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South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

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The Company We Keep

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.

Triple Bottom Line

All in a Company Meeting

December 23, 2015 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

We began our recent year-end company meeting by reviewing finances, work completed, work ahead, affordable housing projects in the pipeline, solar sales and installations, and a variety of compelling and not-so-compelling metrics and indicators.

It has been a very good year, as were the two that came before.  A robust trifecta.  One of our younger employees, Ian Gumpel, asked why we’re doing so well.  Great question.  I mumbled a few dis-jointed explanations that didn’t quite add up.  Later I thought more and the next day I wrote a brief addendum to everyone that said in part, about Ian’s question,  “As a friend of ours, Devon Hartman, once said, ‘The key to making a company work is getting all the wood behind one arrow.’  We are making great strides toward doing just that.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem so; the alignment can be obscured by the drama and upheaval of constant change.  But it becomes clear through the lens of our triple bottom line  performance.”

Read More about All in a Company Meeting

Filed Under: Collaboration, Design, Energy, South Mountain Company, Triple Bottom Line Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, Devon Hartman, Triple Bottom Line, Zingerman's, ZingTrain

Tangent Handrail Workshop (and more)

August 19, 2013 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Lately we have been devoting thinking and planning to new training and educational opportunities.  We have re-purposed a space in our building as a new meeting/class room.  It comfortably holds 25 people and we continue to outfit the space so that it is appropriate for many uses.  Various meetings are now held there and we are planning our first class there.  See the announcement below.

 

In addition, SMCo is collaborating with NESEA (the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) and the Yestermorrow Design Build School (in Vermont) to create a new program in the Northeast that will bring together architecture, building, design/build, and energy companies in a peer group network called Building Energy Bottom Lines.  The purpose  is to form groups of businesses which will help each other improve their practices on an ongoing basis.  The focus will be progressive Triple Bottom Line (people, planet, profits) business approaches.  Our co-conspirators in this endeavor are old friends and fellow design/builders Jamie Wolf (Wolfworks) and Paul Eldrencamp (Byggmeister).

The program will launch with several half day workshops at Building Energy 14 (the annual NESEA conference which draws thousands of Northeast professionals) in March 2014 and a two day workshop in Vermont in April 2014.  You’ll be hearing  more about this as time goes by.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in learning an arcane and remarkable technique (or maybe it’s an “art”!)  that very few carpenters and woodworkers know, come to our Tangent Handrail Workshop in October.  Jim Baldwin is a fine instructor and he will be assisted by our own Billy Dillon.

Filed Under: Martha's Vineyard, Small Business, South Mountain Company Tagged With: Billy Dillon, Building Energy 14, Byggmeister, Jamie Wolf. Paul Eldrencamp, Jim Baldwin, NESEA, Tangent Handrails, Triple Bottom Line, Wolfworks, Yestermorrow

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15 Red Arrow Road
West Tisbury, MA 02575

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Post Office Box 1260
West Tisbury, MA 02575

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info@southmountain.com

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