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Interview with Seth Goldman, CEO of Honest Tea

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

“There’s a lot of impact still to make here and important work to do.  I also think in some ways we and I are uniquely suited to do that.”  – Seth Goldman, CEO Honest Tea

KissMyCountry had the rare opportunity to interview Seth Goldman, CEO of Honest Tea - in person!  When Seth realized we live near his company in Bethesda, Maryland he invited us to his office for the interview.  Enjoy our talk with Seth Goldman as he talks about building Honest Tea, taking it to national distribution this July, and his continued dedication to sustainable business practices!

Lexy:  Seth, it’s really an honor to talk with you and we appreciate your being so responsive to speaking with KissMyCountry for our series.   You started Honest Tea by experimenting in your kitchen.  Lots of people mix up things in their kitchen, but very few end up running a multi-million dollar business based on their creations – even those that start with an idea as good as yours and Barry Nalebuff’s.  Why did you succeed when so many fail?

Seth:  I just think we really were very passionate and still are very passionate about this.  This was something important to do.  There was a great deal of ambition and energy behind it and relentlessness too.  It’s interesting, there have been a lot of organic low calorie bottled tea companies that have come and gone.  Some people say we were just at the right place at the right time – lucky.  But a lot of that passion carried us when we weren’t running on much else.  I think that counts for a lot.  We’ve really been fortunate to be able to put together people who share that passion and that’s important too.  In the beginning we were probably a little too conscious of being purists or mavericks and we didn’t bring on people from the beverage industry.  On the one hand that hampered our growth but on the other hand that kept us mission-driven.  I know we made a lot more mistakes or didn’t grow as quickly because of it but in the long term I think it really assured our long term success.   We also had a lot of long-term thinking.  We weren’t trying to turn a buck and we focused on the future and especially given how challenging our growth was in the beginning if we had made our tea any sweeter or made it cheaper we could have grown more quickly but we really had our vision and we stuck to it.

Lexy:  I’m really struck by how admired you are by other CEOs in the Green and sustainable arena.  I hear your name again and again, which is impressive given the talent and success of this group.  You’ve clearly connected with and inspired many.   How do you feel about that, and – again – why you?  Why do you think you’re one of the most mentioned and admired in this arena?

Seth:  That’s nice.  It’s very gratifying.  It’s nice to hear.  I definitely do put a lot of effort into sharing this mission and spreading it.  I was one of the founding board members of Net Impact.  It’s a national non-profit focused on seeding the next generation of socially responsible entrepreneurs.   I was on the keynote closing panel at their conference this past fall and I’ve always supported it.  We hold an annual event here at our office in Bethesda and we’ll have that here next month to welcome all the Net Impact interns.  We’ve always hired Net Impact interns here since we started.   Certainly that is one way to help and also I think a model for building a sustainable enterprise.  One of the things we’ve always put on our shoulders is this feeling that this has to work not only because it’s our livelihood and we’ve got investors who are depending on us but because we need to show the world that this kind of model of business can succeed.  If we don’t succeed and we remain a niche business or we don’t really flourish then we satisfy all those skeptics who say you can’t really mix business and a mission-driven agenda.  And it’s interesting.  The first generation of socially responsible businesses like Ben & Jerry’s were one step  and I think we’re the next wave.  Hopefully, young entrepreneurs may be able to relate to us because it’s relatively recent that we’ve been around and we’re still growing quickly.  We still have a long growth curve.

Lexy: Who are your heroes?  As you face challenges at Honest Tea, who do you draw on for advice and inspiration?

Seth:  Gary Hirshberg at Stonyfield Yogurt is certainly one of my heroes, he’s been on our board and he’s someone who has played an influential role for me so we certainly see ourselves following in Gary’s wake as well.   Gary has played an important role because he took a product that was a healthy product and made it organic and increased availability by marketing it successfully to a larger audience and we see ourselves doing the same thing.  And then he also partnered with a large multinational and then managed to keep control of the enterprise and the brand and is still running it, which is also a great model.  We owe him a lot and continue to learn from him. Another great mentor has been Jeff Swartz, the President and CEO of Timberland.  He was on our board.  He was one of our first board members back in 2001.  He’s just been a great inspirational friend in terms of how to really be focused on your mission and focused on your brand and thinking long term.  He’s not on our board now, he transitioned off when Coke came in but is still somebody who I really admire.  The first person who really gave me a chance in this socially responsible business world is the co-founder of Calvert, Wayne Silby.  I was an intern for Wayne back in business school in 1994.  He’s still someone I continue to interact with because I’m on the board of the Calvert Foundation.  I see him at least on a quarterly basis which is fun.   I’m still in touch with him even though I’m not in the investment world anymore.  In fact the quote on our wall I first heard from Wayne    (“ Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it – Chinese Proverb “).  I certainly take it to heart here.  I brought him up to this office last year, and he saw the quote, which was really neat.  My parents are certainly in that group and we had a great experience just a few weekends ago when I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate at American University.   I gave the commencement address and my parents got to come to that.   That was for me a really nice feeling.  I am really honored by this, and it was really nice to be able to share that moment with my parents, they’re both academics and they have a real appreciation of what that means.  They’ve been an inspiration to me also in terms of always focusing their work on things they care about.  There’s a great quote, from Teddy Roosevelt, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing,” and they took that to heart.

Lexy: Honest Tea has grown into a well known –and well liked – brand.  In 2008 Coca Cola acquired a stake in Honest Tea, which seems to have benefitted both companies.  What advice do you have for other CEOs of green or natural products companies if a Fortune 100 company expresses interest in investing?

Seth:  One of the things that’s really helped with our relationship with Coca Cola is that we still control the brand.  We made it clear to them when they approached us that hey we’re happy to talk to you but we feel the need to continue to control this.  And the good news is that they recognized that.  Our agreement was legally structured that way.  That helped ensure that we would continue to build the brand the way we conceived it, maintaining our focus on healthier products and ingredients, more sustainable sourcing and an authentic approach to it. That was really important.  What I would say is one of the reasons we were able to do that is because we offered a great deal of value to them.  They offered a great deal of value to us.  There’s no question about their ability to help us distribute the product, their access to resources and money and all that.  Very powerful.  But we offered them alot, we offered something they didn’t have.  They didn’t have a premium tea line, they didn’t have an organic product.  They didn’t have a product that had this healthy positioning that we have.  That helped make it so that when we said we wanted to run the brand they understood why it made sense.  That was important.  What’s really going to be interesting is over the next 12-24 months because Coke does have the option to increase their stake and so let’s see how we continue to run.  There too I’d say Gary’s been a great role model because his company is now economically owned by Danone.  But, from the outside you wouldn’t tell the difference as a consumer.  We hope they will have a chance to be that way with us.

Lexy:  Seth, in 2008 you also founded Bethesda Green, a local sustainability initiative.  Bethesda Green seems very integrated into Honest Tea – it’s mentioned on your web site and is a part of your list of accomplishments as TeaEO of Honest Tea.   Is this mainly because of your personal commitment to Bethesda, or do you also want to inspire other CEOs to launch similar efforts in their communities?

Seth:  For our first 10 years we were acting globally.  We were looking at sourcing organics overseas and at tea gardens on the other side of the planet.  We really needed to think about what we were doing locally as well.  We’ve always been supporters of local races and charities.  It’s almost a joke these days that if you’re in Bethesda and you need someone to donate drinks that Honest Tea will donate.   And we’re fine with that.  We want to be supportive of our community and we’re bringing people together.  So that all makes sense.  But as we were negotiating our lease for this new office we realized we do have this ability to convene companies who have a lot more resources than we have and partially because of who we are and how we work it wasn’t hard to convince others  there was value in doing it and so it’s been really gratifying to see other businesses – whether it’s our landlord  Federal Realty or Chevy Chase Bank and Calvert obviously bringing resources to this initiative and so really having an impact on this community.  That’s been exciting from our perspective and we’d love to see how we can expand that.  In terms of the message I didn’t have anything particular in mind but it’s been interesting to see the reaction, even at Coca Cola.  I presented Bethesda Green at an international Coke conference earlier this month and I got questions from some people about how can we be doing this kind of thing in our community?  If we can take some of the things we’ve instituted and expand them with other resources, that’s great.

Lexy:  What’s next for Honest Tea?  What can we see from the company in the next few years?

Seth:  Certainly in the next few months we’re ramping up and we’ve got a lot of new products coming out.  Which you’re drinking (Half and Half).  That’s been getting a great response.  We’ve also launched this new line called Honest Kombucha which is a fermented tea.  I don’t know if you’ve had Kombucha before.  That’s certainly worth trying and it’s really unusual and different.   That’s launched in Whole Foods and in the West Coast as well.  The other really big thing is because we’re now partnered with Coke, between now and the end of July we’re going to be expanding our distribution nationally.  Before the end of July we’ll have Honest Tea distributed off the Coke trucks in every state.  So that’s quite a step for us.  We’re now in stores like CVS and Kroger and places where bottled drinks are sold.  That will really change the nature of our availability.  In conjunction with that we’re going to start doing some themed promotions that we’ve never really done before.  We’ve always tended to be very grassroots in our marketing and we’ll continue to be very grassroots but we’re going to do some larger spends that help make people more aware of where they can buy the drinks.  Billboards, we’re going to do some small radio stuff, very selective.  We just did this initiative in New York which was really fun where we put up a display on Wall Street the day that President Obama spoke on Wall Street, we put up a stand that said ‘Honest Tea Honor System, Pay a Dollar’ and then left the stand unstaffed to see what would happen.  I think the results were that Wall Street was about 89% honest that day, and it was fun to watch as a social experiment.  We like to do things like that that help to create a little curiosity.  We have plans to do that in different cities.  Personally I don’t have plans to move elsewhere than the beverage arena, I don’t have a potato chip company in my back pocket.  Twelve years ago we started this and we wanted to have an impact on people’s diets and have an impact on the beverage industry and we started from the smallest possible place.  Now we have this incredible opportunity and platform to really take that vision and expand it, which we’re just starting to do.  So in a way we’re really in the middle of it and a lot of the impact is still on the table.  There’s a lot of impact still to make here and important work to do.  I also think in some ways we and I are uniquely suited to do that.  In terms of what we owe investors certainly I feel obligated to see this through until the point when Coke buys the company.  So there would be that obligation to fill.  In terms of what I owe myself I feel that I started this vision and want to see it through.

