckoning with climate change. According to the New York Times, the United States is on track to produce more electricity from renewable power than from coal for the first year on record, a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago. Accelerating the transition to renewable energy is the sure path to restoration of the economy (that has been ransacked by the pandemic) and healing the planet (that has been ravaged by our insatiable appetites). Maybe, just maybe, we will look back on this as a hinge point that straightened our crooked path.

We may be developing a new sense that we are truly all in this together – that what I do, affects you, and what you do, affects me. And that each choice made affects the home we share. Columnist David Brooks calls this “a hidden solidarity, which I, at least, did not know was there.”

To assert that there is good news could seem insensitive to our current collective troubles. But there’s a door opening. And if it’s possible to walk through that door and use the good news to inspire transformation, it would be a terrible mistake to overlook it.

Our resilience is remarkable, as is our transcendent ability to create joy in the face of tragedy. The strength of our collective will to work together is tangible and unshakeable. Maybe it leads to renewal.

Yes, every cloud truly does have a silver lining, even this tragic and frightening pandemic cloud. Especially this one.

The Flip Side of Mitch

By John Abrams |

Sometimes we are fortunate enough to catch glimpses of progress within our federal government (yes, there is some – despite Mitch McConnell’s relentless efforts to assure that nothing positive happens in Congress, he does not always succeed!) I had this chance several weeks ago.

In August of 2018, Trump signed a 788-page defense bill which authorized $717 billion for the military. Hardly anyone noticed that New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand slipped in a provision to help workers own their companies – a modest attempt to tackle wealth inequality, and a timely one.

As baby boomers reach retirement age, we are undergoing a “Silver Tsunami” – several million small businesses in the U.S. stand at a crossroads: What will happen to them when their founders move on? Some will be passed down to family members. Some will be absorbed by larger companies (and likely, moved out of town). Some will close their doors. Others will explore the increasingly popular notion of selling the business to those employees who helped build it.

There are obstacles. It’s not uncomplicated. Gillibrand’s bill – the Main Street Employee Ownership Act of 2018 – was designed to help employee-owned companies gain better access to technical assistance and capital. On February 12th of this year, the House Committee on Small Business held a hearing to examine how the bill is working, how it’s not, and how it can be improved.

I was invited to testify as a representative of the worker cooperative model, along with two individuals who represented ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and one who represented a cooperative bank.

The experience was an eye opener.

The room held a significant sampling of the Democratic and Republican representatives who comprised the Committee. Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez of New York opened the hearing with this remark: “At a time when income and wealth inequality are at record levels, real wages for middle class workers are nearly stagnant, and retirement security is no longer guaranteed, one way to combat these problems is through the employee-owned business model.”

She displayed a firm grasp of the issues and a strong commitment. She knew her subject. I was impressed.

Each of us had five minutes to testify. My peers were knowledgeable and passionate advocates.

Mark Gillming, senior vice president at Messer Construction in Cincinnati, praised the tax advantages (passed by congress 45 years ago), which have caused the ESOP model to become widespread:

When I began working at Messer Construction, it was a medium size, family-owned construction company with a long history and a good reputation; but, like most companies in construction, it had little in the way of employee benefits.

In 1988, the last son of the company founder died, and we found ourselves with an uncertain future. The grandchildren of the founder wanted access to their wealth and, having no connection with the employees, were not committed to maintaining employment at the company. In 1990, the Messer employees were able to buy their future from the Messer family, using the ESOP structure. We could not have purchased the company if not for the important tax advantages that the ESOP model afforded us.

Our country’s investment in ESOPs allowed ninety-nine Messer employees to purchase their future; and the engagement that opportunity created, has resulted in growth. Messer now provides quality jobs and predictable retirement for over 1,200 individuals and has company-funded retirement assets for those employees totaling more than $400,000,000.

R.L. Condra, VP of Advocacy and Government Programs at the National Cooperative Bank in Arlington, Virginia, spoke to the changing nature of cooperatives and those who stand to benefit:

A prohibitive policy requirement by the Small Business Administration (SBA) is hindering the growth of the cooperative business sector. If this issue is resolved, lending institutions, like the one I work for, will be able to make loans that will help to grow small businesses, create quality jobs at increased wages, and provide healthy food and grocery options for communities throughout the country.

