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Anyone can talk a big game. It seems that in the name of public relations, lots of business leaders are talking up green initiatives, corporate responsibility and the importance of a welcoming in-office environment. It all sounds good, but does it ever really play out in day-to-day operations?
I’ve always thought that corporate culture goes far beyond philosophy. It’s about application and tangible execution when possible. That was top of mind as we made plans for our new campus. We tried to make every detail speak to who we are as a company. The conference table, a focal point of our largest gathering place, was no exception.
Throughout my career, I’ve sat at many a conference table. It seems most are rectangular, a shape requiring someone to sit at the head, “in charge.” A round table would support a “team” atmosphere, but is inefficient for the number of chairs accommodated to its size. This led us to choose a square design—it’s efficient and puts us all on equal footing.
With that decided, I commissioned my friend Tom Church and his wife Susan to design and construct the piece. I requested our table be made from Red Bald Cypress we salvaged from swampland on a project in Florida. The Churches came from Tennessee to collect the wood.
Tom was kind enough to call a few weeks later to let me know he’d come up with a layout for us to discuss. Over the years, I have learned that one should never tell the artist how to paint the painting. I knew Tom had a unique eye for design, a gift of craftsmanship and patience of task. I gave him free reign on the finished product and signed off without seeing a single drawing.
The result was beyond my expectations. The real beauty of the table lies in the way it was put together. The Red Bald Cypress is exceptional, and the craftsmanship equally superb. It was obvious that Tom and Susan devoted a great deal of time to the detail of the design, from the seemingly flawless surface to the curvature of the edges to the solidity of the support. All is in arts and crafts style, hand-assembled with pegs.
While the table is attractive to the eye, the message lies in its components. I found huge significance in Tom’s decision to incorporate two cracked boards. Rather than discard the flawed wood, he reinforced it with burl walnut so that those two boards could be used in the table along with the others. Every time I see the table I am reminded that none of us is perfect and we require a little mending from time to time. With the support of others, we form a solid team.
What are you doing to bolster your team? If you’re talking the talk, are you walking the walk? I encourage you to live your corporate philosophy. We continue to see the benefits. Mementos around the office—like our table—are reminders not only of who we are, but what we can be.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
Last week when I was at the University of the South, Sewanee, I traveled through the new Spencer Wing of Woods Laboratories on the campus. I found myself in the Forestry Department in front of a plaque that reads “Restoring Our Forest,” with the subtitle “Importance of fire in the forest communities.”
It goes on to explain the benefit of flames. When fire strikes a wooded area, the species living there adapt to survive, often using the disturbance to their advantage. If the flames are suppressed, it can actually hurt the adapted species. It’s an intriguing concept. The very thing that tears a forest down is essential to maintaining it.
I couldn’t help but think of the times we are in. The last couple of years have been difficult, challenging and devastating to some. It feels like the blaze is rising high around us, but I believe we will be just like the species of the forest community. We will survive, adapt and find a competitive advantage in our experiences. Until the fire is extinguished, I’ll be thinking about how it can help my team evolve.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
Last week, I attended the Cahaba River Society’s (CRS) annual meeting. I’ve been a board member for about a year now. The Society protects our beautiful river and facilitates public conversations about environmental well-being.
While the CRS still focuses much of its energy on the River and its basin, it is also evolving into something much greater and more important from my perspective, and that is the business of “water education.” Without quality water, there’s not much life. The health and abundance of our water supply has immeasurable impact on our environment, both now and for future generations. It seems vital that we teach the public how to protect this resource.
Unfortunately, environmental campaigns are often politically charged and met with equal parts support, resistance and apathy. As the organization grows and matures, I’ve seen the CRS learn better ways of being collaborative in efforts to deal with those who might disagree. They are listening, being transparent and stating operations clearly. I have always found that if two sides are opposed, as long as there is a sliver of agreement, some kind of compromise can be reached. This has rung true for the CRS as they deal with local businesses and the public.
This meeting focused on educating about the environmental impact of storm water. Both as a conscious citizen and as a builder, I found these lessons valuable and thought I’d share takeaways here:
• How we build our communities and deal with storm water today will determine the kind of rivers we have forever.