Lexy:  And, what’s next for Seth Goldman?  Besides Honest Tea, Bethesda Green – and your recent appointment to the American Beverage Association board, any other new plans you’d like to tell us about? 

Seth:  There’s a lot.  One of the things that I’ve really had to do this past 2 years in particular is I’ve turned down a lot more than I accepted in terms of new responsibilities just because there is so much.  I really owe it to our investors to make sure we see this through to get the best returns.  And I owe it to myself because I’m an investor.  I have made no other plans to do anything except build Honest Tea.   As I said I spoke at this international Coke conference of Coke departmental folks from all around the world and so having that kind of platform was a chance to play a role in the larger system and I think that will continue.   Those kinds of opportunities will continue to emerge.   Certainly an expanded role not just within Coke but within the beverage industry is something that I can see, now being on the board of the ABA.   We just had our first board meeting where we talked about recycling initiatives and how can we get up the average recycling rate around the country.  The average recycling rate is less than 30 percent.   How do you get those numbers up?  There’s a lot of good things going on around sustainable packaging and the reduction of packaging but at the same time if only 30 percent is being recaptured we really need to increase that.  So there is still a lot there.  And also the broader role of being a leader in the socially responsible business movement.   Just this past week I’ve met – and I frequently meet – with other people I’ve seen as colleagues like the folks who run Method, I interact with TerraCycle with Tom Szaky.  I have a lot of interactions with this network of people.  We’re allies in a – I won’t call it a war but certainly a campaign, in a movement.  There is this whole issue of leadership.  Just two weeks ago I was invited to a White House conference on small business.  How do we spur the ‘gazelles’?  I’m coming at it from a lens of yes, of course it’s important to create jobs but how do we create more sustainable businesses?  And within that how do we change the conversation within corporate America too?  Even if my job description were to stay the same there’s an expanded role that’s important and I anticipate getting involved in that.  Right now I’m so Honest Tea focused.  I’m going to speak at a Wall Street Journal conference.  So those kinds of opportunities are fun too and I always get something out of those.  So there’s a lot going on and my plate is pretty full as it is.

I majored in Government and I’d always thought of myself as having an interest in politics.  I traveled after college and then I came back here and worked on Capitol Hill.  I haven’t ruled out politics at some point.  It’s exciting for me to see what kind of impact we can have on public issues and environmental and global issues as a private company.  That’s certainly not something that I anticipated in college – being able to have that kind of impact from the private sector.  In contrast I see what’s going on in Congress, and a lot of discussion of marginal change, and so much posturing and not real change happening.   Not the kind of change we’ve been able to help be part of here around like source reduction, sustainability, and healthier diets.   These are the issues that really define how we live,  certainly as a country and even as people on this planet.  People are passionate but I’m not sure they’re able to always make change happen.   In part what I see in politics is that you come in with a passion, and then you have to start getting into compromises and by the time you’re looking at what actually gets passed it’s such a dilution of what you stand for.  And what’s been so surprising and so satisfying is that I don’t feel that we’ve sacrificed or that we’re compromised by what we stand for.  We were the first to make organic tea and we’ve only continued to up the ante.  Everything is organic now.   And we were the first to make Fair Trade tea and we continue to make Fair Trade tea and continue to expand our commitment there.  And certainly around our source reduction whether it’s our partnership with TerraCycle or this new bottle that we just introduced that’s 22% lighter and we were the first to introduce that technology.  We all live in this contradiction that we’re focused on sustainability and we live in a consumption economy.  That’s a contradiction so I don’t want to make it sound like we’re pure and put ourselves on a pedestal.  But what is satisfying is to really come at this with an agenda and not have to encounter a lobbyist or some faction and there’s no question that our product isn’t for everybody.   So maybe if we were trying to be all things to all people we’d be diluted.   We know what we stand for, and our product is out there that way, and some people don’t buy it but some people love it and it feels very gratifying to feel like what we stand for is making change happen and that it’s been embraced by a lot of people.  If we can keep making change happen this way then that’s fine too.  I certainly know for me I’ve been running this thing for 12 years one way and I’m certainly not going to be interested in anything else.

Lexy:  Seth, at KissMyCountry we like to talk about the places we love.  What are your favorite places to live or travel?

Seth:  Certainly for living our house backs right up on a park.  So that’s just wonderful space and every day I’m in that park whether it’s running through it or after work biking through it.  It’s just this open space, an open green space and this is where people live.  People work, but the park is where people live.  You’ve got people out there playing, relaxing.  We have 3 sons and they’ve really grown up in that park.  That’s such a nice space for us, in fact my youngest son is having his Bar Mitzvah next month.  People have their special places where they go for the party, well we’re doing it in the park.  That’s where we’ll have everyone over on Saturday.  We’ll play Capture the Flag.  So that’s a really nice space for me.  Globally, it has to be the Tea Garden in India called Makaibari.  It’s almost a sacred place.  It’s such an amazing balance between plants and animals, between people and the planet, between the people who live there and the people who run it.  Even the climate.  We were there during  April or May, at the time there was this feeling of the balance even within the weather.  It was this incredibly moist place and you start the day with clouds hanging really low over the mountains and the temperature is kind of the same as your body temperature.  It’s just an amazing place.  We didn’t spend that long there but for our whole family it was a spiritual trip.  That was a special place.  I’m originally from New England – I grew up in Wellesley just outside of Boston.  I do miss seeing my family and we go there at different times during the year but Bethesda definitely feels like home for us.  We’ve been here 14 going on 15 years.  It’s certainly a conscious community of people, mindful of the impact their actions have on the world and the environment.

Lexy: Honest Tea’s headquarters are in Bethesda, Maryland.  What do you like about operating a company there?Seth:  This is just such a livable existence.  I bike to work.  Our kids’ schools are all within biking distance, so a lot of them will stop by on their way home to pick up a drink and say hi.  That just makes it very nice.  For our employees it’s all accessible whether by metro or bike path or walking.  Coming here doesn’t feel like I’m going to work.  As a community we’ve helped create this great ethos now.  It’s really nice to have this restaurant Sweet Greens downstairs.  Actually both Gary and I are investors in it. That has certainly enhanced the quality of my life for two reasons.  I love getting the salads but it’s also nice to go downstairs and see all these people drinking Honest Tea.  Yesterday I wanted to get some fresh air but I made sure just  to walk by to see the people drinking Honest Tea.

Lexy: And, where do you like to go in the neighborhood for lunch, dinner or just to relax with your friends or your family?

Seth:  Bethesda Bagel.  We always get stuff there.  They’re fun not only because they sell Honest Tea but because they’re both local entrepreneurs that I know and I’m friendly with.  Our whole family is vegetarian.  Raku or Redwood, which has a very good veggie burger.  Actually it’s funny.  This weekend we thought we were going to be allowed the chance to have dinner just the two of us, but that didn’t work out.  It’s striking still there aren’t that many restaurants that have real vegetarian offerings.  A lot of them just have pasta or they’ll do a little mélange.  There are different places that we go.

Lexy:  Thank you!  We’d like to stay in touch.

Seth:  Okay, sure.  Sure.

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Interview With Gene Banman, CEO Zero Motorcycles

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

“Building an electric motorcycle is about making a better motorcycle.  The electric powertrain has great performance, and the power curve of an electric motor is actually more applicable for how motorcyclists ride than the gasoline motor.” – Gene Banman, CEO Zero Motorcycles

Zero Motorcycles is taking off with their innovative and breakthrough technology for electric motorcycles – literally.  KissMyCountry had the chance to talk with Gene Banman, CEO about the company, about why their electric motorcycles are so exciting - about the best places for a meal and drinks in Scotts Valley, CA – the home of Zero Motorcycles.  You’ll enjoy hearing from Gene, a computer industry veteran now leading a team dedicated to building a better and more energy efficient motorcycle.  Enjoy!

Mr. K: Gene, since the beginning there’s been buzz, buzz and more buzz about Zero Motorcycles.  In your own words, what are the most exciting features of Zero Motorcycles?

Gene:  It’s the first new powertrain to be introduced to motorcycle technology in 100 years.  There’ve been electric motorcycles built down through the decades.  In fact the first one was in the 1890’s.  But they really didn’t go very far and didn’t have much power and so they never really took off as products.  One of the electric motorcycles that was put together in the 1940s ended up being the first project of the founder of ParCar which has become a major manufacturer of electric carts – golf carts and Meter Maid carts and things like that.  He started with a motorcycle back in the ‘40’s. So people have been thinking about electric motorcycles ever since powered vehicles got started.  But the battery technology just wasn’t up to the job until just recently and, as a result, now we really can introduce a commercial product that has this completely new powertrain.

