South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

Dear Reader,
This blog is now an archive. John Abrams (Founder of South Mountain, author of this blog, and a book of the same name) retired on December 31, 2022. All posts published up until this date are preserved below.

For updates on John's next chapter, visit abramsangell.com.

For updates on South Mountain's second act, subscribe to our newsletter using the form below.

Long Term Thinking

Transition Fruition

by 8 Comments


On January 1st, in just a few short weeks, I will no longer be a South Mountain owner or employee.

Deirdre Bohan, our current COO, will step into the CEO role. She will be supported by a crackerjack leadership team consisting of our four department directors – Ryan Bushey (Architecture & Engineering), Newell Isbell Shinn (Production), Siobhán Mullin (Finance & Administration), and Rob Meyers (Energy Technology). This remarkably well-aligned team represents nearly 100 years of collective South Mountain service. I will become Founder and President Emeritus and, for the next two years, continue to serve on the Board of Directors and work eight hours a week as a consultant. (In my next blog post – in January – I will share more about my Next Chapter).

Beginning in 2014 with our first Avalanche Scenario (what happens tomorrow if I’m buried by an avalanche today), we began to consider the company beyond my tenure. In 2019 we completed the design and details of our next-generation structure. We gave ourselves three years – to this moment – to build the necessary capacities and prepare ourselves for the transition. Our leadership team has worked relentlessly. The work is all but complete – at this point, we are just polishing the mirror of a promising ascendance.

South Mountain is a new company. It’s not the company I birthed and built by the seat of my worn and faded Levis; it’s the company new leadership is guiding to uncharted terrain, using tools, methods, and information barely imaginable a decade or two ago. This I know: due to the people in place and the nature of the work ahead, I leave with the company in its best condition ever. After 50 years, that’s as clear to me as a full moon in a cloudless sky.

I am deeply optimistic about the future of this company under new leadership. Not hopeful. Optimistic. They’re different. Optimism is based on sufficient evidence to convince us that things will get better and better, whereas Hope is not the conviction that an endeavor will turn out well but the certainty that it makes sense, no matter the outcome. In this case, optimism is appropriate.

To thrive, prosper, serve, and endure, an organization needs effective leadership. Leadership – a process of social influence that maximizes the efforts of others toward the achievement of goals – is both a skill and an art. Everyone has some leadership ability, just as everyone has some athletic ability, some musical ability, and some of every other kind of ability. Even if you say you have no musical skills at all, you can still sing a song to your child at bedtime. It’s the same with leadership. Some have more leadership skills 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, while some are natural leaders. Most good leaders have aspects of each. John Quincy Adams said that “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” This is what I see in our Leadership Team.

The group of people hired to succeed those who have retired or left in recent years includes a solid component of third-generation leadership as well, which we have consciously built because it will be needed sooner than later. When I founded the company, I was 23. When Deirdre becomes CEO, she will be 55. Will she stay another ten years? Highly likely no more than 15. Future leadership transitions will happen more frequently. I am excited to see, among our 38 employees, significant third-generation leadership potential thriving in the present.

In 1987, when the company was 14 years old, we made our first great transition: becoming a worker co-op. A path to ownership was established for all employees. That was an uncertain experiment. No longer. With adjustments along the way, the structure has served well; this new transition proves the point. Our 18 current owners and the leadership team they have chosen will carry the torch forward.

Photo by Randi Baird

From the people of this company and its new leadership, I have learned more than I’ve taught and gained more than I’ve given. Now my long-time buck-stops- here responsibilities, oversight of the business, and role as the face of the company have been successfully distributed.

I am certain that our clients, our employees, and co-owners, and the various communities we serve are in the best of hands. The future of South Mountain Company has fully arrived. It could not possibly be brighter.

I hope my colleagues will cherish what it is as they make it what it will be, and I hope the journey ahead will be filled with delight, compassion, courage, equity, love, and most of all modesty and humility, the true foundations of all virtues.

Max DePree, the founder of Herman Miller, says in his book Leadership is an Art, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” My last act as leader of this company is to say Thank You – to everyone in the company and everyone who reads this. Without You, I would not have been able to be Me, and this company would not be what it is.

South Mountain’s New Path To Ownership

by 2 Comments

On a rainy September day, 18 South Mountain (SMCo) non-owner employees gathered in our meeting room. After two years of collaborative design, our Communications Coordinator, Abbie Zell, stood in front to unveil our new Path to Ownership program.