• If proper designs are not put in place, the increased runoff from development will degrade water quality, increase flooding, collapse riverbanks, impoverish the river’s diverse life, and make our drinking water more expensive and scarce.
• A natural forest absorbs rain like a sponge, replenishing groundwater and keeping our rivers clean and flowing, even in droughts. Maybe we begin to think about fewer hard surfaces and single points of discharge.
• Designers might consider concepts of low impact development and green infrastructure – rain gardens, permeable paving, green roofs, cisterns – practices that use rain as a resource, infiltrating and reusing it.
• Low-impact development tries to keep as much water as possible on site so that it can be infiltrated to replenish groundwater or harvested and reused in a manner that reduces the use of treated municipal water.
• It’s important to get involved with municipalities and storm water partners to nurture a working relationship for a unified voice to the policy changes needed to protect us all. Would you consider using this knowledge to better the environment? More importantly, would you please share what you’ve learned with others? Simplistic as it may sound, together we can make a difference.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) systems have evolved and gotten better with technology. Matching system requirements with the need and with quality will always trump the bells and whistles. Over the years I have worked with a number of HVAC subcontractors and a few thoughts come to mind that might be useful:
SYSTEM ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Depending on the application and occupancy, a higher SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) for equipment is preferable most of the time. A higher the SEER means more expensive equipment, but the lower operating cost is a win for energy and your occupants.
SYSTEM MAINTENANCE
When selecting the right HVAC system, keep in mind the occupancy type vs. the long-term cost of maintenance. Chilled water/boiler systems will require preventive maintenance for a chiller, cooling tower, boiler, heat exchanger, etc to a greater extent than a DX (direct expansion) unitary system. A DX split or packaged system will be a handful of components that are readily available and replaced at a minimal cost.
INSTALLATION COST
Most of the HVAC system cost is in the equipment and control system. Both are important to system sustainability. Duct systems normally require little maintenance if quality materials, closure systems, sealants and higher “R” value insulation are used. Providing the correct type of air distribution is just as vital as selecting the equipment and will maximize coverage, eliminate the draft effect on occupants as well as air noise transmitted from the device due to a high velocity (fpm) of air.
BUILDING AUTOMATION
There’s a big debate over whether to use programmable thermostats or fully automated systems. Most projects perform well with proper zoning and programmable thermostats as opposed to extensive control systems that require increased up front cost and service for the life of the system.
Each control system has a place in the “right choice column.” A commercial building operating from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. will have different needs than an institutional building or medical facility. The challenge with a fully automated system is it’s almost always proprietary in nature and can only be serviced by the brand vender, leaving the building owner with no other option for value shopping. A stand-alone zoned system with programmable thermostats is fairly user-friendly and can be serviced by any commercial company. This dramatically reduces long-term replacement and/or maintenance cost for the end user.
To me, when it is all said and done, you need a cost-efficient system that will deliver the performance and can be maintained without having to go to the banker every time a failure happens.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
We’ve all heard the saying, “everything old is new again.” At our place, we’ve challenged ourselves to find inventive ways to repurpose materials that might have otherwise left behind. As a result, our ceilings, parts of our deck and even our conference table are crafted from wood that would have otherwise been left at our Florida projects.
Never have I seen a truer personal example than in Sam Mockbee, a pioneer in pragmatic design whose biography I recently received. He made turning old things into something unique and usable his life’s passionate work.
Sam or “Sambo” as he was known to his friends, understood the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” concept long before it became a slogan for sustainability and doing things right. He created the Rural Studio Program at the Auburn University School of Architecture, where students repurpose ordinary and recycled materials into houses and useful buildings for the residents of Hale County, Alabama. His creations take care of basic needs and in the process provide rays of hope.
Sam would tell his students that the places they create have got to be warm, dry and noble. He spent the last 10 years of his life building those spaces for many and that legacy continues. Using salvaged materials like lumber, bricks, discarded tires and hay bales, the Rural Studio produces inexpensive structures in a style that Mockbee described as “contemporary modernism grounded in southern culture.” As noted in this Metropolitan Magazine article, the process gives students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, extending their education beyond paper architecture.