Building an electric motorcycle is about making a better motorcycle.  The electric powertrain has great performance, and the power curve of an electric motor is actually more applicable for how motorcyclists ride than the gasoline motor.  The gasoline motor has this peak power at high RPM where an electric motor has maximum torque at 0 RPM.  So blasting off the line you’re going to get instant torque with an electric motor that motorcyclists really get a kick out of.  The motor has one moving part so it’s very low maintenance, there’s no oil changes, no tune ups, no rebuilds.  It just runs, for a very long time.  Very low operating costs.  Four kilowatt hours gives you an average of about 40 miles of range in an urban area and it only costs 46 cents to charge up those 4 kilowatt hours here in California.  So very low operating costs.  What we really think is going to happen over time is that we’re going to end up with electric motorcycles being superior to gasoline motorcycles in terms of performance, cost and ease of use.  We think they will go mainstream sometime in the next 5-10 years.

These motorcycles have captured peoples’ imaginations for a wide variety of reasons. For motorcyclists Zero offers great performance, low maintenance and a fun new riding experience. Those who want to improve the environment appreciate that Zero’s all electric motorcycles are highly efficient and have no tailpipe emissions.

Mr. K:  You have Dirt, Street and Dual Sport models. You’ve said you’re a dual sport fan. Is there anything you’d like to say specifically about your Dual Sport model?

Gene:  It goes 65 miles an hour so you can get it out on the Freeway.  You can certainly ride it around town.  The usage model is really an around town usage model.  But the dual sport version has street legal off road knobby tires and bigger suspension so you can take it out on the fire roads or the dirt roads and trails that might allow you to link up between surface streets.   A lot of our customers have back roads that they can take on their way into town or to work and with the dual sport it allows them to cut through these back trails and roads and through the woods to take it to work and they really enjoy that.  It’s sort of a dip into nature during your normal commute.  It also allows you on the weekend to go hit the trails.  My own passion for motorcycles got started on my dad’s Trail 90 and there’s been a lot of back country cruising around on that Trail 90 and that was one of the early dual sport motorcycles, if you will, that allowed that kind of thing.  This is our most popular model.

Mr. K: Gene, you came to Zero Motorcycles from Sun Microsystems, bringing years of experience, a global management background and a lifelong love of sport bikes.  What skills have you used the most from your time at Sun as you’ve built the company?

Gene:  The good financial controls.  One of the things about Sun and Zero which are similar is that both are rapidly growing companies.  The way you manage rapid growth is through good financial controls.  We have a very sophisticated financial system and forecasting and tracking system that allows us to stay on top of our spending, on top of our cash, on top of our build plans and so forth that allows us to keep the company in control as it grows.  That was one of the things that was key at Sun.  When I joined Sun there were 700 employees.  Fifteen years later when I left there were 46,000 employees.  So that was a great experience on how to manage a high growth situation and we’re certainly going through that here at Zero.

Mr. K: And where has your passion for dual sport bikes influenced your management of the company most?

Gene:  It really hasn’t influenced the management of the company but what it does provide is enthusiasm and a spirit and a kind of good feeling all through the company.  Most of the company is employees that are motorcycle enthusiasts as well as being professionals of one type or another.  Our director of Electrical Engineering is an AMA racer.  Our VP of Sales is a lifelong dirt bike rider.  A typical family vacation is to load up his trailer with a bunch of bikes and take his family out to the desert for a couple of days of bike riding.   So the company has allowed a lot of people to combine their personal passion with their work experience.  It just provides a lot of energy throughout the company.  As a company we manage it just like any other company and the professional skills that good team members bring to the table are finance, engineering, and manufacturing.  It doesn’t really change the work itself and the need to have professionals who do that work.

Mr. K: Has anything surprised you about running Zero Motorcycles – either good or bad?  Anything you didn’t anticipate at all about building the company?

Gene:  It’s a lot harder to get these bikes into production than I would have thought.  My experience is with computers and while they certainly have their own complexities the technology for getting those things into manufacturing are very well honed in a large infrastructure.  Mechanical devices are just inherently much more difficult and so we’ve been working hard on addressing those issues and we’re now into volume production.  But I would like to see that go more smoothly.  The other thing is just how regulated this industry is.  Again the computer industry is very much a free market, lots of competition, lots of competitors come and go.  The vehicle business is much more staid I would say and there’s a lot of regulations that are built up over the years.   Some of the regulations of course make lots of sense around safety and vehicle qualification to get on the road.  Those kind of regulations make a lot of sense and we worked hard to conform to them.  But there are lots of business constraining regulations in the various states that allow you to sell or not sell vehicles in certain ways based on what local legislatures have put together in response to the dealer lobbies and the manufacturer lobbies. That was surprising; just how much business constraint there is in the vehicle business around the actual mechanics of doing business – who you can sell to and who you can’t, and how you can sell and how you can’t.  That’s very different than the free enterprise environment of the computer business.

Lexy:  You and Neal Saiki seem to be a great team and a great combination of skills – critical for a startup.  How is it that you came to work together, and why do you think it’s worked out so well?

Gene:  I think that having a clear division of labor is really important and he’s got tremendous skills in design and analysis and understanding the vision of the company as a Founder.  I’m a businessman and a manager and so he does the technical vision and investigation and I do the day to day management and it works out great.  We met because Neal was pitching to a number of venture capitalists to raise money and one of them connected him up with a friend of mine to do some preliminary marketing work for him.  My friend after meeting with Neal and knowing my interests called me up and said that I should go meet with this guy Neal because he’s doing something that you’d be really interested in.  My friend set up a meeting between Neal and I and we immediately saw the advantages of working together and so I came on board.

Lexy:  What companies do you admire right now in the electric vehicle space – either cars or motorcycles?

Gene:  I admire Tesla, they paved the way for startups especially the first management team that came in and got that off the ground.  Of course they’ve had a complete turnover now.  But the original management team at Tesla really got this whole venture capital, Silicon Valley machinery in gear to go support the Green tech space and the electric vehicle space and my hats off to those guys for doing that and getting that off the ground early on.  The other company that, believe it or not, that I admire is Toyota because of the established automotive industry they’ve been working hard in this electric vehicle direction with their hybrids, with their experimental Rav 4 electric vehicle that they came out with a couple of years ago and basically put the rest of the industry on notice that they’ve got to move in this direction and that’s been very helpful.  I don’t want to say too much about the motorcycle space because those are all my competitors.  I think we need each other to build this industry.   There’s a couple of other companies out there that have gotten into production and there’s a number of companies that have announced products and have prototypes and that’s important to get this industry going.  We’ll see some of the large incumbent motorcycle companies come out with products.  Honda and Yamaha have announced small electric motorcycle projects kind of replacing the 90cc kind of bike with electric powertrains.  KTM has announced they’ll have an electric dirt bike coming out next year.  This is all going to help the momentum of this industry.

Lexy: Who’s been your most surprising customer at Zero Motorcycles?

Gene:  The most surprising customer I really can’t talk about because we’re under NDA, and I can’t quite get past that one to think about the next most surprising customer.  When we started selling the product we didn’t really know who would buy it.   As customers identified themselves by placing orders and calling us we got to know them and got to know who was interested in these products and so then we started targeting them more closely as we got to understand them. Just as these motorcycles capture peoples’ imaginations for many reasons, people also have many reasons for why they finally become owners.

Lexy:  Gene, at KissMyCountry we like to ask people about the places they love.  What are your favorite places to live or travel?

Gene:  I’m delighted to be living here in the San Francisco Bay area.  This is one of the most exciting places in the world for business. It’s  beautiful with lots of places to go in just a few hours drive whether it’s Big Sur, or Yosemite or Tahoe or it’s pretty down here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  It’s just a great place to live. A lot of fervent around business development.  That’s always very interesting. This kind of situation is unique in the world I think.  There’s so much start up activity and business ferment in a small area. For traveling I love to go to Europe, I love to go to Asia, I do love going back to Japan because I know a lot about it.  I’d like to go to Latin America, I haven’t really spent much time there, I’ve just been there a few times but look forward to it and it’s one of the places on my agenda.

Lexy: Zero Motorcycles is in Scotts Valley, California.  When people come to Scott’s Valley, where do you like to take them for a meal or for drinks?

Gene:  For lunch we’re very handy to a little shopping center around the corner where there’s a Cambodian restaurant call Jia Tella’s which is great.  There’s also a sushi restaurant called Yamamori Sushi.   For drinks down the road there’s an old hangout bar called Malone’s Grille.  That was the unofficial headquarters for Seagate Technology when they were big here and that’s a great place to hang out after work.

Lexy: We’re guessing that you spend a fair amount of time in San Francisco, a favorite city for many.   What are your favorite things to do in San Francisco?

Gene:  The city has so many great restaurants, events and beautiful locations. When I’m in San Francisco I like to take advantage of each of these.  I enjoy meeting friends at everything from a hole in the wall to the St. Francis Yacht Club where I also get to enjoy sailing on the bay and singing in the choir.  I have a boat in the Bay Area and we cruise over there once in a while and to have dinner.  I like going to the Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building.  Of course the Broadway musicals in town and of course the de Young Museum is spectacular.  Those kinds of things.

Lexy:  Gene, thank you for talking with us.  It’s exciting to talk with you and exciting to hear about Zero Motorcycles.  We’d like to come back and check with you in about six months to see how things are going.

Gene:  Alright.   Sounds great.  Thank you.

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Interview With Eben Bayer, CEO, Ecovative Design

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

”Gavin and I both really wanted to be entrepreneurs.  We felt like that was a great way to make an impact in the world.  Making the jump was a little scary though. Gavin and I both had jobs lined up.  He went to the National Laboratory designing Super colliders and I was working on humanitarian de-mining vehicles.  I actually quit my job on the first day when I got there to start work on this.  Gavin did the same a few weeks later!” – Eben Bayer, CEO, Ecovative Design

KissMyCountry interviewed Eben Bayer, CEO of Ecovative Design.   A green building company that is developing alternatives to synthetic materials, Ecovative Design is currently rolling out its first product, EcoCradle™ and has another product, Greensulate™ ready for production.  Eben talks about starting the company with his co-founder and Chief Scientist, Gavin McIntyre, goals for the future, and their most recent media hit – a mention on CSI NY!  Enjoy a very interesting discussion from Eben Bayer.
Mr. K: Eben, Ecovative Design is coming out with some exciting products.  First, tell us about EcoCradle™ natural packaging – what it is, how it saves the planet and why it’s a breakthrough product.