It includes 33 experiences designed to give new employees, over a seven-year timespan, a complete picture of what South Mountain is, how it works, and how to be an effective owner. The purpose is two-fold: to develop active and engaged SMCo Owners and to strengthen relationships within the company.

SMCo transitioned from a sole proprietorship to a worker co-op in 1987. There are currently 21 co-owners. In the worker co-op realm, we are known to have one of the longest waiting periods before Ownership eligibility: five years from the start of employment. What happens during those five years has just changed dramatically. Not in terms of training and work progress – SMCo has always had a robust employee evaluation system and some degree of Ownership preparation. It’s the experience leading to Ownership that has changed with this launch. Our newest employee, Jake Martin, said that it made him feel that he had joined an organization that doesn’t perceive him as a worker but rather as a member of a community. Mia Esparini, hired in 2019, said, “I love it; I’m so excited to see it unfold over time.”



ORIGIN

Abbie tells about the source of the idea:

“In 2019, Deirdre and Siobhán attended a four-part webinar on Open Book Management hosted by The Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI). During one of the segments, Jen Briggs (formerly of New Belgium Brewing) presented the social system New Belgium uses to support Open Book Management and promote greater governance participation.

At the time, we had just made three second-generation hires. We could envision all of them as future Owners and knew there was more recruitment ahead. The size of that ‘incoming class’ posed a significant opportunity to improve upon an important process.”

Deirdre elaborates,

“Becoming an Owner has historically happened mostly by osmosis; by the time you had been at SMCo for five years, you were assumed to know what you needed to know. We wanted to encourage more active preparation, particularly during the two years before Ownership, hoping that would develop more engaged owners.”



DEVELOPMENT

Deirdre remembers,

“We charted a seven-year progression (five before Ownership, plus two after). We thought specifically about leadership development – how to cultivate a culture of taking responsibility for the company every day, in every way, no matter your role.”

Abbie continues,

“Ready to take this further, we formed a working group (Deirdre, Siobhán, myself, and John) and started brainstorming:

    • the essential experiences which would foster an appreciation for South Mountain’s culture

    • The technical knowledge required to be an informed owner and good decision-maker

    • The opportunities we’d like to provide new employees during their early years

I had become an Owner less than one year before this. By contrast, Deirdre, John, and Siobhán had lengthy tenures. We each brought something different to the table, and after a couple of months, we had a comprehensive list and cohesive concept to present to SMCo’s Leadership Team and then to our graphic designer (Magnifico Design).”



CONCEPT & ACTIVITIES

Abbie explains,

“We chose Path as the central metaphor because it has a clear beginning, can meander, has progress markers along the way, a guide when necessary, and a reward at the end.

The Trail Map (click here to view in full) is a physical manifestation of the Path. It is the size and style of a national park passport and works along the same lines. Each new employee will get one; when they complete an experience, it will be initialed by their instructor. Everyone will work through the booklet left to right until there are no experience left. . . at which point, they’ll be a seasoned South Mountain Owner!

Experiences are dispersed among six levels: Basecamp, Setting Out, Exploring, Practicing, Achieving, and Mastering. Approximately half the experiences will be undertaken alone; the others will happen in groups.

The full program involves 34 hours spread over seven years. Fifteen current owners will guide participants through their areas of expertise, and I will oversee the program and act as liaison between participants and guides.

We’ve folded Path to Ownership into our onboarding process, so those hired from now on will start the Path on their first day of work.”

As Abbie distributed the 4×5” “Trail Maps” and explained their significance, there was palpable excitement in the room. Abbie’s joyous presentation style provokes that, but the concept and content speak for themselves. One new employee, Nic Esposito, said, “it was so great to gather and be exposed to that so early in my tenure. I love the passports – classy and tangible – that we will use to chart our course.”

This is a remarkable new initiative. Over time, I predict, it will alter the culture of the company – making the experience of being an employee (and an employee-owner) richer and more complete. It will build trust, encourage cross-pollination, and spread knowledge across our four departments. It will prepare developing leaders and new owners for the future in an intentional way.

It’s clearly going to be a lot of fun too. It makes me wish that instead of retiring at the end of the year, I was a new employee just being hired! (“We’ve got this new guy applying for the open carpentry job. He’s 73. Should be a perfect fit!”).