Our Stewart Perry headquarters have always reminded me of Sam Mockbee’s work and about half way through the building process I found out why. I learned that Tommy Goodman, who designed our place and is now a professor or architecture at Mississippi State University, was Sambo’s business partner. The influence of the Rural Studio is woven all through our campus. We removed coal tailings from the lake and used them to repave parking area for a neighborhood church. Our hardwood floors are refurbished from a tobacco plant in Virginia. I feel our folks are always thinking of ways they can lower our environmental impact.
Are there opportunities to do similar things around your office, home or construction site?
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
“To whom much is given, much is expected.”
That adage has stayed with me for many years. Our company is fortunate to have a nice corporate campus, and I feel that in order to be a good steward of the land, I should invite others to enjoy our place. In the last few months, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Fresh Water Land Trust and the U.S. Green Building Council have met using our conference area.
Our conference room is surrounded by a porch that hangs out over a small lake. There’s an island in the middle of the water where a single willow tree sits—the same one you see illustrated on our homepage. In the surrounding woods, wildlife abounds. The setting is tranquil and invites open conversation. Last week Stewart Perry was privileged to host the Cahaba River Society, bringing supporters of the river together in dialogue with community and business leaders.
Over the years, we’ve been active with the CRS as a company. The picturesque river has been the beneficiary of their conservation efforts over the last several decades. It meanders through the region, providing a source of drinking water, recreational opportunities and even a distinct species of lily only found here. While we’ve always been interested in preserving the River, our first real advocacy in the Society came when we built a grocery store project literally on its banks. We took great precautions to leave our surroundings unaffected and have been passionate about keeping the river clean and natural ever since. Hosting a CRS event seemed like a logical extension of our commitment.
This particular fall evening was crisp by Alabama standards, with a backdrop of trees changing color around the lake, a campfire and glass garage doors open from the kitchen to the patio. While the setting was perfect for talk of preserving nature, the presentation by CRS’s Betsy Thagard made the event truly special. She talked about water conversation and explained why water quality is so important to our lives and to our community. Beyond environmental benefits, there are huge economic payoffs that come with being good stewards of resources.
The time together not only reinforced relationships with donors, but helped open doors for new benefactors. As relationships with development professionals were strengthened, they were encouraged to excel in efforts to protect our water systems for future generations. I’m proud that our campus could be a catalyst for environmental preservation.
Click for more information on the Cahaba River Society, or check out this article in the July issue of Smithsonian Magazine.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
I recently attended a U.S. Green Building Council presentation where architect and professor emeritus Norbert Lechner, a noted Fulbright senior specialist and energy expert, presented his thoughts on the field of efficient building energy design and sustainability, a topic often considered the foundation of green philosophy.
I learned that reduced energy goals are in many cases easily obtainable with the simplest approaches to building orientation and design. At present, buildings consume approximately 50% of all total energy used, and this percentage is even higher according to some. At this rate of consumption, it will be impossible for the world to keep up with energy demand unless buildings are designed to be more energy efficient.
Professor Lechner named the following building design elements conducive to achieving maximum energy efficiency (listed in order of greatest energy savings).
1. Building orientation (can reduce energy consumption by up to 50%)
2. 
Building color (and add another 20% of energy savings)
3. Window placement
4. Window size
5. Shading
6. Passive solar heating
7. Day lighting
8. Active solar
9. Photovoltaics (PV) – the future
What was amazing to me is that the lowest hanging fruit—the stuff that’s practically lying on the ground waiting to be picked up—is building orientation. Situating your building at the optimal place and angle can reduce conventional building energy resources by up to 50%. That means that by simply considering building orientation as a design factor we can reduce our total energy demand from all resources by up to 25%.
There’s even a movement to create zero energy buildings . But first, we all need to be thinking about how to get everyone on the same page and how our combined efforts can help make it possible for the next generation to save energy responsibly.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
While most of us are suffering from the Recession’s effects in one way or another, there is a silver lining inside our current cloud. Recessions let us step back and observe the way we do business, often providing takeaways for our businesses as we move forward. From the reading I have done, innovation and great companies are born during lean economic periods. Here are a few lessons I have learned this time around:
Maintain an attitude of appreciation – As survivors, we learn to first appreciate what we have instead of focusing on not what we do not have. Hopefully we will always be humble and thankful for the small successes.
