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).

The Red Arrow Story

By John Abrams |

The Vineyard is full of narrow dirt roads that wind out along the ponds and into the hilly uplands. Until recently, many of these roads were unmarked; some still are. Years ago we used to make and circulate hand-drawn maps to help trade partners and suppliers – and our own crews – find jobsites.

Sometime in the 1980s we started making red arrows and strategically locating them along the way. The arrows themselves evolved and ultimately became a cut-out. Jim Vercruysse, our Shop Lead, who has been with us 30 years, has probably made and painted hundreds.

We mean to take them down when the job is complete, but many are left behind. In some cases, homeowners request that they remain. They may even paint them a different color. They may even paint them lime green.

In 1998, when we developed our Stoney Hill Road property, which included the development of Island Cohousing (a neighborhood of 16 houses and extensive common facilities) in addition to the South Mountain office, shop, and storage yard, we cut a new access road. We needed a name for the road. At a company meeting we held a brainstorming session to find one. Derrill Bazzy, former Designer and Owner, suggested we name it Red Arrow Road. He remembers, “All of a sudden it just popped into my head, made total sense to me, and when I suggested it to the group, everyone said ‘Of course!’ It was unequivocal.”

It stuck, so that’s how we ended up on Red Arrow Road (where we remain today, two decades later).

The Vineyard’s hundreds of dirt roads have some unusual names, like Pancake Hollow Road, Tar Barrel Road, and Glacier Glen. Some commemorate historic attributes of the particular road, like Blacksmith’s Valley Road, Fulling Mill Road, Oxcart Road, and King’s Highway. Or physical features, like Peaked Hill Pastures, Kettle Hole Lane, Rustling Oaks Road, and Clay Pit Road.

And then there’s Mud Puddle Road (which most of them are this time of year) and just plain Old Dirt Road (love that one), Beaten Path, and Goah Way.

Many clearly have a story behind them, like Pimpneymouse Lane, Robin’s Nest Road, Pennywise Path, and Black Duck Road.

There are even some numbered dirt “streets” along Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, that go from 3rd Street to 22nd Street, with some random Avenues (10th, 12th, and 13th) thrown in for good measure. This area is particularly bizarre because the numbers aren’t even in order, just helter skelter. What’s that all about? How did it happen? Stoner town planners or developers playing a joke on the rest of us long ago?

Back to Red Arrows. Remember that none of them will lead you to Red Arrow Road. In fact, even your GPS is unreliable for that task. It will lead you up the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven side of Stoney Hill Road – the worst dirt road on the Vineyard, where you are sure to bottom out multiple times.

Stick to the map below. And if you know a good story about how any of those dirt roads were named, let me know.

Eddie Cottle Sr.

By John Abrams |

Ed and his wife Betty in their Lambert’s Cove home. Photo by Mark Alan Lovewell, courtesy of the Vineyard Gazette.

Eddie Cottle Sr., the founder and longtime proprietor of E.C. Cottle Lumberyard., died on November 9th at the age of 87. Quiet, fair, modest, and generous, he had a big heart and a fine sense of humor. He lived on Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury, where the yard is located, for almost his entire life.

For the last 43 years, E.C. Cottle has been South Mountain’s primary lumberyard. It was there long before we were here, opening in the early fifties when Ed was in his early twenties.

As it says in Ed’s obituary, “He worked tirelessly to make the lumberyard a very successful and well respected business. He appreciated his customers and his employees. He never forgot his humble beginnings and would often, very quietly, help a contractor or anyone else if he saw that they were struggling.”

Many years ago we needed a stationary shaper for our shop. There was one in the E.C. Cottle shop that was never used; it had a thick coating of dust and was piled high with Playboy and Penthouse. I asked Ed if he wanted to sell it.

“Sure,” he said. “We never use it.”

“How much do you want for it?” I asked.

“Oh I don’t know,” he replied, “Just put the magazines on the floor, take the shaper, and we’ll figure it out later.”

