Why Am I Posting Here?

Why am I posting here? I have many passions. This is where they collide. 

I love: 

• Building Community / Fostering Connection (People)
• Sustainability / Climate Resilience (Planet)
• Real Estate Development - Incremental / Sustainable / Local (Place)
• Creating Pathways to Prosperity Through Financial / Job / Business Education (Process)
• Doing the Right Thing / Doing Good / Giving Back / Contributing (Passion)

Maybe you agree with me that having a good place to live and work with people doing good things for our community and our planet is an idyllic vision. How we see and pursue our personal mission will come in many flavors and varieties. This is where my convivial journey is unfolding as I consider and discover how I can contribute.

Some areas I'm exploring at this moment (2021) include:

• Building with sustainable / healthy products, particularly with hempcrete/hemplime (USHBA), mycelium, and natures products. Digging into biomimicry and works such as Michael Pawlyn's and understanding Healthy Product Declarations such as HPDC and Red2Green options.
• Incremental Development with the likes of the Incremental Development Alliance, Strong Towns, CNU, Small Build Coalition (Portland/Metro), Main Street America, etc. with some focus on the revitalization, missing middle, pocket neighborhoods, building community prosperity through local development and redevelopment.
• Workforce development, entrepreneur development, financial education comes in so many forms. Think of Oregon Tradeswomen, Pass-it-Forward, Portland Youth Builders, Constructing Hope, Mercy Corps NW, Equity Development Lab, The Bridge, Jumpstart, and others. 
• Bringing Silver to the table. There are many people over 60 or 70 or 80 that still have so much to contribute and some are sitting on the sidelines. Our culture isn't taking advantage of these gifts.  How do we bring our elders back into the mix?  What changes can we make in our businesses to bring them back to the office / field? It's not just about a tight labor market, it's about bringing those skills and knowledge - especially in construction, back to develop our next generation. 

Will you join me on this adventure? I'd love to connect with people with similar interests.