Eben:  Sure, well let me start with Ecovative as you said.  Ecovative is a biomaterials company.  As you know we’re located in upstate New York.  At Ecovative our vision is to replace environmentally damaging synthetics like plastics and foam.  We’re focusing initially right now on replacing expanded polystyrene or Styrofoam, which is a registered trademark of the Dow Chemical company. This material is used in everything from building construction to packaging.  About $20 billion of this material is used worldwide each year and has some pretty nasty environmental consequences.  So our vision is to not only to replace materials like that where they just don’t make sense, in places like packaging, but also to generate a whole different class of materials that are home compostable and made from agricultural byproducts.

What’s really unique about EcoCradle™  is this is a product that for the first time gives you another option instead of polystyrene in the protective packaging space.  There really isn’t any other option right now if you want to ship heavier items and have protection.  So things like televisions, tables or heavy computers can really only come in this toxic white stuff.   If you’re doing lighter products like laptops you can do bamboo packaging or molded paper pulp.  But at this weight range and product type Expanded Polystyrene is your only option.  So that’s the first thing that makes EcoCradle™ unique.   What then makes EcoCradle™ really great compared to Expanded Polystyrene is first its production.  We source agricultural byproducts from around the United States.  These are really waste products – several.  It’s not like starch foam which is made from a food product.  We’re actually using things you typically can’t even feed to cattle like cotton gin trash.  Then in production we don’t have a lot of big energy consumption because we’re actually growing this material.  We take our agricultural waste product whether it’s from rice husks or cotton byproducts.  We wet it, basically moisten the material, cook it a little bit to soften it and kill off any other organisms, and then spray it with mushroom cells.  And these mushroom cells digest the agricultural waste and form a tight, white, fluffy matrix which binds it together into a composite but also gives it a soft, white, cushiony appearance.   If you do a cradle to cradle analysis of our process and compare it to the production of a cubic foot of expanded polystyrene we require only about one tenth the energy overall if you factor in all the energy that goes into an oil refinery or a natural gas refinery.  Then the last step which makes our product really exciting is what you do with it. What do you do with your expanded polystyrene packaging when you get it?  Well, you throw it away.  So here’s a product whose lifespan is measured in thousands of years.  It literally takes thousands of years for this product to break down.  Even when it breaks down it’s really just breaking into little chunks.  It’s not going away and it’s going to find its way into our ecosystem and eventually into your body.  And styrene’s chemical precursors are classified as carcinogenic compounds.  With EcoCradle™ you have a product that totally compostable in your own backyard.  It fits right into nature’s recycling system.  So you don’t have to put it in an anerobic digester, you don’t have  to do anything special.  You can just put it in a compost pile and it will return to the earth.  Not surprisingly because it’s basically mushroom roots and seed husks.  Nature’s packaging.

Mr. K: Now, please tell us about Greensulate™ insulation – what it is, how it saves the planet and why it’s also a breakthrough product like EcoCradle™.

Eben:  For Greensulate™ it’s essentially very similar in terms of the sourcing materials.  We typically use a rice husk which is fire resistant.  So it’s a material that’s unlike conventional rigid board insulators. If you put a torch on a foamed plastic building material,  like DOW Chemicals Styrofoam, you get a pretty spectacular flame.  If you put a torch on a Greensulate™ composite made with rice husks you can actually hold it in your hand.  It won’t burn.  And then the production is pretty similar but we don’t make it into molded shapes.  We just make it into board stock.  We use a slightly different organism actually in this process which is very rot, water and mold resistant.  In fact it passes the ASTM mold test with flying colors.  It far outperforms woods like pine.  It’s still eventually home compostable but it’s actually very water resistant.  It’s more like building a home on a hard wood versus a soft wood.

Lexy: You founded Ecovative Design with Gavin McIntyre, another student at Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute.  How did you and Gavin first meet and come to work together?  How did it all begin?

Eben:  Gavin and I met basically as Freshmen at Rensselaer.  We worked on a bunch of different projects together, some projects that he initiated and some projects that I initiated.  Our senior year we both knew we really wanted to start a business and I suggested this to him and our professor, Burt Swersey. Burt was really supportive of us.  Gavin said let’s do it, man, and off we went. When we started out we went on the internet and we ordered the mushroom cells and some of the particles for our first composites.  In Gavin’s kitchen we mixed them up and we put the first samples under his bed, and some of them came out well enough for testing.

Lexy:  What made you decide to form your own company instead of working at a larger company to develop these products?  What was the benefit to doing this on your own?

Eben:  First of all we felt that to commercialize this technology we really needed to do it because it’s disruptive.  There is no manufacturing system for it, there’s no supply chain, there are no products made out of the material because it didn’t exist until we thought of it.  We couldn’t really just license this technology to another company.  Gavin and I both really wanted to be entrepreneurs.  We felt like that was a great way to make an impact in the world.  We’re a triple bottom line company which means we think of people, we think of the planet and we think of profit, and we firmly believe that the best way to make a change in our capitalist world is to come up with solutions that fit into the capitalist system but have other benefits.   In the case of EcoCradle™ or Greensulate™ there’s really extreme environmental benefits and truly great social benefits like creating markets for farmers who have these crop wastes they can’t use.  Making the jump was a little scary though. Gavin and I both had jobs lined up.  He went to the National Laboratory designing Super colliders and I was working on humanitarian de-mining vehicles.  I actually quit my job on the first day when I got there to start work on this. Gavin did the same a few weeks later!

Lexy: You and Gavin are young entrepreneurs, but both of you finished your degrees before starting Ecovative Design.  Many young entrepreneurs don’t even feel the need to complete college when they have a great idea to develop.  What value did you place on your education and finishing your degrees versus developing your ideas?

Eben:  We were both very serious about completing our degrees.  We got dual degrees, one in Mechanical Engineering and one in Product Design & Innovation, which is kind of like an Entrepreneurship program.  So in that sense finishing our degree was really supportive to starting the business.  Essentially our last year of college we were launching this business as students.  For us our degrees fit perfectly.  I have to say going to Rensselear was an incredible experience.  Not because it was a lot of fun, it was a lot of work.  It helped me to develop an incredible work ethic.  So I’m really thankful I completed my education.  It’s a great school.

Mr.K: Thinking back over the past few years, what’s something that you learned about starting your own company that you didn’t know or realize going in?

Eben:  I think the general complexity of actual business organization.  That was unexpected for us, even though we knew it was there.  We were both trained as Mechanical Engineers.  We understand and gravitate towards physical worlds and systems based on complexity like you find in an aircraft.  The actual nuances of all the pieces that make a business work were really a little overwhelming.  We were fortunate to work with great partners like the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance which trained us.  They actually gave us a 5 day crash course, run by the incredible Sharon Ballard, in ‘How do you run a business?  What’s your board of advisors look like? What’s an operating agreement?  What’s a P and L statement?  All these key components, virtual components to running a business that as an engineer you’re not aware of.

Lexy:  You’ve been great at getting noticed in some unusual ways.  Ecovative Design was featured on Planet Green’s Invention Nation last year, and Greensulate™ was featured recently on CSI NY.  That’s not only exciting but really funny – you have to tell us about CSI NY – how did that happen, and how was Greensulate™ included in the episode?

Eben:  I’ll tell you we actually do very little media outreach.  We get a lot of coverage I think because we have a really exciting product and I think people really are also excited about what it represents – replacing this toxic white stuff – expanded polystyrene.  And the CSI story is exactly in that vein.   I got a call one day from a set designer who said ‘I’m trying to make this material; it’s in the script and I can’t figure out how to make it.”  I said, well tell me about it.  He said, “It’s Greensulate™”.   And I said there’s no way you’re going to be able to make it, trust me, but I can send you some – what are you doing this for?   They told me they were doing this show, and I asked if I could see the script and it was a very positive reflection of what our material does.  And I said great we’ll provide you with all the panels you need.  We ended up sending them a number of large panels, and in the end they only had a little piece that made it on the air.  Obviously we were so thrilled to be included in a great show.  We got a huge response from that.  We had people calling in from all over the country who wanted the material and wanted to put it in their homes.  Greensulate™ is actually our second product though, in second stage full scale testing with EPA and NYSERDA.  Right now we’re shipping EcoCradle™ which is our packaging material.  We’re looking for a manufacturer to help us scale  Greensulate™ because it requires a much bigger facility than our current 10,000 square foot facility.

Lexy:  What’s next for Ecovative Design?  What do you want to make happen over the next few years?

Eben:  Our vision is to become a leader in sustainable materials, just like a Dow or a DuPont was a leader in synthetic materials over the last 100 years.  We’ve invented a product that’s somewhere between Expanded Polystrene and wood in terms of how it performs and fits into the environment.  Our mandate is to keep expanding that platform and making other products  and also extending the the platform to do other new things.  Making replacements for the hard types of plastics you see in your laptop is a long term goal but I think next you should look forward to consumer products that are made out of the same type of material as EcoCradle™ next. We have made some fun prototypes here this spring: Door stops, composters, frisbees, flower pots, and other things for the home.

Mr. K:  At KissMyCountry we like to talk about the places we love.  Which are your favorite places to live or travel?  What places do you love?