Two Stories About David McCullough

by 1 Comment

Photo by Steve Senne of the Associated Press

As you know, David McCullough died last week – an immense loss for the Vineyard and our world. I want to tell two stories about the consummate storyteller himself.

During the last days of January 2000, South Mountain Company’s 25 employees, along with several friends and planning experts, spent two days thinking about the future of the Vineyard. Our goals were several:

  • to sketch the outline of a future we would like to see;
  • to decide what commitments we, as a company, were willing to make to achieve such a future; and
  • to share our findings with the Vineyard community in ways that might inspire similar inquiries, create dialogue, and lead to action.

We called the session “Future Sketch,” and invited a few people from outside the company to broaden our perspectives. We invited David to open the meeting. He agreed and addressed the group early on a Friday morning.

He spoke about the Chagres River, which was the major obstacle to the building of the Panama Canal, but which was eventually used in a simple but ingenious way to become a part of the overall engineering solution. He related this to the “river of money” pouring into the Vineyard which, he said, was “undoing a way of life.” He expressed two ideas that became central to our discussions:

  • We must re-direct the river of money (that causes such harm) to restoration of community; and
  • Our future is a design issue – it should be the result of intent rather than circumstance.

In the same way that he set the tone for the first Islanders Write event in 2014, and those that would follow, David’s presence set the tone for our retreat.

A few years later, when the Island Affordable Housing Fund was leading the first significant effort to address the Vineyard’s affordable housing needs, we invited David to speak at a fundraising party. His assignment: to convince the Vineyard’s seasonal community to embrace an idea that was novel at the time – that they should be responsible for funding affordable housing efforts.

On a clear summer night, the well-heeled crowd gathered on an expansive lawn overlooking the Edgartown harbor. David took the microphone. He spoke again about the Panama Canal and the Chargres River and “The River of Money” and how we must use it to improve, solve, and resolve problems. This is, in part, what he said:

“We’re failing here on Martha’s Vineyard. We’re failing in a more serious way than we know. What we came here for, what we love about the place is eroding before our very eyes. The essence of civilization is continuity, and continuity must exist for everybody.

It ought to become socially unacceptable among people of affluence on this island not to take part in helping to solve these problems. We ought to be saying to everyone, to ourselves, if you want to be here, you want to be a citizen here, you want to own a home here, you want to take part in the community here, open up your wallet and pay your part proportionately.

Because if the people who need to live here, year-round, who do the work, who make it work, can’t live here, it’s all going to collapse. Simple as that. And this isn’t charity. Let’s forget that. This isn’t charity. This is reality. This is being members of a great community. And it’s emblematic of the oldest, simplest truth in the world: if you want to be happy, do everything you can to make other people happy.”

There was a dramatic silence when he finished as people absorbed his message. Then the audience began to clap and cheer. The people who were clapping and cheering had just been admonished by the famous author and biographer. Many of them went on to become strong supporters of affordable housing; some of them still are today, even as the crisis he addressed 20 years ago is more pronounced than ever before.

Those are my McCullough stories. I’m sure many others have their own, which will re-surface as people share their memories of this influential but modest man. He was soft-spoken and un-assuming, but his message was always powerful.

Innovation, Strategic Planning & Starting With Why

by Leave a Comment


Last week, all 41 members of our company gathered in the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse for a “Day of Business”. The purpose was to review and adjust our Mission and our Guiding Principles , and to engage in a strategic planning exercise to envision the next five years for our company. As partial preparation for this and the department-level visioning that proceeded it, Deirdre asked me to share some perspective on Innovation. The following is an edited version of a memo I wrote to the company.

—

I don’t think of innovation as being in any way separate from daily work, meaning it’s not some special kind of work – it’s just what we do. Incremental innovation (small improvement to existing services) is happening every day at South Mountain. Every time we improve a system, an approach, a design, a use of technology – we’re innovating.

There are three other types of innovation often recognized by innovation thinkers. These past few years at SMCo have been chock full of each, big and small. The types, and just one example from recent times:

Sustaining innovation (significant improvement to existing services)
Example: The recent overhaul of our Management and Governance System . This will significantly expand internal participation, transparency, and engagement across the company.

Radical innovation (creating new markets)
Example: Establishing and building our Energy Technology business, which took solar from something we employed on our own projects to something we offered to residential, institutional, and commercial customers island-wide, including working people who we do not often serve with our design/build services.

