The Move

In April of 2009, our plans got sidetracked. We made a snap decision to make a temporary move to Austin, TX. I had been working as a rep for a few green building product manufacturers and selling some remodeling jobs for a contractor, but neither job was going very well. My old boss called me and needed extra salespeople because of a recent hail storm.

Annie and I talked it over and decided to go work out there for a short while. The idea was 2 - 3 months, but up to 6 if we needed to. Over a year later, we finally just moved home from Texas. I'm still working for the company, but my plan is to fly out for a few weeks at a time during the busy season (or seasons... Most of our work is storm restoration and you just never know when the weather is gonna throw a few hundred curveballs at your roof).

So for the time being, my job is to sell restoration projects half way across the country and remodel our house in between trips. I hope to use what I've learned (and am still learning) about sustainable construction to influence my company. One of my co-workers and I had been working on marketing residential energy upgrades in the Austin area and bidding on city mandated energy auditing and upgrading of multi-family complexes, but I haven't been able to stay involved lately since the company has me traveling to different offices in Texas and Oklahoma.

On a side note, I saw a really cool development in Austin. It's a community of fairly small homes, designed for net zero energy use. Half of the homes are available at market rate (starting at $190k) and the other half are available at a discount to qualified buyers as affordable housing. You can see them online at solaustin.com or follow their blog at solaustin.com/blog/.