Eben:  Well I have to say I do also enjoy traveling which is fortunate considering my job here because I end up doing a lot of traveling.  But the place I love the most is Vermont, central Vermont I think is the most beautiful part of the world ever.  I love South East Asia and Europe, particularly the Netherlands, partially because have a lot of Dutch friends and supporters, but its also just an incredibly cool country.  I love all over the United States.  But Vermont in the summer – I couldn’t ask to be anywhere else.   Go to central Vermont and go and swim in the White River at Panes Beach.  And then around the United States, Colorado and Boulder.  I just had the opportunity to go down to Lubbock, Texas which was not a place I thought I’d like but it’s actually gorgeous down there and I love how open it is.

Lexy: When you really want to get away from it all what do you most like to do?

Eben:  I like to tinker.  If I can go to Vermont and do it, that’s good.  If I’m sitting in my house and I’m making a little project that’s when I’m most relaxed.

Lexy:  Green Island, New York – where Ecovative Design is located – is near Albany.   What places do you enjoy in the area?  What would you recommend to someone who is visiting or driving through?

Eben:  For an eatery I would have to recommend Browns Brewery, which we frequent a lot.  That’s just over the river in Troy.  And in terms of activities the Mohawk Hudson bike trail runs right along the river.  You can bike all the way to Albany on it.  It’s really a gorgeous thing to bike on.  You can walk on it and you can see the river and you get to see both towns.

Lexy:  We’d like to stay in touch and come back to you at a future point in time to see what’s new with Ecovative.  We really appreciate your giving us this time.  We can’t wait to see what else you guys are coming out with.

Eben:  You did a great job.  You’re really a pleasure to work with.  Thank you both.

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Interview With Jack Baron, CEO of Sweetwater – A CEO Saving the Planet

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

“I really think it’s important that the best and brightest in the colleges today should take a look at these problems.  If we can resolve the energy problem then clean water isn’t far behind.  And if you’ve got  inexpensive renewable energy worldwide, and if you have clean water, once you take those major problems away for the planet there’s a lot less to fight about.”  – Jack Baron, CEO of Sweetwater

KissMyCountry continues our ‘CEOs Saving the Planet’ series with Jack Baron, CEO of Sweetwater – a biofuels company in Rochester, New York that’s working on some exciting solutions, including a replacement for jet fuel.  Jack, best known for co-founding the telecommunications firm PAETEC, took the helm at Sweetwater to make a difference in renewable energy today.   Jack talks about the importance of renewable fuels for saving our planet, and the most interesting green technologies that people are working on today, as well as the places he loves in Rochester.  Enjoy!

Lexy:  Jack, Sweetwater is an exciting company that brings new ideas to biofuel production.   You’ve got great technology.   In layman’s terms, can you tell us a little bit about Sweetwater and your breakthrough technology?  Why are you excited, and what would you like us to know about Sweetwater?

Jack:  In a nutshell, Sweetwater has patent-pending technology that drives down energy and cost in the biofuels supply chain.  We have designed—and are now contracting to build—farm-based processors that help turn crops into biofuels less expensively than any other process we know of.  We believe that liquid fuels are a very important part of America’s fuel needs today and for the future, particularly in aviation. We’re even looking at ways we can potentially help the U.S. military in that respect, and we’re having discussions about deploying these processors around the world.

Lexy:  What motivated you to become CEO and Chair of Sweetwater?   What attracted you to biofuel and a startup company at this point in your career?

Jack:  I believe strongly that the energy issues facing the U.S. and facing mankind are arguably the most important issues facing us today.  Renewable energy technologies are, I think, the best answer, and if you look at renewable energy technologies that are widely deployed today, the real impact is almost limitless.  Besides hydro, biofuels are the largest renewable energy industry in the United States.  Over $24 billion in biofuels transactions last year.  The Renewable Fuels Association estimates all the people employed in biofuels in the country right now makes it about a $65 billion industry.  I wanted to be involved in renewable energy that was going to be extremely impactful today.  I’m involved with some folks at MIT—some early-stage solar companies, a wind company, and a high-capacitor company both from an advisory and from an investment standpoint. Those are all very interesting technologies and I think over the course of the next 20 to 25 years they will have a very real impact for the United States.  In fact the high-capacitor company I’m working with could have an impact within the next 5 years.  That said, solar is going to be a huge part of the nation’s energy future someday, but when you look at the cost per watt today it’s clear that it won’t have that impact for some time, unfortunately.  But with biofuels, the impact can be dramatic today. 

Lexy: You’ve worked in a number of industries – banking, education, communications and now biofuel.   Of all you’ve learned and experienced, what do you find yourself drawing on the most in your day-to-day management at Sweetwater?

Jack:  Number one I’m drawing on leadership skills, especially with an early stage company.  I’ve run early-stage operations, with the co-founding of PAETEC and subsequently small companies within PAETEC.  The most important skills I think for the leader are vision, pulling together an extraordinary team, and leading by example.  You can’t understate the importance of value setting and hiring the right team that can really live by those values.  That’s extremely critical.  Also I’ve had a great deal of hands-on experience with customers and customer relationship management.   On a day-to-day basis those are pretty practical skills that are useful not only for a startup but really in any company that’s trying to commercialize and serve its customers, and make a difference.

Lexy: Sweetwater is currently working with MIT and a Fortune 100 company on a replacement for jet fuel.  At KissMyCountry we are about saving the planet and enjoying the planet, so a replacement for jet fuel is very exciting.  What can you tell us about this project, and what do you plan to accomplish?  What are your goals?

Jack:  Well, we are predominantly a feedstock company.  We’re working with biomass and a variety of crop feedstocks and converting those into low-cost sugar in the cellulosic realm, as it’s called.  Part of the reason cellulosic biofuels are so attractive to the community and to the federal government is because they don’t compete with food crops and there is a logistical way to process them economically.  They represent a stable fuel—a renewable fuel that can give the nation real energy independence and security.  In the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Congress set forth the Renewable Fuel Standard I and II, which have been recently supported by Congress and by the Obama administration. It’s all about energy independence and America’s leadership in energy.  And it’s clearly about American jobs.  We’ve hired six people since December and the average salary is well in excess of $70,000. These are long-term jobs, and all the jobs, including those we are placing in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and throughout the nation, are high paying jobs.  Going back to the work with MIT;  MIT has said that among all the feedstock companies they are working with from around the world that our feedstock is the best.  And they’ve also put their money where their mouth is because they’re referring us to their Fortune 10 partners.  They would like us to be their feedstock partner in their operations around the world to make jet fuel.  There’s real urgency there because once the oil runs out, how do you fly jets?  That’s a pretty daunting problem for the world, but there are many, many applications that now use oil, such as plastics, that you might not think about, so you start to see how renewable biomass is going to become more and more crucial in the years to come.

Lexy: Besides MIT, Sweetwater is working with a number of other universities, including the University of Rochester, Cornell University, and Texas A&M.  Clearly you believe in the importance of universities to develop technologies that can be commercialized.  What are the challenges to working with universities, and what are the rewards?

Jack:  There are challenges working with universities, but the rewards I think far exceed the challenges, which is why we’re spending so much time working with them.  Probably the largest single challenge is speed; in the commercial world we tend to operate very quickly compared to universities.  Secondly, I think the issues in terms of intellectual property and ownership are always something that need to be worked out from a contractual agreement standpoint.  Fortunately, we’ve found some fantastic people at a number of these universities both in the research realm and really in the technology transfer areas. We’ve been blessed by virtue of the fact that Sweetwater owns its technology, and the universities own theirs.  For instance, Cornell University and Texas A&M are working on the crops themselves, and the University of Rochester is working on fermentation as well as comprehensive energy audits.  Rochester Institute of Technology is working on process and some of the manufacturing side of the equation with us.  And then last but not least MIT, where we’re working on what we should almost call third-generation biofuels—advanced fermentation for the manufacturing of jet fuel.

Lexy: Many young adults want to pursue Green careers after college.  What do you think will be the most important industries for Green over the next 10-15 years?  Where do you think we will see the most growth and opportunity?

Jack:  Going back to the earlier discussion, I’m in biofuels first and foremost because it has game-changing, world-wide impact today.   In fact we’re speaking with Kristine Johnson, the Undersecretary of the Department of Energy, and she believes that over the next 10 to 15 years biofuels is the number one priority behind conservation.  Different ways to conserve are of course immediately impactful.  The last time we had a really national focus on conservation was probably in the ‘70s when we went through the oil crisis. Solar was popular for a while, but of course gasoline prices went back down and the risk deteriorated.  Everyone lost sight of that unfortunately.  Another area worth getting involved in, if you’re in school right now and you’re focusing on technology, is certainly smart grid technology. It’s going to be big for probably the next 40 to 50 years, maybe even much longer than that.  Smart office, smart home, energy controls, energy awareness—anything to conserve.  And efficiently storing all that energy—some of the most interesting research going on at MIT right now involves very  large-scale storage, such as batteries the size of a house.  As storage transforms, so the grid transforms.  Scientists are trying to shrink these storage structures to something as small as your refrigerator to allow you to store solar or wind power so those intermittent energy sources can still power your home or your office or your building without interruption.  And then you get into fuel cells which are fascinating.  Fuel cells have lots of other applications that are quite interesting.  Fuel cells can be run on natural gas and landfills.  And then combined heat and power and co-generation, there’s a lot of technology going on in that space where even in office buildings you’ve got the heat from the power generator, the electric generator and all of it being recaptured and reused to cool buildings.  I think that’s fascinating.  And the last thing I’ll mention is geothermal.  That is pretty old technology believe it or not, and it’s based on pretty simple concepts of heat exchangers much like the back of your refrigerator, and it really does work.  It’s 30- or 40-year-old technology that can cool and heat your home, and I’ve got some friends who are doing just that.

Lexy: In your opinion, which are the most exciting biofuels or renewable energy companies today – the ones who truly show the greatest promise to make a difference?  If you weren’t managing Sweetwater, which companies would you want to manage or be involved with?