Disruptive innovation (creating new products)
Example: Expanding our services to creating high performance buildings and campuses for island non-profits like Camp Jabberwocky, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, and Island Grown Farm – a whole new kind of work for us with significant learning and community engagement rewards.

Innovation is harder than maintaining the status quo and is often accompanied by a healthy feeling of discomfort. Luckily, the drive to push through is baked into SMCo DNA. It’s a constant gravitational pull – a non-innovative SMCo would be unrecognizable to each of us.

It began that way. When I say (probably too often) that “we never know what we’re doing, never have,” it’s because innovation was the foundation of this company, and it still is. We’re always in the process of learning how to do what we’re doing.

We are also constantly building incrementally on the innovations of others, adding our innovations to theirs. We are forever prospecting our various networks and colleagues for innovative practices that we can employ and enhance.

My two favorite books about innovation are Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, by Carmine Gallo (a deeper, more comprehensive treatment of the same subject is Walter Isaakson’s book Steve Jobs) and Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard.

Jobs’ “Seven Secrets of Innovation” are:
1. Do What You Love. Think differently about your career.
2. Put a Dent in the Universe. Think differently about your vision.
3. Kick Start Your Brain. Think differently about how you think.
4. Sell Dreams, Not Products. Think differently about your customers.
5. Say No to 1,000 Things. Think differently about design.
6. Create Insanely Good Experiences. Think differently about your brand experience.
7. Master The Message. Think differently about your story.

Chouinard’s book does not position itself as a book about Innovation, but it emphatically is. A quote:

“While values should never change, every organization, business, government, or religion must be adaptive and resilient and constantly embrace new ideas and methods of operation.”

In the case of both Apple and Patagonia, Jobs’ first two “secrets” – Do What You Love and Put a Dent in the Universe – tower above the rest: be sure to work where your passion lies and be sure your work makes a difference. If you do just those two, you are bound to innovate. (How could you not if you’re in a position to make a difference about that which you love and care about?)

But what does innovation have to do with the strategic planning exercise we are about to engage in? The primary points of intersection, I think, are in visioning the future and setting goals to reach that future. Identifying the innovations that might make a difference. Creating goals that look ahead and that, if they manifest, will allow us to look back from an entirely new place.

Making an overall vision from which the goals derive may be more about another “I” word: Imagination. We must imagine a different future to create a platform on which to innovate. Visioning helps us to arrive at the place we imagined. John Lennon’s song “Imagine” is one of the most treasured and visionary songs ever. If we can imagine what we want, we can get there. Little things but big things too. Climb the 14ers out west (get to the top). Hike the Appalachian Trail (get to the end). Transition to SMCo Next Generation (get to the new beginning).

Our job is to imagine and define the visions that are the stage-set for our innovation goals.

Innovation is a survival mechanism too. Someone once said, “Either we become good at planting in the spring, or we learn how to beg in the fall.” Planting in the spring must be a hallmark of our practice.

Simon Sinek, in the book Start With Why, says that there are three parts to attracting people to your product or service and to inspiring team members to innovate: the What (what you do), the How (how you do it) and the Why (why you do it). The most successful companies, he maintains, are those that lead with – and consistently emphasize – the Why.

From its humble garage workshop beginnings to its extraordinary position in commerce today, Apple has always led with the Why:

“Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently.” Front and center, always, is their purpose. Only after that comes How: “The way we challenge the status quo is making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly.”The What is really just an afterthought: “By the way, we happen to make great computers.”

Most companies and organizations start with What, then get to How, and only later (if at all) get to Why. This is a fundamental oversight.

The best possible way for us to inspire innovation throughout our company is to focus our primary attention on Why. Why are we doing these things? When we nail the Why, we can begin to create pathways through which new capacities and new value can flow.

Innovation comes in all forms. Once we were beginning a new house on the site of a decrepit old one that the clients wanted torn down. We decided that one part, the oldest, was in fine condition and convinced our clients to let us move it and make it into a garage with a studio above. We built a slab-on-grade foundation to move it to. Now, when you move a house, you generally place steel beams under it, lift it, set it over a foundation, cut holes in the foundation for the beams, set it down, pull the beams, and patch the holes. In this case, with a slab on grade, was no place for the beams to go, no slots for them to lower into. The building could be placed over the foundation, but how would it be lowered in a way that would allow the beams to be pulled?

