The Beginning – well almost!

I was born in the City of Richmond in Feb of 1967.  For the first two years of my life …. Just kidding, we will not go that far back!

I grew up in the 1970’s & 80’s in a small farming community on the east side of Richmond, BC.   Blueberry fields and horse stables surrounded me. 

There were few (none) influences in my neighbourhood that could be identified with the idea of living in a way that reduced ones impact on this planet.  I shudder today at many of the activities of my youth (like many of the neighbours, I disposed used automotive oil down various holes on the property and burned plastic & tires to get yearly rubbish fires going).  I was surrounded by farmers that sprayed chemicals on their fields to ‘cure’ whatever was ailing them.  The spray plane diving beneath the power lines each spring was always an event to be watched.  I also treated most items in my youth as disposable instead of looking after them to make them last.

However, the property I lived on did have a focus on nature and surroundings that encouraged nature (we were not farmers and had 2 acres of which one was undeveloped birch threes and the other was vegetable and flower gardens with waterfalls and a fish pool).  Without realizing it at the time, I was being exposed to great solar design (deciduous Birch trees on the south elevation that kept us cool in the summer yet allowed the light and heat through in the winter).  But the words Carbon Footprint, Eco Design, Sustainable Building were part of a language I would not speak for another 25 + years.

I had always enjoyed construction and from as early an age as 6-8, I could be found on construction sites ‘helping out’.  I also always experienced great satisfaction with creating something out of a few sticks of wood, and my forts growing up were always a marvel - until of course the rats evicted me :-).  At this young age, I was even aware of lapping wall components to be water tight.

In high school, I found myself pulled towards all things construction and geared my curricular activities towards a career in home construction.  It was in high school that I also started to design my ‘dream house’ and worked on the concept from grade 9 thru 12.  I built a scale model in Grade 11 & 12 and frantically worked in drafting to keep my design progress up to my scale model building pace.

It was in grade 11 that I also developed another character trait.  I wanted to do things right and refused to work with other students that were not taking the program seriously (in my view).  SO, I on many projects elected to not take a partner.  The end result was usually that what got down was done very well, but the project often did not get finished because it took me twice as long to complete things with 50% of the manpower.  But that did not matter to me; I knew it was done right and my marks typically reinforced this.  I also often learned even more during the process by solving project hurtles on my own.  The process taught me to be resourceful and efficient.

Best of all, I learned that I would not compromise on doing things the way I felt they needed to be done.