We moved the shaper to our shop. And for years after that, whenever I saw him, I’d say, “Hey Ed, we need to settle up for that shaper, remember?”

He’d mutter something and never answer the question. One time he said, “Oh forget it, we’re square.”

It became a refrain. Whenever I saw him, I’d say “when are we gonna settle up on that shaper?”

He’d chuckle and say, “We’re square.”

South Mountain still uses the shaper today.

My friend Richard Greene told me, at Ed’s internment, that the last time he’d had a laugh with Ed was at the opening of our new shop 20 years ago. The two were looking at all the beautifully crafted woodwork made from reclaimed lumber, full of nail holes and defects. Ed leaned over to Richard, grinning, and said, “Where I come from we throw that stuff away.”

Where Ed came from business was done on a handshake, loyalty was a virtue, and there was nothing but the truth. That’s good business, in my view. He was a good man.

Getting Out The Vote

By John Abrams |


During the last four days prior to the midterm election, my friend Kim and I worked to get-out-the-vote in the western suburbs of Richmond VA. We aimed for a congressional campaign that had the following characteristics:

• A great Democratic candidate
• A race too close to call
• A place we’d never been
• Easy enough to get to

Abigail Spanberger’s campaign in the 7th district of Virginia satisfied all four criteria (the cheap nonstop flights from Logan took care of the last one).

We contacted the campaign and told them we wanted to volunteer. Mackenzie, the assistant campaign director we were in touch with, asked, “Do you need a place to stay?”

“No,” I said, “we’re all set. Just tell us where to be, train us, and set us loose.”

“Perfect,” she said, “we’ll let you know where we need you.”

We flew down, checked into a small hotel in the old part of town, and went at it. Our first instructions were to go to a campaign center in Henrico County, which turned out to be a typical raised-ranch home in a middle class neighborhood fully adorned with blue and white Spanberger signs.

That local HQ was buzzing with cheery campaign volunteers including a 12 year old kid named Tyrell, who lived in the house and worked as hard as anyone. His bubbly personality and commitment exemplified the spirit of the place. He and the campaign operatives were organizing the volunteers and keeping track of comings and goings.

They trained us and gave us a voter list. The list had names, genders, ages, and addresses. Our job was to knock on doors and ask:
“Are you planning to vote?”
“Do you know where your polling place is?”
“Do you need a ride to the polls?”
“Are you planning to vote for Abigail?”

Over the next four days we found ourselves in a variety of neighborhoods, running from down-at-the-heels garden apartment projects to lower middle class to middle middle class. None were terribly prosperous, but some were a step up. We noticed that neighborhood behaviors seemed to be contagious. Positive care and negative neglect. In one neighborhood there would routinely be junk strewn around un-kempt yards while a nearby neighborhood of similar price point was tidy and well-maintained.

The first door we knocked on was in a neighborhood of 1200 SF post-war single family brick houses, the southern equivalent of Levittown. It was answered by three generations of an Indian family. They were happy to see us, they were planning to vote, they knew where to go, and they were voting for Abigail.

That was typical, but not all of our encounters were.

We spent most of the first afternoon in a subsidized housing project occupied primarily by African Americans. Rental units, two stories, 16 to a building, eight to a hallway, four off the second floor hall, four off the first. At least 75% of the occupants were single women, most with kids. Very few men. It’s not that the men weren’t home or out working, it’s that they weren’t on the voting lists.

Kim took care of the clipboard and checked off the boxes on the form: conversation concluded, not home, moved, deceased, inaccessible, refused to talk. I knocked or rang the doorbells and initiated contact, but mostly we shared the interactions seamlessly.

A 79 year old woman said she couldn’t get to the polls without help. We asked if we could give her a ride. She asked what church we went to. We said we’re not from here. She said she better not go with us because she doesn’t know us. We gave her the number to call for the campaign to arrange a ride.