Our crew asked the mover, Mike Reid. He said, “come back Thursday morning and I’ll show you.” Our crew arrived, Mike and his helpers pulled in, and they started to unload blocks of ice from the back of the truck. They set the blocks of ice, which were taller than the steel beams, on the foundation, lowered the building onto the ice, pulled out the steel beams, said “You guys are all set here” and drove off. Twelve hours later the ice had melted and the building was sitting, fair and square, on the foundation.

Innovation, pure and simple. . .on ice!

—

Note: I first saw Jon Foreman’s extraordinary land art, used as illustration here, on Mitch Anthony’s amazing blog Love and Work, which is one of the few blogs that I read, religiously, top to bottom, week after week on Friday afternoons. Highly recommend!

On Building Second Homes

by 5 Comments

This piece was written for and published in Fine Homebuilding. Thanks to Kevin Ireton (former FH editor) for the idea and his stellar editing. As always, he held my feet to the fire.

“How can you justify devoting so much time and energy to building vacation homes for rich people?”

It’s a good question,and one that I’ve heard often during my nearly 50 years on Martha’s Vineyard. In resort communities, many don’t have a first home. They’re scrambling to find stable housing while more than half the houses sit empty much of the year. That’s a problem. And in light of our climate crisis, the significant materials and energy dedicated to building and operating those houses compounds the problem.

When I came here in the 1970s, designing and building homes was so thrilling that I was content to build anything that developed new skills and knowledge. Working with head and hands gave me great pleasure; the idea that people would pay me to do it felt like a bonus. After a few years, however, the joy of the work and the satisfaction of the results were no longer enough. By then second homes had become a staple of our company, South Mountain, and my colleagues and I began to ask ourselves how we could justify this work.

The answer came in 1980. It began with a phone call from a woman named Madeline, who asked if I would look at a piece of land with her. She was a 60-year-old librarian whose husband had recently died. They had no children, and they had always lived in rented apartments. Her dream was to own property. She had $7,000 in cash. A realtor showed her a lot priced at exactly that, but her friends advised against buying it due to its topography and location.

The steeply sloping parcel was adjacent to the main road from Vineyard Haven to Edgartown. Traffic on the road was noisy and constant. The property faced due south toward a beautiful little valley. Except for the proximity to the road, it was lovely. I suggested an earth-bermed, partially underground house and told her we could design the noise of traffic right out of the picture. She was excited. She bought it.

At about the same time, I was approached by a single mother who owned property in West Tisbury and wondered whether we could build a house she could afford. Her budget was too small, but we had heard that the Farmer’s Home Administration was providing 1% loans to those with low and moderate income. We hoped to bundle a nice passive-solar house for Cathy and the earth-bermed house for Madeline, though the Farmer’s Home fixed-expenditure cap did not take into account either the Vineyard’s high construction costs or the long-term energy savings our houses would realize. We applied anyway.

We created plans for simple, compact houses and submitted them to Farmer’s Home with a request that they raise the mortgage limit (from $40,000 to $48,000) on each house due to the energy savings, which we analyzed and documented. After some bureaucratic wrangling, the increase was approved. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to build the houses, unless we cut our overhead and profit to nothing and reduced our labor rates to below cost. Additional subsidies were needed.

Enter David and Pat Squire, who had purchased land in Edgartown and designed a second home with a Boston architect. They asked if we would be interested in bidding on the construction, and I told them that South Mountain built only those projects that we designed and that we didn’t bid on construction projects. They persisted, and a radical thought occurred to me: What if we gave the Squires a bid that had an explicit “premium” built in to subsidize the two Farmer’s Home houses? I shared the idea with the Squires, and they invited us to submit such a bid.

Our bid, one of three, was roughly $40,000 more than the next highest. They chose us nonetheless, and we built their house. We also built the two small houses for Madeline and Cathy by making up the shortfall with our extra earnings from the Squire project. Dreams came true, and mortgage payments were under $200. The Squires’ philosophical alignment with our purpose led them to become strong supporters of affordable-housing efforts on the Vineyard. Years later, when the Island Affordable Housing Fund was established to raise money for affordable housing, David became an important board member.

That was the first and only time that South Mountain inflated the cost of a project to support affordable housing efforts, but the experience inspired an idea that shaped the future of our company. If we could become a reasonably profitable enterprise, we could devote a portion of our earnings to affordable housing work for our community, and we could engage our wealthy clients in the issue.

