Building What's Next: A leadership transition

Dear Friend of Maine Passive House,

As you may know, Maine Passive House transitioned to a worker-owned cooperative last summer, and now we have more exciting news.

On July 1st, I stepped down as CEO of Maine Passive House, and handed the reins over to our new CEO, Katrina Belle, and our new COO, Anna Heath. I will still be working for Maine Passive House, but now part time and with the title of Founder.

How will this change your relationship with Maine Passive House? Logistically nothing will change. We have the same team of managers and field staff, and Katrina, Anna and I have been running the company collaboratively for the last five years. This will continue.

Katrina and Anna had already taken on the vast majority of my responsibilities by the time we made the transition to a cooperative last year. Shortly after the transition, I filled a position as Lead Carpenter on one of our projects. Increased field time and only one office day per week accelerated the transfer of remaining responsibilities. In reality, Katrina and Anna have been running the company for the last year.

Moving ahead, I will develop a few positions in the company and mentor our next generation of leaders. I will stay on the Maine Passive House Leadership Team and the Board of Directors.

Starting this company, watching it grow, working with all of you –our amazing clients, architects, sub contractors, employees, industry professionals – has been a privilege. I feel immense pride in what we have created together.

A few reasons led to this decision. For one, I’m ready to have less responsibility in my day to day life. While I would not change a thing, it has been a ton of work and responsibility to make it all happen, and I’m ready to make room for other things in my life. The other reason is that I want Maine Passive House to stay an innovative and progressive company that does business in a different way, and the best way to do that is to let the next generation step up to the plate.

There is no way I would ever hand over the reins of the company to Anna and Katrina, if I didn’t have total confidence in them.

I have worked with them for the last 6-8 years. Anna graduated from Columbia University with a double major in Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, and I hired her right out of school as an apprentice for what I thought would be a short time. Little did I know she had an amazing talent for carpentry, as well as, managing projects and people. She initiated and drafted our Passive House Apprenticeship program and manages our sales and production. She has now been with MPH for 8 years.

Katrina graduated from Colby College, where she focused her studies in alternative models of business responsibility and the human and environmental impacts of resource extraction. She came to us with solid construction experience after working for 5 years as a woodworker, carpenter, and Site Super for multifamily projects in Jackson, WY. She arrived with a clear vision for what she was looking for in a construction company, and in the last six years she has been pushing the company in that direction, drafting the mission statement and orchestrating the shift from an LLC to a benefit corporation. Katrina and Anna are also the first owners of our new worker-owned cooperative.

So, our new CEO and COO have been in the trenches, doing the hard work that is building high performance buildings. They are both Certified Passive House Consultants and know our building details and systems better than anyone. Once they started running the company with me 5 years ago they began to create systems and processes that allowed the company to grow.

They have literally built the systems we use today to run our jobsites and the company as a whole.

Both of them are detail oriented and have high standards. They are also kind, honest, extremely hardworking and have a ton of integrity. Again and again I have been impressed by their humility, humanity and desire to progress the company in a way that is equitable and enduring. This transition is an acknowledgement of all of the work they have done to make the company what it is today.

I hope you will join me in welcoming Katrina as our new CEO and Anna as COO. I am excited to make this transition, and I am especially excited to see where Katrina and Anna will take the company in the years to come.