Jack:  As I mentioned, biofuel is probably one of the most exciting arenas.  Let me tell you the companies that I think are some of the best in the space.  I think there are very sharp people at POET and they are making ethanol at lower cost and with greater efficiency than anyone else in the world.  They have one cellulosic facility making ethanol from corn cobs called their Liberty Plant.  ADM, BP, and Valero are doing some great, progressive work. I think that many of the companies to watch are the regional biorefineries in Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota. With the large assets that they have, the large production facilities are single entities and technology like Sweetwater’s can deploy thousands of processers over the years for renewables.  From an impact standpoint one facility in Alabama for example is going to make a huge difference around Montgomery but from an impact standpoint I’d much rather be able to play on a world stage with something like Sweetwater with literally thousands or tens of thousands of locations, and impact energy production in those locations, and make energy production local.  It’s going to happen with renewable energy in general.  Historically energy has not been local.  It’s been produced by large utilities and piped to places.  We talk about the grid a fair amount, but you will see a lot of energy coming off the grid.  Sweetwater’s another example of the way that you can do that where we’re talking about ethanol or other biofuels being grown locally, processed locally, and driven and used locally.  And towns and villages will be able to grow their own fuel.

Lexy:  Sweetwater has made a great start, and you’re well poised for growth.  What’s next for Sweetwater?  What do you plan to achieve in the next 5 years?

Jack:  We’re working with our partners right now to scale the science and the economics.  Frankly over the course of the next five years as we grow it I’d like to accelerate the growth, grow faster and faster and get the solution out more broadly as time goes on.  In order to do that we’re going to need a great deal of capital.  So it’s quite likely within the next few years the company will be public, and it will be large.  How large it gets is of course based on our success.  But I would not be a bit shocked if we are well over a billion dollars within 10 years.   In fact our pro forma calls for us to be almost a $600 million company within 5.  And that is only capturing 2% of the feedstock market in biofuels.  So this is a big idea. It’s big technology and we’ll have a very large impact.

One point I wanted to make going back to your earlier question.   I was thinking about people who are in school today, thinking about green jobs.  The reason I went into this as opposed to starting up another telecom company or just going into something else where I could just make more money is that I believe that the best and brightest minds today should be working on the biggest and most important problems, and I believe that, whether the folks are in science or they’re in business.  I think if the most talented people aren’t working on the most important problems then they’re letting everybody else down.  I really think it’s important that the best and brightest in the colleges today should take a look at these problems.  If we can resolve the energy problem then clean water isn’t far behind.  And if you’ve got  inexpensive renewable energy worldwide, and if you have clean water, once you take those major problems away for the planet there’s a lot less to fight about.  I don’t think it’s going to end all wars, of course, but if you think about it, there’s a lot less to fight about if we solve those problems.

Lexy: Jack, at KissMyCountry we like to talk about the places we love.  What are your favorite places to live or travel?  What places do you love?

Jack:  We live on Irondequoit Bay, which is a bay off Lake Ontario.  It’s about five miles wide and it’s about a mile and a half wide, and it’s simply gorgeous.  And that goes to one of your last questions too which is when you visit Rochester where should you go, the first place that they should go is Irondequoit Bay.  I went to the University of Rochester and in the summers I painted houses for a living and I played in a band.  I’ll never forget the first time I was driving over the Bay Bridge and I was a junior by this time already and I’d never been to Irondequoit Bay.  I looked to the right and said my God—what is that?  I couldn’t believe it was in Rochester.  So… Irondequoit Bay.  I’m fortunate enough to live on it now.

The places I like to visit?  I’ve been in 45 states in the U.S. and quite a few places around the world as well.  I’ll just talk about in the U.S. because there are so many great places to visit in the US.  We’re planning family trips to many of the national parks over the next few years.

Lexy: Is there a place you’ve visited that surprised you in any way – either good or bad?  What surprised you about that place?

Jack:  The Midwest has really surprised me.  I’ve spent a lot of time in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska.  And what has surprised me about the Midwest, I hate to generalize or stereotype, but I’ve met some of the nicest people in the world.  The people in the Midwest are really great folks and very entrepreneurial.  I did not expect that.

Lexy: What places in Rochester do you recommend for anyone visiting there?  Where do you like to take people when they come to Rochester?  Any great spots we shouldn’t miss?

Jack:  There are the beaches on Lake Ontario.  If folks come to Rochester, especially if they come from other parts of the country and they haven’t seen the Great Lakes—the Great Lakes are simply awesome.  And to see them and see that they look much like the ocean and would remind everyone of the ocean, because it’s certainly not like a lake from anyone’s perspective.   Also, see Letchworth Park, which is called the Grand Canyon of the East. That’s just outside Rochester.  Niagara Falls is not too far away.  And then there are many cultural things that Rochester is known for as well.  There’s the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Memorial Art Gallery, and those are some of the highlights.  There’s a lot more culture than a typical city this size.  There’s the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and of course the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Rochester is a place to visit.  The Eastman School of Music is one of the top music schools in the world. Go to Eastman Theater, which is newly renovated.  It’s something that really can’t be missed.

Lexy:  Thank you so much.  We’d like to stay in touch as you grow, and we really, really appreciate you giving us so much of your time today.

Jack:  I think it’s great that you do this.  I think your questions are really spot on, they really made me think.  I really enjoyed speaking with you.  Thank you.

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Interview with Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle – Part 2

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

“What I think is really special about the US is the way the US encourages business and then is not shy of failure.   Probably the latter being more important than the former.” – Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO, TerraCycle

KissMyCountry continues Part 2 of our interview with Tom Szaky, following Part 1 posted earlier this week.  Today we hear Tom talk about his positive views of America as a place for entrepreneurs to succeed, his connections to other countries, and the places he loves.  Enjoy!

Lexy:  You’re originally from Hungary.  Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics often call on successful émigrés for advice and sometimes even political appointments.  Any phone calls or emails from the Hungarian government?  Have they recognized you or reached out in any way?  What about Canada? 

Tom:  No, not yet.  In time I’m sure it will happen, you never know, but not yet.  But there has been recognition.  Let’s see, last year I won the Hungarian–American of the Year award.  That’s happened.  We have offices in Canada and all these countries and we are there in some capacity with people and there are local jobs and all that.  People understand and just want more of the programming and that’s what we try to focus on and bring out as many additional options as possible.  Keep checking in and hopefully it will keep coming.

Mr. K: You’ve been very positive about America, especially when it comes to business.  The business world is globalizing.  In your opinion, is America still a land of opportunity when opportunity seems to be moving to other parts of the globe?   What does America offer to entrepreneurs in a global business environment? 

Tom:  Oh, by far.  By far there’s not even a close second still.  There may be down the line.  What I think is really special about the US is the way the US encourages business and then is not shy of failure.   Probably the latter being more important than the former.  There’s a good book out there, something about the Immigrant Entrepreneur I think is what it’s called, and it talks about how in foreign countries the rate of entrepreneurship is very low.  For example in Germany if you open a business and fail you can’t open another one.  You’re barred.  To fail here is no big deal, it’s not a big deal to have failed and gone on and started something else.   I don’t think anyone would look down at that.  One of the reasons TerraCycle has been able to go global so fast is because of leveraging the multinationals, and the fact that they’re global makes it incredibly easy for us to open globally as well.  So there’s this irony of globalization having actually helped us grow in a very, very big way.  But really if you look at it the real virtue of the United States is its ability to support business in every way, from how incorporations are done, to how money is raised, the culture of it.  That’s the key is the American culture is all about, it almost defines itself in a way by the ability to live the American dream which I think is to start a business and become really rich.  That’s one way to look at it, and that probably may be the more stereotypical way.

Mr. K: At KissMyCountry we talk about the places we love.  Tom, you’re from Hungary and Canada, and your company is in New Jersey.  That’s a lot of places to be connected to.  What are some of your favorite places?  Where do you love?

Tom:  That’s a great question.  One of my favorite places is Holland.  It’s one of my favorite countries in the whole world.  From the little subtleties – like for example there’s a bike road beside every main road, it’s built like a normal road, things like that.   The people there are unbelievable.  So I think first Holland would be up there and then Brazil is something that’s become amazing recently.  We’ve been very blessed by having an office there and moreover being able to spend more time there.

Mr. K:  Is there a place you’ve been that surprised you in any way – good or bad?  Why?

Tom:  I’ll actually hold on the bad.  There has been bad but I don’t want to knock a country negatively.  The good is really in developing countries we were incredibly surprised by how much more the people are into business.  We thought it would be very difficult to get going and the whole thing, and it was amazing.  So Brazil was a great case study and we were actually encouraged in Brazil because we thought it would be a much harder road to climb and there are obviously bigger issues than saving a wrapper and so on.

Lexy: You seem to appreciate urban areas and urban life, and accept things about cities – like graffiti – that most people want to change.   That’s interesting.  What about urban life appeals to you?

Tom:  I think that what really strikes me about especially the American inner city is how it’s all opportunity really.  It can only go up, it’s very hard for it to go down and it’s just an amazing opportunity for business.  And what I love is when you can do something – this is what makes it even more compelling – because when you can do something and make total financial sense, even almost more than normal, but then still do the right thing – help society, help the environment, then it’s the ultimate and you can’t lose.  And I love that that opportunity exists right here in Trenton, which is an hour away from New York City, an hour away from Philadelphia.  It’s not even in the middle of the country, in some random city.  It’s right here.

Lexy:  TerraCycle is in Trenton, New Jersey and you’ve lived and worked in New Jersey for a number of years.  Do you have some favorite places in New Jersey?  What about Trenton?  Any suggestions for someone visiting or passing through?

