Ecots a resounding success

f f,/Hnr coI-oR IS your parachute? Y Y No need to wonder about Rachel Maloney's-from the get-go, it's been green.

Not that she needs a parachute. Since the very beginning, her building supply company, Minneapolis, Mn.based Natural Built Home, has been soaring.

Mahoney was building a career in the medical device industry when a transfer back to her native Minnesota prompted her and her husband to hunt for a home. Fine, until it came time to remodel it. then -nada.

"I've always been passionate about the environment, and we had a hard time finding eco-friendly products. So," says young Mahoney, "l decided to quit my job and open my own business," filling the gap for the growing wave pf eco-thinkers such as she.

Do-gooder in tie-dyed shirts and Birkenstocks? Oh, no. Maloney came with plenty of business acumen under her belt. She turned to her former professor at the University of Minnesota's esteemed Carlson School of Business.

He put his students onto the project, assessing demand, demographics, what-have-you. They gave her the goahead.

She found herself a site in a neighborhood composed of older housing stock-prime prospects for remodeling-and opened up her bricks-andmortar outfit on Earth Day 2006. (She had dipped her toe in the clean, green water a year earlier doing business via a website.) The plan: Offer one-stop shopping for sustainable building for both walk-ins traffic and the pros.

Sure, she expected attention from the usual "Save the Planet" tribe and, indeed. those dedicated eco-consumers immediately found her through mentions on her vendors' websites. She also attracted the energy misers. especially during the recent rebate program. (Think insulation made of former denim jeans instead of fiberglass; low-flush toilets; compact, ondemand water heaters and such.) But it's the many customers driven by health concerns, fighting carpet dust and toxic paints, and concerned for their kids' welfare who took her by surprise.

Print advertising brought in some business, "but it's hard to track," she says. Paying for key positioning on Google searches has proved more successful. Her own robust website (www.naturalbuilthome.com) is intended more for education than for placing orders. "People do their research on the Internet, but then they want to come in to touch and feel. so the website does drive traffic. Plus. we can put up peoples' photos of their projects, which fuels other peoples' ideas. They love that!" she professes. But what they love even better, turns out, is Facebook. Natural Built adds content once or twice a weekitems such as new products, sales, and classes offered. "It's fun!" she jubilates. "It opens a huge door for a small business like mine."

Vetting the products she carries remains a moving target. Her standards -the only constants-involve sustainability, recycled and recyclability content, low toxicity and VOC, and local, or at least U.S., production. "l ask our vendors all the difficult questions, like ingredients, or where things came from. There are many good products. but others that are questionable, and you have to dig deeper," she explains.

Then the real work kicks in: educating her customers, who are understandably confused by claims and verbiage and jousting standards in the conflict of FSC vs. SFI and such. (Natural Built's wood is locally-produced and sustainably-forested FSC certified or from a rapidly-renewable species, including red oak, white birch, maple and lyptus, plus more in dozens of veneers.)

Confusing? "It's not like shopping at Target," she laughs. "We form relationships with our customers, helping them find the best products for their needs. The 'right' products are not only better for the environment, but long-lasting." And discounted for customers who package their orders, such as bundling requests for kitchen flooring, countertops and cabinetry. Natural Built also will undertake the install and, ofcourse, provides design assistance.

Rf Sf NG POPULARITY of enviro{riendly paints (upper) and flooring (lower) is, in part, driven by consumers with health concerns over tradl tional yet toxic or dusty alternatives.

Free classes, held several times a month, facilitate the flow of info. They feature hands-on working with local clay (as in, plastering your walls) to eco-updates on the two most popular re-habs, kitchens and bathrooms. Some are Ied by Maloney, who also speaks to local outside groups. In addition, the classes utilize design/build professionals, who can educate on solar electricity or ways to conserve energy. Bottom line: They underscore the ease of going green. "It's not about sacrifice!" Rachel instructs.

Not by a long shot-at least, not anymore. This is not Ralph Nader's dreary kitchen. You've come a long way, baby, to quote the tagline for a cigarette we no longer smoke. Nowadays, kitchen surfaces carom from gorgeous bamboo and lino in stylish colors to glittering recycled glass-"countertops that are pretty! Products that don't look 'green,' but simply look beautiful. They fit any lifestyle from traditional to contemporary and offer more opportunities for original statements than the granite every- body else is doing"-an environmental no-no which must be trekked in from abroad.

Natural Built also offers its unique "wood from the hood"-flooring and more, fabricated from culled boulevard elms-"and what could be more local and green?" she asks. While the company doesn't carry roofing or windows, personnel are equipped to steer clients to good eco-sources, including outlets sponsored by Habitat for Humanity.

"Paint," Mahoney recommends, "is such an easy entry point, and inexpensive." So are gadgets, great to small, such as her battery-free flashlights and Adirondack chairs fashioned from former milk cartons.

Natural Built makes a point to make its presence know by participating in shows such as the local Green Expo in spring and the Eco Experience at the annual State Fair, where the company has built a house every year for the past five seasons. "Over 350,000 people pass that building. It's an amazing thing," she says, "an eye-opening experience. People ask us, 'Why are you here?' and 'Why buy this?' We're doing so much education and can show what products look like to people from all walks of life."

The holdout-no surprise-is often the small contractor, who digs in his heels and fights learning something new"the last people to embrace the trend," in her experience. "But we offer free classes to get them to understand and feel comforlable. On the other hand, the A&D (architecture and design) people are an aware community, and we've just hired an outside salesperson to address them. They're early adapters."

Commercial accounts are signing on, too. The company has just supplied glass countertops for a new Microsoft Corp. facility in Fargo, N.D., and facilitated energy-saving rehabs of several local restaurants, where, Maloney testifies, "the savings add up quickly."

The company presently employs four full-time and four part-time people, whom Maloney has chosen "based on talent. They embrace our philosophy but are not versed in product knowledge. Instead, I like staffers who are excited and share that enthusiasm with our customers." Vendors offer them occasional PK training, as do new Internet courses, which allow studying on a staggered-time basis.

"The current slowdown has offered us an opportunity to streamline our procedures and put in better systems for inventory and ordering, enabling one person to do the job of two," Maloney indicates.

Yet, the bleak economic picture hasn't put much of a dent in her business, which, she says, has grown every year while maintaining comfortable margins. "People are more price-conscious today, so we've added some products with a lower price point. But we also explain the possible tradeoffs,'dark green' vs. 'light green.' It all goes back to educating the consumer.

If they've heard of bamboo flooring but their choice comes vinyl-coated, we might say, 'Do you want your kid picking up Cheerios off vinyl?' and show them an alternate option."

That's called win-win. And that's why Natural Built Homes foresees a steadilygrowing slice of the pie.

Carla Waldemar cwaldemar@comcast.net