Rodney North, of Equal Exchange, the enduring Massachusetts worker co-op fair trade coffee company, in response to my last blog post, said (I’m paraphrasing here):
It’s great to see how SMCo is diversifying. I’m guessing this evolved out of some mix of client demand/SMCo interests in renewables & the need to diversify during lean times – yes? I’d be curious to know if this new line of work meant re-training for current SMCo staff &/or bringing on new staff w/the necessary skills. And does it now mean that SMCo needs to have 2 (or more) pipelines of projects lined up so as to ensure fairly steady employment for staff?
I also noted – for the first time to my knowledge – that SMCo finally took on some projects off the Vineyard. . . . I’ll be interested to hear more about how SMCo arrived at that change in policy and hope it works out well. As a mainlander I’m happy to see that now some of our communities will enjoy some of the gifts of SMCo that the Vineyard has had all to itself all these years.
Rodney inquires about two of the three most important SMCo changes of the last few years: concentrating greater efforts on Energy and doing select projects off the island (the third is a rigorous focus on planning for the Next Generation of SMCo).
Read More about Emphasizing Energy And Expanding Our Geography