Tom:  In Trenton one of the things to always do is pizza and there’s a little joint famous for its pizza.   It’s called De Lorenzo’s and it’s really world famous.  I’ve tried pizza all over and if you’re in Trenton you have to treat yourself.  You have to try De Lorenzo’s.  I’d stick with pizza in Trenton.

Lexy:  Tom, thank you very much.  It’s exciting for us to have had the chance to talk with you, and we’re hoping to stay in touch with you. 

Tom: Very, very nice to meet you and nice to talk to you guys.

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Interview with Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle – Part 1

Monday, March 29th, 2010
“I love the fact that I can make money and help the planet at the same time.  But making money is number one and that drives everything else.  It’s just been a blessing really to find a model where it really clicks together in that way.” – Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO, TerraCycle
 
 KissMyCountry had the opportunity to talk with Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle, which manufactures products from non-recyclable waste.  It’s a fascinating and exciting company that reflects the energy, creativity and commitment of Tom Szaky and his team.  Enjoy this frank and information-filled conversation with a true business genius who is committed to saving the planet.  This is Part 1 of a 2-part interview.  In Part 1, Tom talks about his early years as an entrepreneur and the growth of TerraCycle into a company with endless possibilities.  Enjoy!
 
In April, TerraCycle will have over 60 products featured in the front of all 3500 Walmart stores nationwide – alongside the original products that provide the packaging for their upcycled items.  Don’t miss this unique chance to see the creativity of TerraCycle in action.  To learn more about the company, take a look at KissMyCountry’s recent review of Tom Szaky’s book, ‘Revolution in a Bottle’.
 
Lexy:  Tom, it’s an honor.  You’ve done what many dream of – starting a company at a young age and making it a huge success.  ‘Revolution in a Bottle’ talks about the challenges you faced, and how you simply kept going despite setbacks.  It’s a great story.  But lots of college freshman have an idea, and lots fail.  Why did you succeed when so many do not?   Is it really as simple as not giving up? 

Tom: I did fail actually earlier on.  I started six businesses that all failed before TerraCycle.  I think it’s most likely when you start a business especially as a young person – and maybe as an older person, but definitely as a younger person you’re just going to fail.  The trick is just doing it again and again and again.  And doing it as long as you’re excited about it, doing it as long as it’s something really interesting and exciting.  But failure comes first and it comes big.
 
Lexy: TerraCycle has created a huge network of people, many of them schoolchildren, connected to the company through your Brigades.  They collect the trash you upcycle and earn money, but they also learn about business and work in the meantime.   What do you want schoolchildren to learn about business by being part of your Brigades? 

Tom:  I think that they can make a difference.  The big thing with the environmental movement and green in general is that it almost feels like it’s too big for an individual, especially a child, to really make a difference.  Who knows how much of a difference whether it’s a juice pouch or a candy wrapper that’s going to be saved from a landfill, but it is a difference.  I think that ability is something really important.  Having the product that they’re literally helping to build end up in major significant retailers all across the country really shows them that they are a part of a process.  And I think that’s the beginning of getting excited about potentially building a process like this on your own, whatever it may be. 

Lexy:  You’ve built a great base of loyal TerraCycle supporters through this program.  Do you have any plans for keeping your Brigades connected to TerraCycle as they grow older?

Tom: Sure.  If you look at our total demographic each waste stream we collect has a different type of consumption and a different type of collection.  If you look at certain waste streams like juice or candy or chips that’s primarily schools, and we are now into over 40,000 schools and that’s a pretty big number.  With that said we also have coffee waste streams, it’s all offices.  Depending on the waste stream it completely depends on where people collect, and I think that what will happen is that as an elementary school student you get older and when you get to high school maybe you’ll start collecting energy bars, maybe it’s yoghurt.  It all depends not so much where people are but what they consume is what they end up collecting.  And as long as they can keep in that mindset of collecting, we win.

Mr. K:  You’ve said you’re not an environmentalist, which some might find surprising.  What do you mean by that?  How is an EcoCapitalist like yourself not an environmentalist?

Tom:  The way I’m not an environmentalist is that my consumption is representative of the average.  I think that at this point the average does care a little bit more about the environment than it used to.  The average does maybe look at an organic product a little bit more than it used to before.  That is how I view myself because my goal is to change the average.  I love the fact that I can make money and help the planet at the same time.  But making money is number one and that drives everything else.  It’s just been a blessing really to find a model where it really clicks together in that way.  But I think that if you come to it without money as your primary goal then you risk not being able to scale because you need profit to be able to scale pretty quickly.  And if you don’t have profit then you may end up in the position that a lot of non-profits are in which are doing fantastic work but don’t have the ability to become a global entity.
 
Mr. K: Tom, you’re a very creative entrepreneur.  You’ve built a unique company and brought a lot of new ideas to the CPG world.  Many people admire you for good reason.  But who are your heroes and who do you draw inspiration from when it comes to business?
 
Tom:  That’s a good question.  Some of the people who I look up to are obviously the guys in the space that have succeeded whether it’s Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry’s or Gary Hirshberg from Stonyfield.    These guys have built a couple hundred million dollar businesses and that’s amazing.  And they’ve built it within a twenty or twenty-five year span.  And then also the big thinkers in the green space like Paul Hawken who wrote ‘Natural Capitalism’ – that was a really inspirational book for me when I began.  These are the types of things that I really like seeing and draw good energy from.
  
Mr. K: Lots of people talk about upcycling but you’ve brought it to new levels at TerraCycle.   Of your many products which one or two are your favorites?

Tom:  I’ll absolutely tell you.  The important thing of course is you know I’m a 28-year old male so that’s my mind set and how I look at these products.  It all depends on who you ask.  The things I really like are the bag we make for Target called the ReTote which is the first time plastic bags have been really put into a new product and upcycled and that was a really exciting one.  For me the material in there is something I really like.  Our first plastic product we’re launching hits the shelves in April and that’s something I’m looking forward to.  Usually on our web site or in general we do a lot of branded products.   But with the volume of waste we’re collecting we can’t do that all – the amount of juice pouches we collect are over a million a week just from consumers -  and there’s not enough demand in the world for that many juice pouch tote bags.  But we’ve been able to turn a lot of these waste streams into plastics and so you’re going to see a cooler launching very soon that’s made from 100% chip bags and that’s a very exciting piece as well that we’re very jazzed about.

Lexy:  You’ve also been a pioneer in Sponsored Waste, another great concept and an example of your skill at partnering with CPG giants.  What are some of your most successful Sponsored Waste relationships?  Why are they such a success? 

Tom:  What makes a sponsored waste relationship a success is the brand really getting behind it, and then time.  It’s sort of funny, you just need time.  Without time it’s impossible to get scale. So if you look at some of our biggest programs which I would put synonymous with successful in this case, Capri Sun’s a very big one.  With Capri Sun we’ve donated almost a half a million dollars to charity just directly on that program.  We’ve collected hundreds of millions of pouches, I think around 38,000 million in the US alone.  And now that program has expanded into Canada, we have the Koolaid which is the Capri Sun of Canada and they’ve opened up, and we’ve also expanded into Latin America with Tang.  In Mexico and Brazil we collect Tang which is basically the equivalent of Capri Sun.   That program is almost our gold standard if you will for scale.  It’s also been around for four years so that’s why time is important.  Some of the programs that are coming up that I think will turn into that sort of program is chip bags with Frito Lay.  That program has done incredibly well and is now also in Brazil with the biggest chip brand there called Elma Chips in Brazil but Frito Lay owns the company.  What else?  Mars with candy wrappers, that’s one that’s looking at that too.  It’s basically ones where the brands really expand.  On the flip side what I find the most interesting from a personal, maybe professional position are the really unique crazy ones.  We’re now working with a feminine hygiene company to collect the tampon wrapper but also the used tampon applicator.  That’s going to launch hopefully soon.   That’s a pretty interesting one from a challenge perspective.  We’re working with a big razor blade company on collecting used razor blades.  Now you’re talking sharps, blood, all sorts of unique things that make it a little bit more challenging. 

Lexy: Where do you see upcycling and Sponsored Waste going for TerraCycle?  The possibilities seem endless.   Do you see TerraCycle sticking with consumer packaged goods, or might you move into other areas like housing or automotive? 

Tom:  I agree with you for sure.  It is absolutely endless.  Our goal now is to expand into as many countries as possible.  We’re now operating in five – the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and the UK.  I hope to open six or seven more countries this year.  The main are going to be in Europe with Argentina the one exception.  Either way we’re really focused on growth, scale and getting as many waste streams as possible.  That’s our goal is to try to become the equivalent of recycling for everything – and at that scale – that is non-recyclable or hard to recycle.  And so far, so good.  That’s what we’re driving towards and everything is thumbs up.  It’s different what TerraCycle is known for with the public and what actually happens.  One example that surprises a lot of people is that this year we’re projecting that about only 15-20% of our total volume will be the branded type products, while 80% will be turned into plastics and more materials.  They’ll still be turned into consumer products – like a TerraCycle trash can if you will.  We are collecting the suits that people wear every day, and hair nets, beard nets that are disposable and thrown out every day.  Medical waste is another one that we’re starting to talk about collecting disposable devices from hospitals.  So there’s a huge opportunity on the industrial side too.  It  just may not be as talked about as collecting juice pouches from schools. 
A very exciting program is coming up in April that will be a new direction for Sponsored Waste. In all 3500 Walmart stores nationwide, TerraCycle will have over 60 products featured in the front of the store. The upcycled products will be co-displayed with the original products that provide the packaging for our upcycled items. So tote bags made from Frito-Lay wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips and backpacks made from Capri Sun drink pouches will be sold next to boxes of the popular juice. One of the newest items will be purses and shoulder bags for teens and adults made from popular Mars candy wrappers like M&M’s and Skittles. This program is great because it helps to show consumers what we are doing. When parents go to buy stuff for their kid’s lunches they will see how we use the packaging and how they can get involved!