Cooperatives have evolved since the 1960’s when the SBA recognized them as buying clubs. There are now over 40,000 cooperatives in the US and the top 100 generated $222 billion in annual revenue in 2018. Some notable cooperatives include REI, ACE Hardware, Ocean Spray, Land O’Lakes, and Congressional Federal Credit Union.

Since the great Recession, worker cooperative numbers have doubled, and have become a business option for young people, women and minorities. According to the 2019 Worker Cooperative Economic Census, 50% of owners of worker co-ops are Latino and African American, and 62% of women make up the majority of the workforce.

Daniel Goldstein, President and CEO of Folience, a media company in Iowa, advocated for regulatory clarity that would lower the risk for businesses making the employee ownership transition:

I submit that the biggest obstacle to the formation and expansion of ESOPs is the chilling effect of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) actions. DOL has perpetuated an absence of formal regulatory guidance, while simultaneously pursuing a litigious approach to oversight. The effect has been a deep chill on the market.

Every year, hundreds of business owners who want to learn about ESOPs attend educational events hosted by The ESOP Association. And once exposed to the lack of clear guidance, many turn away out of fear that some unknowable misstep will invite never-ending DOL scrutiny.

Those fears are not unfounded.

Today, more than 45 years after ESOPs were established with the passage of ERISA, the Department of Labor has yet to finish its rulemaking process. They started. They nearly finished in 1988. But they never issued final regulations.

Operating without clear guidance is a risk ESOP companies should not be forced to bear; it is a risk that negatively affects the wealth and security of the 10.6 million employee owners DOL has been tasked with protecting.

But here is the travesty: It is impossible to prove how many American workers have lost the opportunity to become employee owners as a result of this chilling effect. And, due to the rapidly escalating retirements of baby boomer business owners, there is urgency to reduce the chilling effect this lack of regulatory clarity is causing.

And then it was my turn. I emphasized the value of employee ownership in our culture and the importance of sharing what we have learned:

I believe that owning our work is as essential to a good life as it is to own our homes. As former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers once remarked, “In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car”. When employee owners are making the decisions, it is more likely that companies will stay rooted in place and be positive forces in their local communities.

Economist Richard Wolff says, “if our workplaces had been democratized, long ago, would the workers have stopped raising their own wages? Hardly. Would they have destroyed their own jobs by moving production overseas? Doubt it. Would they have employed technologies that pollute the local environment? No, they live there. Would they have allowed some to earn astronomical salaries while the rest got no raises? No way. Our economic history over the last thirty years would have been radically improved if we’d had a different way of organizing our enterprises – with a more cooperative community-focused method that is democratic at its core.”

Growing the worker cooperative approach has the potential to positively affect the economy, our democracy, and the quality of working peoples’ lives. It is not a stretch to say that the benefits of the democratic workplace may even aid and influence the essential repair of our battered civic landscape – it could change, in effect, the chemistry of our culture. If you spend your days working in an environment of collaboration, mutual respect, and shared power, it is bound to spill over into other parts of your life – better parenting, more civic engagement, kinder relationships.

The value and benefits of employee ownership continue to fly under the radar, and you can’t take this important step without knowing the option exists. So perhaps the greatest need is extensive education and publicity – the stories of employee ownership successes need to be shared and celebrated. Employee ownership “ambassadors” should be funded to visit companies who are considering transitions – to teach, train, advise, and inspire. Widespread technical assistance should be made available. Employee ownership should be the number one business succession planning option.

But it’s not. I hope this committee will build on the good work it has begun and I am grateful for the opportunity to make this request.

After our testimonies, the representatives asked questions. Good questions. Engaged questions. It felt worthwhile.

Government can work. We know that; we can remember when it did. My experience in Washington amped up my resolve to work hard this year to elect a real president, help democrats take back the Senate, and increase the number of voices involved in decision making. There’s never been a moment when it mattered more. Not in my lifetime.

As for South Mountain’s commitment to employee ownership: we make our Operating Policies, Bylaws and Employee Ownership Toolkit available online and are always happy to help other companies find their way. If you have questions, feel free to contact me at jabrams@southmountain.com – but please read our Toolkit first. It may answer some of your questions. Or it may answer some and provoke others.

