I'm delighted to be starting my new position as the Operations Coordinator for Green Hammer, a sustainable design-build B Corp in Portland, OR in the New Year!
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that you've bid farewell to the highs and lows of 2017 and are full of new aspirations and inspirations for 2018!
The weeks between Winter Solstice and New Years Day are often reflective time for me anyhow, but that's been especially true for me this year. For one thing, I have my new spouse to dream and scheme with. Isha and I have been making our lists and checking them twice as we identify our goals, what we're going to commit to, and what we're going to let go.
The other big life change this year is that I am delighted to be starting a new job as the Operations Coordinator for Green Hammer tomorrow! If the name Green Hammer sounds familiar, it may be because you've heard of their high-performance, sustainably-focused commercial and residential design and build projects.
Then again, if you're not from around here, the Green Hammer name may seem familiar because I've talked about them before. Green Hammer was the designer for The Breathe Building, a commercial adaptive reuse project that I worked on. The Breathe Building is an Earth Advantage certified yoga studio, wellness center, and cafe in SE Portland. I served as the Project Engineer and Sustainability Coordinator for the project while I was building my first tiny house, The Lucky Penny. I've also profiled some of Green Hammer's projects through the ADU Case Studies Project.
Green Hammer utilizes a Unified Design-Build Process to create sustainable residential and commercial projects. For the past six months I've been on a contract with Green Hammer to consolidate materials for their UDBP, including reworking the UDBP Guide and developing a toolkit of resources and templates. I'm excited to continue this work in my new role as Operations Coordinator in addition to getting more boots-on-the-ground experiences through special assignments. My first special assignment is to serve as the Project Engineer for an exciting senior living community. I look forward to sharing more as I dig into the project!
The more I've gotten to know Green Hammer over the past few months the more impressed I've become by this incredible team and the work they're doing! For the past fifteen years Green Hammer has been a leader among triple-bottom-line companies in Portland. They've focused on transforming the built environment (and how we do business in general) to be sustainable for the long run. Green Hammer is a Benefit Corporation (B Corp), so it's a splendid values alignment and I'm very pleased to be joining the team!
Of course, dedicating time and energy to Green Hammer means I'm going to be scaling back my work through Niche Consulting considerably. My e-courses, custom tiny house designs, Package Deal, and build blitzes are all on hiatus now. (You may have also noticed that I'm not working with the Tiny House Collaborative anymore. I resigned my position there last summer in the midst of wedding prep and the remaining members have decided to dissolve the company. Big life changes for all of us over the past couple years!) Through Niche I'll still be teaching awesome small space design and build workshops through Yestermorrow and Portland Community College. I'll also do consultations by phone, Facetime, and in-person as time allows. Check out my website, Niche Consulting, for more info if you're interested in workshops or consultations. And, of course, since I'm living in T42 at Going Places, I'll still have plenty of tiny house and tiny house community adventures ahead of me.
As I make this transition I'm sending very best wishes to every one of you as you enjoy settling into the new year! Cheers to 2018!