Will Bradshaw and Reuben Teague

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2008

Will Bradshaw and Reuben Teague

Green Coast Enterprises

http://www.greencoastenterprises.com

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Environment

The Bold Idea:

Creating a sustainable development corporation that builds environmentally sound and affordable structures in the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans had been suffering from decades of disinvestment when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit, causing 70 percent of the area’s building stock to fail. While New Orleans is unique due to its topography and engineered protection system, many of the challenges it faces are shared by the broader Gulf South. The loss of significant wetlands and barrier islands along the coast has reduced the natural capacity of the region to buffer storm events, while the number and intensity of storms is projected to increase as the global climate warms. New Orleans has an opportunity to pioneer better strategies for dealing with these threats.

By incorporating high-performance building practices, Green Coast Enterprises (GCE) will build more durable residential buildings that cost less to operate and use fewer resources, thereby improving the lives of residents of coastal communities. By building wealth through broad-based ownership, GCE will create a sustainable model, which, through replication, will help a broad range of socio-economic groups. GCE will create a model of resilience that other coastal communities can follow.

Will Bradshaw and Reuben Teague pitching at Echoing Green Selection Weekend (May 2, 2008)

Biography:

Will Bradshaw’s professional career has been focused on improving the quality of affordable housing and incorporating environmental resilience into real estate development practices. Reuben Teague trained as a lawyer but arrived in New Orleans just ahead of Katrina and has since sought an entrepreneurial route to rebuilding the city. He received his JD from NYU’s School of Law and served as a clerk for Judge Edith Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Will earned a Masters in City Planning and Real Estate Development at MIT, while also consulting on $150 million in planned development in Massachusetts, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Together, they are working to mold GCE into a vehicle for delivering their beliefs about how our nation should respond to the pressing threats of climate change.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
REUBEN: I arrived in New Orleans a week before Katrina with no idea of how exposed the city was to the dual threats of natural disaster and human failure. During my two years as a law clerk, I fell in love with the city and its tenacious people, and I wanted desperately to find a way to aid the recovery and prevent the next storm from causing so much havoc. Though there were a lot of options available to me, no challenge felt (and feels) more compelling than the rebuilding of a major American city and the opportunity to help change the way millions of people think about the built environment they inhabit, which let them down in many ways during and after the storm. I was lucky to meet Will and find a great outlet for talking about the effects of the storm, and ultimately, we created a vehicle that has put my desires in motion.

WILL: I came to New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to work on a philanthropic housing project. On my arrival I was overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction and angered by the often faltering relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts. But the more I looked around New Orleans, the more I found a peculiar thing. New Orleanians were angry too, felt abandoned and betrayed by the public trust, but only when you pushed them. Mostly they were going about the herculean business of setting right what was broken. They were taking people in, helping people back, offering whatever support they could to their fellow residents. People were standing up and demanding that they be counted and accounted for. New Orleans was and is a town full of extraordinary people struggling with the largest challenge of our time, and they needed more people with an expertise like mine. I could help rebuild. I could help attract resources. And, ultimately, I realized that I could start the business I had been planning for the previous decade. In the midst of this realization, Reuben and I started talking about working together and we began Green Coast Enterprises together.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
Post-Katrina New Orleans faces several challenges that might ordinarily absorb the resources of a city: a housing crisis, a shortage of healthcare, an education system that has been dismantled and reassembled, a rattled economy, high rates of violent crime and mental illness, and a depleted stock of public buildings and community resources. The need for talented and ambitious people to confront these challenges is acute. Our separate educational and work experiences are not wholly unique, but together we have found several gaps that we can quickly fill, as well as a community that has embraced and encouraged our efforts.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
GCE has five main areas of innovation. By combining these innovations, we aim to transform and strengthen the relationships among people, their homes, and the world around them.

1. GCE will catalyze product innovation in high-performance building technologies.

2. GCE will build affordable homes without subsidy. Almost all affordable housing built in the US utilizes some type of public subsidy program. By using industrial construction techniques, GCE will target families earning as little as $35,000 per year in rental units and $45,000 per year in units for sale before subsidy is applied.

3. GCE aspires to build homes that produce as much energy as they use.

4. GCE will link construction and job training to the use of new building materials and construction methods, creating new opportunities for prosperity.

GCE is innovating around how project financing is structured and who gets to share in the benefits of ownership. We are developing innovative financial proposals to build wealth in low income communities and retain it for the residents of those communities.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
Courage comes first. You have to be brave enough to try and get 100 percent of the way to your goals, even when that last 10 percent gets scary. That’s where most smart and talented people will give up, move on to something safer, and leave the risk taking to someone else. You need to be honest with yourself about your strengths, weaknesses, and capacity. If you approach yourself honestly, the people around you will follow suit and you’ll get to the nub of your problems pretty quickly. And we’ve never been successful for long doing something we didn’t enjoy. Seek the joy of being alive in your work.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
WILL: Eric Lindell, Kermit Ruffins, Grayson Capps, Theresa Andersson, Tab Benoit, Washboard Chaz, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Whiskeytown, Anders Osborne.

REUBEN: Sunpie Barnes, The Soul Rebels, Irvin Mayfield, Jorge Ben Jor, Led Zeppelin, the Wu-Tang Clan, Frank Zappa, James Brown, Dangermouse, The Field, Mobb Deep, Johnny Cash, John Boutte.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
WILL: How Buildings Learn, Winter’s Tale, Design with Nature, The Art of Understanding Buildings, Cradle to Cradle, Development as Freedom, Rising Tide, Breach of Faith.

REUBEN: The Great Deluge, A Confederacy of Dunces, All the King’s Men, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Blind Watchmaker, The Diversity of Life, The Conservative Soul, Pale Fire, A Handful of Dust.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

• pathnet.org
• buildingscience.com
• nytimes.com
• espn.com
• nola.com
• talkingpointsmemo.com
• andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
• pandora.com
• mint.com
• facebook.com

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
WILL: “And America has never been America for me, and yet America must be.” - Langston Hughes

REUBEN: “Be brave. Courage is the noblest of all attainments.” - Ernest Thompson Seton