Entering the Neutral Zone

By John Abrams |

On November 19th, at our annual Day of Business, we unveiled the Transition Plan that will lead us to the next iteration of South Mountain. It was a threshold moment, a new hinge point in our 45 year history.

Are you ready? (This may take some time to tell.)

Over the next three years, our company will gradually transition from first to second generation leadership. At the end of that time, I, as founder, CEO, and president, will retire and continue to work very part time for several years. Deirdre Bohan will become CEO and president, and will work in a “first-among-equals” arrangement with the four other members of our strong, capable, dedicated, and well-aligned Leadership Team (comprised of Ryan Bushey, Rob Meyers, Siobhán Mullin and Newell Isbell Shinn). We are tremendously excited, and very confident, that this Transition, which we have been planning for many years, will assure the long term success of the company. It will allow us to continue to serve our clients and our community in the way that we always have.


LEADERSHIP
To thrive, prosper, serve, and endure, an organization needs effective leadership. So does a family. So does a country. Leadership is both a skill and an orientation. Everyone has some leadership skill, just as everyone has some athletic skill and some musical skill, and some of every other kind of skill. Even those who claim no musical skill can still sing a song to their child at bedtime. In the same way, everyone has leadership skill. Some have more of it than others, just as some are better athletes and better musicians. Some people have an orientation toward leadership; they think about it and practice it. Some work hard to learn it and cultivate it. Some have natural leadership ability. Most good leaders combine all three.

As the leader and CEO of this company, I have, over time, had the great good fortune to gather a group of stellar leaders here at SMCo (and people with other essential skills, too – those who can design, and build, and craft, and engineer, and practice finance, and administer, and manage). This has been intentional. In my own career, I have learned to do all of those things, but in most cases, only well enough to recognize and attract people who can do them better than I. That’s what our company consists of – people with 38 unique skill sets and orientations that comprise the whole. We couldn’t possibly flourish without each of them.

Few of my colleagues arrived here as skilled leaders. Our current leaders – Deirdre (our COO) and Ryan, Rob, Siobhán and Newell (our four department directors) had some innate leadership skills that they brought with them, but more importantly, they had a leadership orientation, and they developed those skills here at SMCo. There are other people here besides these five who have a strong leadership orientation and will develop those skills further over time.


BUSINESS TRANSITIONS
According to the Small Business Administration, there are approximately 30 million small businesses in the U.S. Many of them were founded by baby boomers who are aging out. Some will be passed down within families, but fewer than in the past. Most businesses will close their doors with the retirement of the Founder. Many others – those with value – will be sold to a new owner or absorbed by larger companies. None of those things was ever my intention or the intention of any of the other SMCo owners, past and present.

A smaller (but growing) number will be sold to their employees and become worker co-ops or ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans). South Mountain was sold to its employees and became a worker co-op in 1987. Having already made this conversion, we now have the luxury of foregoing the arduous and complex process of figuring out the transfer of ownership, and can direct full attention to capacity building.

Planning for our Transition began six years ago, in 2013. In June of the following year the full SMCo Board (all 19 owners) approved and adopted, by consensus, our first “Avalanche Scenario” (what happens tomorrow if I am buried by an avalanche today) and our “Next 40” projection (what the company will look like/who will lead it in 40 years time).

Despite all of this preparation, I struggled for some time to fully visualize leaving this company. In January of 2019, all that changed. I saw our leadership group taking the bull by the horns and making amazing progress. It was time to give shape and definition to our future.

In Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, , William Bridges writes:

Change is situational: the move to a new site, the retirement of the founder, the reorganization of the roles on the team, the revisions to the pension plan. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological; it is a three-phase process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the details of the new situation that the change brings about.

Managing transition involves helping ourselves through three phases:


  1. Letting go of the old ways and old identity people had. This first phase of transition is an ending, and the time when you need to help people to deal with [the loss].

  2. Going through an in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational. We call this time the “neutral zone”: it’s when the critical psychological realignments and repatternings take place.

  3. Coming out of the transition and making a new beginning. This is when people develop the new identity, experience the new energy, and discover the new sense of purpose that makes the change begin to work.”

We are just completing phase one.


THE PLAN
After my realization, I assembled a plan and brought it to the Leadership Team. Understanding it requires some background.