A drunk, carrying a beer and wandering around the neighborhood trying to engage with anyone he encountered, saw us as his next prey. He asked what we were doing. We told him. He wondered what difference it would make. We went back and forth. (He liked the game.) Finally, we told him we had to get back to work. He left us alone.

A woman was walking home with three kids. Kim asked if we could give the kids Abigail stickers. She said sure, and we gave each kid a sticker and asked if she wanted one. She replied “Yes, and I can tell you that I’m sure gonna vote for Abigail!”. As we walked away the three little kids were all saying “thank you thank you” in sing-song voices as they proudly displayed their stickers.

A tall African American man was walking into one of the buildings and we asked him if he was planning to vote. “They won’t let me, although the constitution says I can.” A felon, we assumed.

“We hope you get your right back before 2020,” we said.

“I will,” he responded.

Even in the most rundown circumstances, there was plenty of heart. One apartment had a sign at the door that said, in Spanish, Arabic, and English, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.”

The next day we were in lower middle class developments of vinyl-clad homes on quarter acre lots. There were roads, courts, terraces, and cul-de-sacs. It was a Monday so fewer people were home compared to the previous day. Each time we got no answer we left a campaign flyer on their door. We wrote in longhand their polling place address, and “Thank you!” There’s no way to know if some of those reminders made the difference between voting and not voting.

An African American couple about my age was sitting on their front porch smoking cigarettes. Their house was impeccably maintained, they were dressed nicely, and they wanted to talk politics. They were well-versed and had never failed to vote since coming of age (which would have been in the late sixties). They were centrists, big Obama supporters, and felt like the middle class was getting burned and shrinking.

Many people were very supportive of Abigail. A few said they were voting for her opponent, a few were still undecided, and a few said, “Not telling.” To the non-supporters, the undecided, and the non-revealers, we simply said, “Hope you’ll vote for Abigail; we think she’ll make a difference!”

Most people were very friendly, even though in some cases their door had been knocked on multiple times over the past few weeks by one of the campaigns active in the area. Women, especially African American women, were particularly enthusiastic. It was interesting to us that, in general, women opened the door wide and men opened it a crack.

On election day we showed up at HQ and were asked to help solve a problem. A polling location in Henrico County had been unexpectedly changed from a church to a school and it wasn’t clear that people knew. Most people we encountered had found out, one way or another, but at times our presence made the difference.

It all felt very real, and engaged. People from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities engaging in heartfelt conversations with varying points of views. People living their lives, caring about their futures, voting their consciences. We felt lucky to share some time with them.

And then, of course, there was the result. Abigail Spanberger triumphed over long-time Republican incumbent, Dave Brat. (Pictured above and to right you can see Abigail’s four year old daughter sharing the stage during her victory speech.) She was part of the blue wave of women and ethnic candidates that turned things upside down nationwide – or began to anyway. We are on our way to 2020. Trumpism is dead; it only remains to be seen how long and troubling the funeral will be. Better times ahead.

Peter Blackstone Ives, Friend & Partner

By John Abrams |

Pete Ives retired last month. Of the many long term employees/owners who have made this company what it is, Pete had the longest tenure (except for me, last man standing, apparently). His illustrious career here spanned 41 years.

He came to SMCo in 1977, just two years after my former partner Mitchell Posin and I came to the Vineyard and South Mountain began. At the time he was an accomplished mason, painter, drywaller, floor sander, tilesetter, and surfer. He’d never done a lick of carpentry. He said, “Just tell me what to do. I’ll do anything, as long as I don’t have to tell anyone else what to do.” He was loyal, dedicated, and skilled, but he feared responsibility.

Back then it was just me, Mitchell, Steve, Pete, and Heikki Soikkeli (I think). By 1985 there were ten employees. Steve and Pete came to me and said they wanted to stay at South Mountain and make their careers here, but needed a greater stake and more than an hourly wage. We decided to become a worker cooperative. Pete became one of the original three employee owners when we restructured in 1987.