At that point, the work of building second homes became meaningful. From then on, I often told new clients that they could count on me to ask them, in the future, to help with the Vineyard’s affordable housing problem (which they exacerbate, of course). I have done that now for 40 years, and the response has been heartwarming millions of dollars donated for attainable year-round housing.

Building second homes also allowed us to experiment and take risks. One of these occurred in 1987 when, in response to a request from two long-time employees for a greater stake, I sold South Mountain to my employees (and myself). We became a worker-owned cooperative and began to introduce new values to our business activities. For example, we committed to the creation of lifelong living-wage jobs and family-first policies, such as flexible work arrangements and stellar benefits. We began to codify our commitment to our community by donating to essential nonprofits and engaging in pro-bono work. We became a triple bottom line company long before we’d ever heard the term, measuring our success not just by our profits but also by effects on people and the planet.

Our journey since then has been influenced by many others, but particularly by Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company that has become the gold standard for corporate social and environmental responsibility. Just like our second homes, many of Patagonia’s products are nonessential. Not everyone needs a pair of $300 ski pants or a lifetime wetsuit. So the company balances that reality with its social and environmental contributions, its political advocacy, and its important innovations, such as pioneering the use of organic and recycled cotton, and buying back old garments to refurbish and resell for far less than new ones.

Inspiration from Patagonia and others, combined with our own cantankerous sense of justice, has helped South Mountain become at once a profitable business, an active agent of community change, and a supporter of the local economy that supports us.

Today our second-home work is unusual in several ways. First, we restrict the size of the houses we are willing to build. Only on rare occasions, on very large parcels, have we designed and built houses over 3500 sq. ft.

We also use our second-home work for de-facto research to advance the building industry, especially with regards to energy performance, comfort, health, and durability. By experimenting with the homes of our well-to-do clients, we’ve learned a lot about high-performance building. As a result, we set minimum performance standards for our buildings that are well above code. Now we mostly produce net-zero-possible buildings. We use reclaimed materials extensively and are beginning to reduce embodied carbon (a work in progress with net-zero carbon as the ultimate goal).

By elevating performance standards, we make models that others can emulate and that we can incorporate in our affordable housing work. For us, truly affordable housing differs from luxury housing in only three ways: it’s smaller, it’s less detailed, and it’s differently financed. The performance and quality are uncompromised.

Perhaps the biggest step we have taken with our second-home work is doing less of it. Over time, we diversified South Mountain’s work into five parts; here’s a rough breakdown over the past year in terms of dollars per category:
• Limited-use second homes: 10%
• Year-round, fully occupied homes: 20%
• Attainable workforce housing: 10%
• Institutional work for nonprofits: 35%
• Solar for homes and businesses not built by us: 25%

This is only one year, and it happens to be a year with an uncharacteristically small amount of second-home work, but it indicates a direction: less harm, more good. Causing no harm is impossible — we are part of the problem too — but we share our experiences and hope others will join our push to turn some of the negative impacts of building into positive benefits for communities and the environment.

An added benefit of our business practices is that the second-home clients we attract tend to share our values. We love working with them. They go from being clients to becoming partners in our efforts to make the Vineyard a better place. Many have become friends for life. The rewards of this work and these relationships have become deeply ingrained in our core purpose.

A Joyous Building

by 5 Comments

When a pack of wide-eyed youngsters cut the ribbons for the Island’s new Early Education and Care Center (EECC) earlier this month, it was a crowning moment – for both Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS) and South Mountain. It concluded five years of intensive planning, design, permitting and construction. (Technically it was far longer – MVCS first contacted us about renovating or replacing their outgrown, outmoded, and problematic buildings in 1999. But it wasn’t until 2017 that the organization was ready to create a long-term vision for a new campus and raise the funds to make it happen).

The new building is a tremendous improvement, but ultimately, it’s the program that the building houses that’s more important than the building itself. In a recent Vineyard Gazette article, Louisa Hufstader writes that “Nearly half of the Island’s children aged five and younger have no place to go for care and education while their parents are working.” The new EECC is the Vineyard’s largest early child care provider, with space for 65 kids plus a home-based Head Start program that accommodates another 40.

The scruffiest of the ribbon-cutting bunch – with his long unruly blonde hair – was my three-year old grandson Rockland. Among those behind him was Heather Quinn.