It’s important to know that we had never considered, in any meaningful way, hiring a new CEO
from outside. We were encouraged by the King Arthur Flour model of a small leadership group – three in their case– becoming co-CEOs. At the time, our discussions with them led us to believe this was the right model for us.

But after further consideration, it didn’t make sense to have five co-CEOs (too unwieldy and confusing) and there weren’t two or three individuals that outshined the others. The five have great complementary skills and personalities, and are uniquely well-aligned. Four of them are department directors and Deirdre’s job has been co-managing the company with me – her job has been like a co-CEO for a number of years. The answer was clear: Deirdre should be the CEO, but in a first-among-equals arrangement with the Leadership Team.

I proposed this at a meeting. I expected some pushback or resentment from those who might have expected to be one of the co-CEOs. There was none. Everyone recognized the impracticality of five people sharing CEO responsibilities and the need for the company and community to have someone that is ultimately responsible for South Mountain Company – a face for the company and a place for the buck to stop. It was as clear to them as to me that Deirdre was the right choice. Since joining our team in 1995, at the age of 28, she has moved from bookkeeper to interior designer to COO to co-manager, developing into a confident, dedicated, skillful, compassionate leader and friend. She never aspired to this position; in fact, for years she did not think herself suitable. Now she knows that, with the support of the others, she is.

Deirdre will not absorb all of my responsibilities; rather she will continue her COO work while adding some new responsibilities. For several years now, we have been working to distribute some of the particular skills and experience I have accumulated to other members of the Team. We meet regularly to develop the details and work on implementation. Each Team member has completed a personal capability analysis and statement – outlining what they could provide and what they need to learn. We continue to work on these together.

For example, one of the key areas of need is in “sales” – the complex process of cultivating in prospective clients a deep understanding of who we are and what we do that leads them to believe we are the perfect fit for them. I had always done that alone.

These days, Ryan accompanies me to nearly every initial meeting and is growing into this role in leaps and bounds. Newell has been having more and more client contact and is starting to have a much larger role in the interface between design and construction. We are finding that both are particularly well-suited to these roles.

As we develop these capabilities, and many others, we think we are also developing the confidence, optimism, and vision which will lead to a prosperous shared future.

From this work, a plan has emerged.

The design of this plan becomes a model for future transitions which will come far sooner than this one has. As a seasoned company, we will never again have a 25 year old leader who remains in the role for nearly half a century. Deirdre will be taking the reins at the age of 55 and anticipates inhabiting the role for 10 or 15 years, at which time we will have developed a new Leadership Team and a robust system of transition for the next time around. Hopefully the CEO to replace Deirdre is with us today.

This transition is a work-in-progress. During the three years from now until the transition, we will conduct further capacity-building, flesh out the details, and test ideas and methods.

For those of us who have been working on it, this endeavor has become a great adventure. Ultimately, I think it will become that for all of us. I personally have one goal, and one goal only: to leave this company, this company I deeply love, in the best shape it’s ever been, ready to go forward as it never has. And to leave the people in this company, who I deeply love as well, in a position to succeed.

In a way it’s like watching a mostly grown child venture out into the world. But vastly different too: the child is young, adolescent, unformed – there’s very little certainty about how things will go. But this “child”, this company, is led by mature, capable, empathetic, passionate, dedicated people. It’s hard to imagine anything but success.

After the Day of Business, in response to a request for feedback, one of our employees, Chris Wike, wrote, “I am grateful to have come to this company when I did, to get a taste of what is was, but I am truly excited to be a part of what it will become.”

I think we are all feeling that way. We will move forward toward this new beginning together.

Jabberwocky: There’s Nothing Else Like It

By John Abrams |

Camp Jabberwocky is a magical place where dreams come true and nothing is impossible. It’s been that way for 65 years.

The first page of Clark Hanjian’s Jabberwocky: A Brief History of The Martha’s Vineyard Cerebral Palsy Camp begins with: “On a small island in the North Atlantic, off the southern shore of Massachusetts, there is a place where hope flourishes. The place is Camp Jabberwocky – a small summer camp for the disabled…”

On September 5th the last campers of the summer left Camp Jabberwocky. Two days later, we began a major overhaul of the main building, known as the Mess Hall, and other parts of the facility. The 14-acre campus, with 17 buildings, which usually falls silent at the end of the summer, is chock full of activity and change. In mid-May, just before the campers return, this transformation will be complete and Jabberwocky will be, we hope, just a bit more magical than ever before.