Maximize down time to get to know your clients – Many of your customer relationships have a decreased workload, and that means they have more time to spend with you. The availability of dedicated time is of course a good thing. It allows us to formulate a clearer image of the people our businesses are dealing with.
Allow adversity to reveal true nature- In a recession, character and culture come out–both the good and the ugly. Folks that you might think are upstanding may be different when the tide is falling and they are faced with hardship. Take note of how they deal with these situations, as it may be the most genuine portrait of an individual’s character that you will ever see.
Keep greed in check – While ethics and transparency are important, the truth is that a need for success motivates us all and is necessary in our economic system. The question is, how much greed is too much? We should not tolerate borderline or obviously unethical behavior. Hopefully, at least for a while, the leadership of our nation’s businesses and Wall Street will remember.
Search for simple places to reduce, reuse and recycle – During the past year or so we have learned to do more with less. We evaluate everything in our shop to save. As an example, our office has consolidated several subscriptions to the same magazine. The individual recipients now share a single copy of the publication. Small changes in areas like this add up to big saving with little or no effect on our corporate culture—except making us all better stewards of company’s green values.
Quality leadership will always outperform in the long run. When our economy begins to recover, I feel there will be a tendency to think we have corrected everything and the future will be different. Companies that use the Recession as a learning curve and make the lessons they learn intrinsic corporate values will emerge from the downturn as innovators and true leaders.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
After talking with someone about the movie Taking Woodstock, I got to thinking that this monumental event took place prior to the advent of the Internet, cell phones, social media sites and even before the invention of the fax machine and overnight mail, which surfaced in the early 1980s. Even without these tools we now consider basic, the festival was by most accounts a huge success. The event was publicized by true word-of-mouth with no help from technology.
A lot’s changed since I first heard about Woodstock in 1969. Our company takes advantage of all the Information Age advances. I recently encountered a situation where the benefits of being connected allowed us to be more productive on our jobsite—to save time, money and prevent waste.
I was visiting one of our remodeling projects where we were removing brick pavers from an existing hardscape area. When I asked our project superintendent how things were going, he told me paver removal had been moving slowly until one of our carpenters pulled out his smart phone, got on craigslist and posted “Free Brick Pavers” followed by the jobsite address.
Within a couple of hours we had several trucks with their crews coming to get the free pavers. There was no cost to us to load or remove the excess materials. As a bonus, all of the pavers were going to be reused rather than placed in a landfill.
It’s exciting to think where technology will take us. We’ve just begun. As we watch the future unfold, I suggest you get creative and use the latest developments as a business advantage.
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Merrill Stewart is Founder and President of the Stewart Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. Contact him via email.
Every once in a while someone comes along in my life so inspiring and benevolent that it makes me ask the great introspective questions about who I am and what the real purposes of life are. The person motivates me to be a better individual, and when faced with a dilemma, I ask myself, “what would he do?”
This spring we lost one of the great sportsmen in the country, Mr. William R. Ireland, a long time friend and neighbor, at the age of 85. Born in Birmingham, he attended Auburn University and fought in World War II as a Navy man before returning home to work at Vulcan Materials, the family company, for 30 years.
He was president of the Alabama Wildlife Federation, and helped create and pass the Alabama Forever Wild constitutional amendment, legislature that set up a state-funded program to buy and set aside land for wildlife protection. He also supported Ducks Unlimited, the American Cancer Society, Boy Scouts of America, the Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, the Nature Conservancy, Freshwater Land Trust, and the Big Brothers of Greater Birmingham.
In his later years he founded a 5,000-acre hunting preserve in Alexander City, AL called Five Star Plantation,
a site that is frequently visited by the Boy Scouts and other local youth organizations. He was a true friend of mine and he will be severely missed. My son and I had the pleasure of joining Mr. Ireland in the inaugural duck hunt on the William R. Ireland Wildlife Preserve on the banks of Tennessee River in Scottsboro, AL in 1997. His dedication to community service, philanthropy and nature continue to serve as inspiration for me.
I’m forever searching for the ways to live up to the example Mr. Ireland gave me, hoping I might open a door for others to join me in continuing his work. What can you do to inspire someone?
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