In the summer of 2008, my daughter Sophie was working at the Art Cliff Diner. Heather worked there too. At the time my wife Chris was the director of the Chilmark Preschool. Sophie learned that Heather had early childhood training and was a licensed preschool teacher. She told her mom about her new friend and said she should offer her a job. Chris did, and Heather took it.

In 2010 Chris was diagnosed with brain cancer and had surgery to remove it. One day during recovery at Mass General, Chris had a conference call with her teachers at the Chilmark Pre-School. She told them it was unlikely she’d be back for a long time (which turned out to be never). She said, “Heather, I want you to be the director. Laurisa, Talia, and Kathie – I want you to support Heather in every way that you can, and I know you will.” Both things happened.

A few years later Heather was hired to be the director of Early Childhood Programs at MVCS. Due to under-staffing, Heather has been teaching this year (as director, she usually doesn’t). Remarkably, the class that she teaches is Rock’s. Full circle. The woman mentored by Chris (the grandmother Rock never knew, because she died six months before he was born) is now Rock’s teacher. One of those multi-generational serendipitous stories that the Vineyard is full of, right?

Just a few years before Sophie met Heather at the Art Cliff, a young architect named Ryan Bushey came to work at South Mountain. Over time he became a company owner and today he is our Director of Architecture.

Ryan was the architect for the new EECC. But he was really the conductor of a comprehensive orchestra that always played in tune, due in large part to his attentiveness, creativity, collaborative spirit, leadership, and dedication. He deftly wove together:

  • MVCS staff (whose input was invaluable)
  • their highly effective building committee (led by board member Stephanie Mashek)
  • a collection of consultants (including Boston early childhood specialists Studio G)
  • a team of engineers who designed the structure and mechanical systems
  • town and regional regulatory officials
  • SMCo interior designer Beth Kostman
  • SMCo production staff led by Director of Production Newell Isbell-Shinn and Project Lead Rocco Bellebuono
  • our construction partner The Valle Group (based in Falmouth)
  • and a host of trade partners who did a stellar job.
Photo by Lynn Christophers for the MV Times

The process was tremendously complex but there was little strife. Despite the pandemic, it was completed on time and on budget. When students and staff transitioned from the old center to this new one, they went from a building that couldn’t have been much worse to a one that – I say immodestly, but with conviction – couldn’t be much better. The contrast is stark.

The new building epitomizes high performance in terms of energy, comfort, health, safety, and durability. The envelope is super-insulated. The mechanical systems are designed to provide highly efficient fossil-fuel-free ventilation, heat, and cooling (as designed, the ventilation system exceeded pandemic standards and required no updating). All finishes and furnishings are non-toxic. And with the addition of solar during the next phase, the building will likely produce more energy than it consumes.

The project also minimizes the negative impact on the Island ecology.  Stormwater is managed carefully with permeable pavement and rain gardens. Wastewater is treated with a denitrification system. The native plantings will thrive without irrigation. 

This is a building full of light. Nobody fails to notice this when they enter. Large windows and generous skylights flood every nook and cranny with daylight.

It’s a tranquil place. The teachers say their job is easier now than it was in the past – the thoughtful design, soothing colors, beautiful equipment, environmental comfort – all of these promote ease and well-being for staff and students alike. Parents even say it lifts their mood at drop-off and pick-up.

Donors can be proud that it’s economical too. Approximately 90% of the work was done by islanders, which rarely occurs with Vineyard public and institutional buildings. According to a benchmarking study conducted by CHA Companies, the owner’s representative for the project, this building cost the same or less than lower quality, less efficient off-island buildings of similar scale and use. Americans have become accustomed to mediocre buildings fashioned by a lowest-bidder, race-to-the-bottom mentality. There is no good reason for this. This building will cost little to maintain and operate, and it should serve our community well for 100 years or more.

Aside from all that, the building has another quality that results from Ryan and Beth’s design approach. Sometimes I pick Rock up after school and take him to the nearby skate park where he loves to ride his scooter with his friends. When he leaves the classroom, he always bounds up the cushion sculpture in the center of the atrium and jumps off the top. Joyously.

It’s a joyous building.


Coming Back Around

by 9 Comments

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 1 Comment

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 5 Comments

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 8 Comments

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 8 Comments

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 3 Comments

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!