Last week, as Jabberwocky executive director Liza Gallagher sat with SMCo architects Matt Coffey and Beth Kostman reviewing the proposed furnishings and color schemes for the new space, she told us that the day before, as a session ended and campers departed, there were many tears and some wailing. Some of these campers have been here every season for 30 years.

This is where, as Clark says:
Disabled folks are at the center of a community rather than at the periphery.

The camp started [in the early 50’s] as a small experiment: a handful of children with cerebral palsy, a tiny summer cottage, a director, and a young assistant. From there, the camp has grown to a…volunteer staff of well over forty people [and several paid]. It now serves about one hundred disabled children and adults every summer.

Jabberwocky is a community. It has families and extended families, and grandparents, and children. It has births and deaths and marriages. It has oral history, traditions, myths, and legends. It has people with a full range of abilities, skills, and interests. And these people work, play, eat, and create together. They argue and dance together. They write and cry together. And like people in other communities, they are here year after year. A few come and go each season, but the majority are here living together every summer.

For most of the year, disabled people are in the minority. They are stared at, singled out for special treatment, and generally viewed as outside the mainstream of normal life. For a couple of months each year, the camp provides a break from this routine. At Jabberwocky, people with disabilities form the majority of the community. Their experience becomes the dominant experience. Their needs become the priority needs. Their concerns become common concerns. In these wondrous times the whole community becomes as family.

It is a record of experiments and risks. A portrait of cooperation. Jabberwocky is a tale of bountiful harvest from a few scattered seeds. It is an epic of generosity and thanksgiving. Stories like this are crucial to the existence of humanity. They remind us of what great things are possible in our limited days. And so, we need to keep telling them.

This summer we had the great good fortune to be a part of a new Jabberwocky program. The old red bus rolled into our yard on four occasions with a group of campers who came to do woodworking in our shop. “The campers were positive, upbeat, and hilarious,“ says Jim Vercruysse, our shop project lead. “My favorite time was at the end of each class when we would take a group photo holding up our finished projects and call out ‘JABBERWOCKY!’ It felt great to be part of such an enthusiastic and cheerful bunch.”

At the end of the summer of 1966 a counselor named Linda Yenkin wrote in the Vineyard Gazette:
We are all tired now, but when the children are gone and the camp is quiet, when there is no more Skipper wandering off and calling everyone he meets a pigeon, and when there is no more Kevin yelling in the Mad Hatter’s ear in the very early morning, “Move over, my bed’s broke,” when we no longer hear any more off-key singing in the condemned looking red bus, when all this is gone, then we will miss it all very much, and only then will we realize that we have to wait an entire year for the magic to begin again. But the magic never wears off.

There is, I’m certain, nothing in the world quite like Camp Jabberwocky. And now it will change. Some of the campers said good-bye to the old mess hall and “thanked it for the memories,” said Liza.

The project is part of a fundamental shift in our company’s work or, rather, an expansion of the breadth of our endeavors. Our high-end residential projects, affordable housing work, performance engineering, and solar design/installations continue, but another arena has become central: institutional work for non-profit organizations. At the same time as we have been completing the Jabberwocky plans, we have begun planning for a new campus for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (our umbrella social service agency which serves 6,000 Islanders each year), and an expansion of the Island Grown Initiative’s Farm Hub.

Our previous experience with institutional work has been limited to master planning efforts, so this is new for us. Each of these projects requires significant learning. But that’s nothing new – we always seem to be doing something different that we must learn how to do before we do it. Exciting stuff. Keeps the blood pumping and the synapses firing. As long as the inevitable mistakes are minor, all’s well.

I can’t adequately describe the thrill of working with this organization and watching this project slowly find its form and round into shape. There are times in life when you know that you are doing what ought to be done, that the work that you are doing is bringing fundamental positive change to a place or an organization or a community. Those are particularly rewarding times.

In service to that notion, some of our recent strategic planning work has focused on committing ourselves to finding ways to engage in as much of this impact-driven work as possible. Now those opportunities are rolling in. Apparently, saying dreams out loud is the first step toward realization. Simple as that.

We’re off on an inspiring, soul-stirring ride at Jabberwocky!