February 12, 2024 – John Abrams

A lot can happen in a year. Especially in the first year of not doing what you’ve done for the last 50. My retirement from South Mountain Company is more than a year old now. This passage of time causes me to reflect on the company’s year, and my own.

For a while, I missed the habit of my South Mountain work. The definition of a habit is “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”

But another definition of a habit is “a long, loose garment worn by a member of a religious order or congregation.” The first part of that – a long, loose garment – neatly describes my tenure at South Mountain. My daily work habit wore well, but it did become a bit tattered. In the end it was neatly hemmed, due to a transition plan endorsed by the South Mountain owners and carried out by our six-person leadership team.

The transition was seamless. Although there was celebration of what was, and anticipation of what was to come, it almost felt like I slipped out one night and the longstanding leadership team of six became five: Deirdre Bohan, our “first-among-equals” CEO, and the four department leaders: Ryan Bushey (Architecture), Newell Isbell-Shinn (Production), Siobhan Mullin (Finance and Administration), and Rob Meyers (Energy Technology).

The new beginning for South Mountain was remarkable but hardly unexpected. Deirdre, looking back, says:

Thanks to years of guidance and planning, we kicked off 2023 with a strong sense of staff alignment, new energy for what lay ahead, and a highly functional leadership team. During the past year:

• We successfully met three big challenges head-on (an employee personal crisis, a worksite accident, and a complicated project), with grace and commitment from all.

• We refined how we interact with each other (with widespread coaching and with an exploration of the undercurrents in our work together).

• We gathered our decades-long work about environment, justice, and beauty into a single framework to help us measure and express the impacts of our projects.

• And of course, we served our wonderful clients by designing and building houses they love and steering them clear of fossil fuels.

This year, we’ll listen, learn, observe, and adjust before we craft a new edition of our strategic plan and our vision for the future of South Mountain.

An admirable report.

My observations, although they come from more distance than Deirdre’s, echo her account. South Mountain is thriving, changing, and celebrating new freedom. I’ve noticed a few speed bumps (more like those long, low speed humps they use these days), but nothing to dim the glow.

I spend approximately four hours a week working on South Mountain matters, serving as both a consultant and a board member. I have zero responsibilities; I do what’s called for and asked for. I’ve always imagined that the current South Mountain team is poised to take this company to new places beyond where my casual style of leadership could lead. Now I’m certain.

Having shucked the habit of my South Mountain work, I’ll say how it feels for me in this new place I occupy.

Kim and I just completed an eight-day road trip from the Vineyard to Taos, NM. The last time I drove across the country was almost 50 years ago, before the completion of the interstate highway system. The homogenization of place has increased dramatically, but the incredible diversity of landscape and the variety of cultural differences remain. We met friendly people and ate good food all the way. I still love America.

Some of the change is heartening. Driving across the western Oklahoma prairie, where there are 58 wind farms and thousands of turbines, I was reminded of something climate activist Bill McKibben said many years ago during the Cape Wind battle: “Many people are beginning to see wind turbines not as industrial eyesores, but as part of a new aesthetic. The wind made visible. The slow, steady turning that blows us into a future less hopeless than the future we’re steaming toward now.” As offshore wind picks up speed, endless space for land-based turbines remains in the U.S. wind corridor that stretches from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande. Together, these two sources of wind energy are beginning to pack a wallop in the renewables transition.

At the end of our trip, we ascended the extraordinary high desert landscape to Taos, which will be home for us for the next few months. I’ll write and ski, Kim will work and practice yoga at the studio just down the road in Arroyo Seco (and ski some, too). Kids and grandkids will visit, and in April, we’ll take a different route back.

For me, like South Mountain, with one year gone, I’d say things are mighty good. I’m deep into my new Founder to Future book project, engaging in new work in our Abrams+Angell partnership, still pushing the cause of the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank, and celebrating ten years as a facilitator of Building Energy Bottom Lines.

All good stuff. Some have said that certain retirements can become “ReFirements.” This feels like that – I’m learning more than I have in decades, but I haven’t fully figured out how to ease the pace of this new life. I’m still adjusting and finding a rhythm. Sometimes it feels like I just graduated from school – the consistent structure of the past has been replaced by a daily dizzying puzzle that does not yet have the characteristics of habit.

But we’re healthy enough, happy enough, and have just enough of the joy, enrichment, and chaos that our sprawling family and network of friends brings.

A calm and laid-back retirement? No.

A good one? Yes.

A lot can happen in a year.