Norm Thompson: Commerce With a Conscience

The Building

In 1994, Emrick, just back from an overseas sabbatical, was asked by his catalog staff to build a new headquarters. The business had grown during the years, and staffers needed larger, updated facilities. “I came back into town and was looking for something to do at work, and my employees gave me a job,” Emrick jokes. “They told me we needed a new corporate headquarters.”

Emrick’s wife, Jane, had been studying environmental issues for many years before then. In addition, John Emrick is a long-time friend of Paul Hawken of Smith and Hawken, a stalwart environmentalist. “So when it came time to design our new headquarters, I was hit from two sides with this idea to construct a ‘green’ building,” Emrick recounts.

He hired architects and construction crews, telling them that Jane would help with the building’s design. “It’s a shame. They really didn’t know what they were in for,” he says.

At every weekly project meeting, Jane Emrick would ask the question: “Which of these building options will have the least impact on the environment?” At first, says John Emrick, the construction managers and the developers couldn’t answer her question: “They said that no one had ever asked them that before.” But in time, crews came to the meetings armed with alternatives in materials and construction methods. If alternatives were cost-prohibitive, they were discarded. But many more were incorporated into the 54,000-square-foot building constructed next to beautiful wetlands in Hillsboro, OR.

Emrick set a goal: The environmentally sound features installed in the building, such as energy-efficient lighting and temperature controls, should pay back in cost-savings within eight years. Turns out it paid back in only four years, so the money budgeted for the payback initiative in years five, six, seven and eight became pure profit.