And he stayed. Over time he began to find confidence in his work and himself. He learned to be a very good carpenter and then a project lead, first reluctantly, then with pride. So much for not telling people what to do. He was the Clerk of the organization, the only one we ever had until his retirement. He also became an essential part of the Personnel Committee for all those years.

His work at SMCo extended into five different decades. He was the responsible project lead for some of our most emblematic projects, like Sagan, Thistle, Hass, Weinstock, Hamermesh, Field, Howes, Cook-Kraus, Davis, and Lake-Hodgson.

His work culminated appropriately with the wonderfully playful Lee Treehouse.

Pete has been friend, colleague, and co-owner. I have seen his three children at birth, growing up, and grown. Clare has always been a constant, his partner in the truest sense.

My wife Chris always said he was the heart of SMCo. The keeper of the soul. The king of casual. Killing it with kindness. Getting the job done in the most stress-free way possible. If Pete was there, it was surely gonna be fun. And infused with craft. Always craft. He had an unbelievable touch with people and wood. Knew how to make both fit together seamlessly.

We are lucky to know him and grateful for all he’s been and done. His spirit will remain a part of this company for as long as the company endures.

Pete with Steve, Marko, and me in some God-forsaken foundation.

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 mission-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!

The Amicus Cooperative – Stronger Together

By John Abrams |

South Mountain is proud – and lucky – to be one of the co-owners of the Amicus Cooperative, a collection of 50 of the most progressive solar companies in the U.S.. Amicus exists to support smaller regional solar companies by leveraging national scale purchasing power, sharing best business practices, and combining collective brainpower. My colleague Rob Meyers, who manages our Energy Services division, never misses their semi-annual gatherings. I have gone twice, once in 2015 in Phoenix and once this year in Denver.

It is not an overstatement to say that both times the Amicus group took my breath away. The intelligence, the heart and soul, the culture of civility, humility, humor, inquiry, fellowship, and friendship at these gatherings are extraordinary.

We’re happy to be able to share this piece about Amicus written by Sarah Stranahan, a senior editorial associate at The Democracy Collaborative and a leading member of its Fifty by Fifty employee ownership team.

The Democracy Collaborative is another remarkable organization which does cutting edge research and “works to carry out a vision of a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable and inclusive outcomes, fosters ecological sustainability, and promotes flourishing democratic and community life.”

Good stuff all around. These are important below-the-radar antidotes to the sorry, sleazy, sadistic mess of national politics today. – JA


Amicus Solar Purchasing Coop Spreads Employee Ownership
Achieving Scale while Maintaining Local Impact

By Sarah Stranahan

Amicus Solar is one of more than 250 purchasing cooperatives in the US, including such well-known brands as Ace Hardware and Best Western Motels. By forming a large national cooperative, small producers or retailers increase their purchasing power and access to project financing, while remaining independently owned and operated. An additional benefit, it turns out, is that a purchasing co-op can be a particularly effective means of spreading employee ownership.

Amicus Solar was founded in 2011 by six independent solar companies, including employee-owned cooperative and certified B Corp Namaste Solar and South Mountain Company. Amicus Solar is led by cooperative veteran and former Namaste Solar employee-owner, Stephen Irvin, who serves as its president. Today Amicus includes 48 local and regional solar photovoltaic (PV) installers and developers who openly share and collaborate on a wide range of business issues, from operational efficiencies to sales and marketing strategies.

Similar to Best Western and Ace, Amicus is democratically owned by its members, 40 percent of which are B Corps and a growing number of which are employee owned. With five Amicus members having joined the cooperative as employee-owned companies, Amicus has made a conscious effort to educate its members about worker ownership. As a result, five member businesses (ReVision Energy, Technicians for Sustainability, SunBug Solar, Positive Energy, and Sunlight Solar) have converted — and another five are considering converting — to either become worker coops or employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). The purchasing co-op has become a means of “industry contagion” — a way of rapidly spreading employee ownership.