This is Part 1 of a 2 part interview with Tom Szaky, and we hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about Tom, his ideas about how to save the planet, and his plans for TerraCycle.  We’ll take a pause here and pick up again on Thursday, April 1 to hear more about Tom’s strong support of America as the best place for entrepreneurs to flourish, his connections with other countries, and the places he loves.  Join us! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Review of ‘Revolution in a Bottle’ by Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

“The only way to prepare is to make sure that you’re ready to bounce back when something knocks you to the floor.”  – Tom Szaky, ‘Revolution in a Bottle’

‘Revolution in a Bottle’ by Tom Szaky is about the growth of TerraCycle, and Tom takes us from his ‘aha’ moment, his first ideas, his many challenges, and on to growing TerraCycle into one of the most exciting companies on the packaged goods landscape today.   It’s one of the best business books around – not just because it’s interesting and humorous, but because it’s filled with really good, original ideas.  Tom wanted the book to read like a novel, and he succeeded.  It’s a great story.  There’s a likable hero, suspense, drama, humor and a happy ending.  Can’t wait for the movie version, hopefully filmed in Toronto, Princeton and Trenton where it all started.

Entrepreneurs should read this book and keep it near their pillow at night.  Tom is honest about what it takes to build a brand, and entrepreneurs will find Tom’s story comforting during their own uphill battles.  He starts with a very good idea but it’s a long haul before the idea amounts to anything.  The rest is hard work, luck, getting up again and again, more hard work, meeting the right people, making the most of any opportunity, building on what succeeds, trying something different when it doesn’t and – oh yeah – more hard work.    And Tom’s not afraid to talk about the wrinkles along the way, and not afraid to show us that when things do work out it’s not because of brilliance or perfection, it’s about things working out – for now. 

There’s great humor in this book and entrepreneurs will enjoy – and recognize – the moments when a sense of humor goes a long way.  My personal favorite is when a TerraCycle receptionist, faced with a  line of hundreds of applicants for a handful of jobs, promptly quits.  Tom’s colleague, Robin Tator, looks at Tom and says, “You know, I bet you there’s a receptionist out in that line somewhere.”  Bouncing back and moving ahead.

Tom’s a business genius, and a business genius like Tom doesn’t come along very often.  He’s created a company with endless possibilities – great products made from non-recyclable trash, millions of people in towns, schools, and other organizations collecting items and sending them in, working with the largest consumer product companies in the world.  He connects with other leaders in the green business world – Seth Goldman at Honest Tea, Gary Hirshberg at Stonyfield Farm – and leaders in the Fortune 100 world – Walmart, Pepsico, Mars.  There’s really nothing else like TerraCycle, and it’s just beginning.  Put your popcorn in the microwave; this is going to be great.

I think of Walt Disney when I think of Tom – both true originals.  Disney changed family entertainment, and he did it by creating his own magical world and inviting everyone in.  Tom does this too –his world is one of great products at a great price, new products every day made from non-recyclable waste, making the discarded into things that are useful and good.  It’s magic too.  Disney started with a mouse and the Mouseketeers, Tom started with worms and has the Brigades.  And, like Disney, he’s building a generation of loyal fans, plus saving our planet at the same time.  So enjoy the book, enjoy the success of TerraCycle, and enjoy Tom Szaky and his genius.  We’ve seen the first chapter of something more – much more – to come.

KissMyCountry will post a two-part interview with Tom Szaky next week on 3/29/10 and 4/1/10, talking with Tom about TerraCycle, saving the planet and the places he loves – including a favorite spot in Trenton.  Enjoy!

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An Interview with Roger Bayley – Millenium Water and Building the First Sustainable Olympic Village

Monday, February 15th, 2010

“I’m a little bit of a pirate at heart and I like to have the more than occasional adventure.  This context of sustainable development is a whole new realm.  All of us are pushing the edge of opportunity.”
- Roger Bayley

Roger Bayley is the Design Manager of Millenium Water, the Southeast False Creek 2010 Olympic Village – Vancouver. Millenium Water is also the first Gold LEEDTM certified sustainable neighborhood in Canada, and one of the few in North America.  Developed by Millenium SEFC Properties Ltd., following the 2010 Olympics, Millenium Water will welcome permanent residents, and become an ongoing community in Vancouver.

Roger Bayley also spearheaded The Challenge Series, an online book detailing the conception and construction of Millennium Water.  It’s an amazing tale of a city and a group of professionals dedicated to sustainable living, and the steady and unique combination of talent, cooperation and circumstance that brought this plan to life.

KissMyCountry had the opportunity to speak with Roger Bayley just days before the Vancouver Olympics.  We invite you to enjoy hearing Roger talk about Millennium Water, about Vancouver, and about the places he loves.

Lexy:  Millennium Water is an extremely unique and complex project – far more ambitious than most Athletes Villages built for the Olympics.  Is this the first Olympic Village designed and built to be a permanent neighborhood?  What examples or roadmaps from previous Olympics did you use for your planning?

Roger:   I think other groups have built facilities that have been used after the Olympics.  Most have focused on facilities at universities, dorm type facilities, or affordable housing.  I think this is the first time that someone has focused on building something that will be brought to market.  We focused on what makes a sustainable community, and what we needed for a sustainable community.  We didn’t focus on previous Olympic Villages – although the Olympics made it happen by setting a schedule and timetable that made everyone work together to make it happen.

Lexy:  The Athletes Village is a very special place during the Olympics, and you’ve had a big hand in creating that special place for 2010.  What are you thinking and feeling right now, knowing the athletes will soon be living there?

Roger:  I’m very proud of the work we’ve done, and everyone involved is very proud of what we’ve done.  I’m a little humbled by the opportunity and when I think back over how I got involved I kind of stumbled into it.  We had a lot of support from The Millennium Group, a lot of support.  The athletes will be coming soon, and when they roll in – when the world rolls in – I think they’ll be impressed.

Lexy:  What do you think is the most creative sustainable feature of the Village?

Roger:  Pretty much everything we’ve done is something that someone has done before on an individual building, so the key issue here is the integration of everything together.  We wanted to create a better environment for people with less resource use and a reduced carbon footprint.  All of the pieces had to fit together.  Everybody got together, and worked together.  Decisions about energy affected decisions about heating, and decisions about heating affected the types of walls we built.  It was this way with every aspect of the design.  In the end we reduced energy consumption by at least 50%. And 65% of the heating comes from a waste energy source – the main Vancouver sewer line!   

Lexy: What might people find surprising when it comes to the sustainability of the Village?

Roger:  They’ll be surprised when they see the sign by the toilets telling them not to drink the toilet water.  We are not actually known for drinking toilet water in Vancouver! – unlike our cats and dogs.  And they’ll be surprised when they realize they have a device on their wall telling them in dollar terms how much money they are spending on energy.  I hope this encourages them to be up for the challenge – to realize the costs and adjust their behavior accordingly.

Lexy:  Do you have any advice for future Design Managers of the Athletes Village?  What would you like to pass on from your experience to those involved in the 2012 or 2014 Olympics?

Roger: Try and imagine what is going to come after the Games – how what you build will be used after the Games – and move the environmental bar a little higher.  The Olympics provide the opportunity to redefine your environment.  It gives you the opportunity to look at your environment in a new way and actually realize your creativity and innovation in a very compressed time frame.

Lexy:  Of course a busy and talented person like yourself is always thinking about their next project.   What are your plans following the Olympics?

Roger:  I’ve just been commissioned by Environment Canada to do a sustainable environmental project in Tianjin, China – in a sustainable city that is being built for 350,000 people.  Canada is sponsoring the design work for a Center there.  It’s very exciting.  And I’ll also be following up on The Challenge Series.  I’d like to take the knowledge we’ve gained here and push it out into the broader marketplace.  In February I’m making a series of presentations in South Korea at a conference on building, then I’ll be back to China in March, and in May I’ll be in Kuala Lumpur.  The Challenge Series is not highly technical yet it is engaging, and gives a background on what the issues are when developing a sustainable community

Lexy: At KissMyCountry we talk about saving the planet and enjoying the planet.  What places in the world do you most enjoy and love?

Roger:  I grew up on a very large sheep farm in New Zealand in the middle of nowhere.  So that’s in my DNA, and I love the rivers and the mountains, and love to be there.  I enjoy China too – there’s a frenetic pace and a feeling of optimism, and that’s great to be around.  I’m a little bit of a pirate at heart and I like to have the more than occasional adventure.  This context of sustainable development is a whole new realm.  All of us are pushing the edge of opportunity.

Lexy:  Very soon you’ll have lots of new visitors to Vancouver.  What would you like people to know about Vancouver as they prepare to visit?

Roger:  I’d really like them to feel the relationship between the water and the land, and the attention the City has paid to public amenities throughout the urban environment.  I’d like them to walk down Carrall Street from Gastown to Chinatown through the new urban greenway that runs through three downtown communities.  The city has spent a significant amount of money on creating this greenway.  It’s a very interesting social experiment and it’s just recently opened.  It’s in the heart of a gritty part of Vancouver.  So walk down Carrall Street and see what you think.

Lexy: We’re guessing that you’ve been too busy to get away for a vacation, but are you planning some time to relax after the Olympics?  Where will you go?

Roger:  Both of my children are getting married in July within two weeks of each other!  My son is getting married in Hawaii so I guess I’m going to Hawaii.  My daughter’s getting married in Vancouver. I also have trips planned to China, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Roger, we know that your travels are just beginning.  We’d like to stay in touch as you travel to China for your new project, and all over Asia to spread the word about Millennium Water, and hear how all of this unfolds!

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