Staying Local While Creating a Competitive Advantage

Since the Great Recession, there has been an increased interest in localism (also called subsidiarity) — the principle that decisions should be made at the lowest practical level or closest to where they will have their effect — because small, local mission-driven businesses have three key advantages for nurturing a more democratic and sustainable economy:
They invest locally, capturing and multiplying value, particularly when they sell locally produced goods;
They are more successful at participatory management because it is easier to cultivate personal trust and accountability in small-scale, local organizations; and
They are more likely to care about and be accountable to their communities in terms of environmental health, social equity, cultural vitality, and good governance.
Localism, however, faces challenges when it comes to economies of scale, which can increase efficiency and reduce the costs of production. Scale is also required to meet the needs of densely populated urban centers, where a larger and larger portion of the world’s population lives.

Small solar installers have faced intense competition from large national companies such as SolarCity (recently acquired by Tesla), SunRun, and SunPower. By coming together in a purchasing co-op, the relatively small businesses that own Amicus Solar have leveled the playing field with their larger competitors, particularly in terms of purchasing power, while maintaining the advantages of staying local.

New Ventures

In addition to taking advantage of cost and marketing efficiencies, Amicus members share best practices and develop joint strategies to advance their common goals. For example, in 2016 Amicus won a $358,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to found a new cooperative to provide high-quality operations and maintenance (O&M) support to large-scale solar installations. Today Amicus O&M Cooperative includes 20 member organizations that have set collective operations and management standards to ensure that commercial and utility-scale solar PV systems fulfill their performance expectations over the long term. Amicus O&M Cooperative is being led by another cooperative veteran and former Namaste Solar employee-owner, Amanda Bybee.

In 2017, Amicus members helped found the Clean Energy Credit Union (CECU), which received the first federal charter for a new credit union in Colorado in 31 years. CECU’s mission is to promote clean energy, environmental stewardship and cooperative enterprises through the financial services it offers its members. Using the federally insured deposits of its members, the credit union provides consumer loans to reduce the cost of clean-energy products and services. “We envision a world where everyone can participate in the clean-energy movement,” said board chairman Blake Jones, co-founder of Boulder-based Namaste Solar. This new federally chartered credit union will make it easier for people to both invest in and use clean energy in order to help protect our environment and improve our economy.”

Jones is leading another venture in this growing ecosystem called Kachuwa Impact Fund, which has provided capital in support of multiple Amicus members. Kachuwa’s mission is two-fold:
(1) To provide privately held “impact companies” with mission-aligned, long-term, and non-controlling capital; and
(2) To provide “impact investors” with diversified, impact investment opportunities outside of Wall Street.
Kachuwa’s multiple “impact themes” include cooperatives, certified B Corps, and companies that are owned by employees, women, or people of color. Kachuwa itself is aiming to convert to an investment cooperative structure in 2019 and, among other things, to increase its support for companies converting to employee ownership both within the Amicus ecosystem and beyond. Improving access to values-aligned capital is a critically important part to growing the cooperative and employee ownership movements.

Democratic Governance

According to Irvin, president of Amicus, Namaste Solar has had powerful influence on the culture of the purchasing coop and its members. It was at Namaste Solar that Irvin learned about cooperatives, democratic processes and governance, and the importance of facilitating a process to reach consensus. Like Namaste Solar, he says, Amicus uses an open-book management policy to keep everyone fully informed and a committee structure to facilitate decision making.

Irvin told Solar Pro magazine in 2014, “[Open-book management] is important since the members are equal owners. Consensus building can take time — but once we’ve come to a decision, you see more engagement and commitment from everyone.”
Democratic governance has not only contributed to the purchasing co-op’s success, but has shown members that ownership, mission, governance, and culture matter. Today Amicus Solar is an important driver of employee ownership across an entire industry.