The City of Greensburg and Greensburg GreenTown Partnership Awards:
*City Award 2009, Outstanding Partner - National Renewable Energy Laboratory/Department of Energy
DOE/NREL has been instrumental in the success of the Green Initiative. They have provided tremendous moral support for the ambitious dreams of the town and advice from some of the best minds in the world on the various issues relating to sustainability. They have provided resources to help achieve many of the significant objectives of the Green Initiative. They have done all of this as an equal partner, respecting the community and local government leadership and their choices for the future. Simultaneously, they have taken what they’ve learned in Greensburg and make this knowledge available to other communities throughout the country. The role of the Agency and the dedicated individuals on the team working in Greensburg have been amazing partners on Greensburg’s road to becoming “better, stronger and greener”.
*City Award 2009, Outstanding Support of the Green Initiative by a Greensburg Resident - Bob Mosier
Bob is one of the residents who bridges pre-storm with post-storm interest and support of going green in Greensburg and Kiowa County. He has been active for two decades promoting recycling, composting, wind power while all that time also providing exceptional community service. Since the storm he has been a strong advocate of the Green Initiative working many hours to help the City and County come back green. Bob is a charter member of the GreenTown board and has spent a great of time helping the fledgling organization with support and ideas and in gaining acceptance in the community, What Bob brings to Greensburg that is most valuable is modeling civic pride and commitment through action to benefit the greater good of our community.
*City Award 2009, Greensburg Innovation Award - PEC and Employee Tim Lenz
Professional Engineering Consultants has played a significant role in Greensburg's efforts to become a model Green Community. Their work on the LED Street Lighting project is the reason they were chosen as this year’s Innovation Award recipient. The City challenged PEC and others to help find new and innovative ways to meet our sustainable goals. Tim Lenz (an Electrical Engineer for PEC) took it upon himself on behalf of PEC to research and visit with LED lighting manufacturers.Tim and PEC understood that if the goal as a community was to build a sustainable infrastructure, LED street lights were needed. PEC broke the mold and designed a project based oncustomers’ goalsrather than the normal and traditional project scope. This allowed Greensburg to lay claim as the first community in the country with all LED street lights. Energy savings are estimated at nearly 40% and annual savings on energy and maintenance costs are estimated at more that 70%. The reduction of the carbon footprint is estimated at more than 40 tons of CO2 annually (or nearly 38%). PEC and Tim Lenz are very deserving and it is fitting that they receive the first annual Innovation Award.
Greensburg GreenTown Green Initiative Awards:
*Lonnie McCollum Visionary Award - Lonnie McCollum
Lonnie was Mayor at the time of the storm that decimated Greensburg. He moved on after about a month following the storm, but his impact on the community and the direction it chose to take as a result has been great and enduring. Lonnie had a vision of bringing the town back in an “environmentally friendly manner” and confidently advocated for this course, which given the condition of the town with all of the chaos and uncertainty, was a courageous decision. Tonight we are very pleased to be able to honor Lonnie for his service to the community and his passion and commitment which laid the foundation of what we have come to know as the Green Initiative in Greensburg.
*Green Initiative Most Valuable Leader 2008 - Steve Hewitt
What can be said about City Administrator Steve Hewitt that is adequate for the magnitude of his contribution to this town and to the Green Initiative? What strikes many about Steve is his genuine concern for the town and the tremendous contributions of time and energy he has made in the rebuilding of this community. Steve has been a strong advocate of the Green Initiative, knowing that it held great promise for the future of Greensburg and, more importantly, for the future of the youngest generation that includes his son. Steve took many risks to advance an idea that many in the community were uncertain about. He always listened to his constituents and honored their concerns, taking their feedback into consideration as he made decisions about doing what was best for the town. He did his homework and entertained all the different ways that the town could incorporate going green into the already mammoth task of reassembling the town from scratch. Many of the forty-plus projects in town that have “gone green” are due to Steve’s leadership.
*Timely Act of Generosity Award - CaromaUSA
Caroma, a relatively small company in the U.S., made a huge impact by stepping up to the plate early on and committing 400 dual-flush toilets to the community free of charge. Not only did this generous act save residents money, it gave the town one of its first stories to illustrate how a small change could make such a big difference when many residents participated. It has been calculated that the water savings of these 400 toilets over 400 pre-storm toilets effected a water savings of over 2,000,000 gallons a year. This is such a simple way to powerfully affect conservation in town and begin to show the world the potential of “America’s Model Green Community”. Caroma made this donation (worth $160,000 at retail) with no strings attached, but because as Derek Kirkpatrick, North America Manager for CaromaUSA said, “It was the right thing to do”.
*Green Initiative Corporate Citizen Award - BTI/ Estes Family
The Estes family-run business is the largest private employer in the Greensburg. They, like the City, had their hands completely full just trying to bring their dealership back from near complete destruction. Dozens of employees were jobless and there were huge challenges just to come back and rebuild.
There were a few milestones that signaled the Green Initiative would be a success, and BTI Greensburg choosing to embrace the vision and take an active role in leading the Green Initiative by example, was one of the most significant catalysts. The Estes brothers, with the support and encouragement of Dave Jeffers from John Deere’s corporate office, spent many hours learning and doing all that it took, not just to rebuild green, but committing to the highest level of certification, LEED Platinum. This was something that had never been done for a building like this, a tremendously ambitious effort that gave the town a vitally important element within the city’s vision to be a model green community. Mike and Kelly Estes made significant personal sacrifices and took big risks to make all this happen. What stands today is a beacon of green not just in Greensburg, but to all the John Deere dealerships in the country. It is a model from which future build-outs will use in their own new or rehabbed buildings. BTI Greensburg, the Estes brothers, their families and all the employees deserve great thanks for what they have done for this community.
*GreenTown Pioneer Award – John Janssen
This award acknowledges an individual in the community whose support and involvement were essential to the success of Greensburg GreenTown and the Green Initiative. John Janssen followed Lonnie as Mayor and was an energetic advocate of the Green Initiative. John was clear on the value of the greening of Greensburg and did a lot to ensure its success. He consistently and tirelessly supported City Administrator Steve Hewitt’s leadership and projects. Together they were a formidable team that accomplished a tremendous amount during John’s term. His support of GreenTown was critical to the fledgling organization as he provided significant support to the organization and to the staff.
*Green Initiative Unsung Hero Award - Russell Gadberry
Russell may be the best example of an individual from outside the area who so deeply believed in what the community was doing that he took great risks and made big sacrifices in order to ensure the success of a very special project - the Shanks’ GM dealership. Given significant challenges ranging from tight timetables to budgetary constraints to the pressure of working with a prominent local family while simultaneously trying to please corporate giant General Motors, Russell is a man whom few in town know, yet he has been a true unsung hero. He commuted to Greensburg from his home and business in Missouri for over a year, putting 56,000 miles on his vehicle, even while staying up to five weeks at a time away from his family. As one of the earliest builders on the ground, he ran into many challenges such as not being able to find materials locally, as well as encountering highly inflated costs of those materials and subcontractors due to high demand and rising prices of hard goods and fuel. Given that the Shanks’ dealership was one of the first buildings up, it was essential that it was successful in telling the story of Greensburg to the outside community. The GM dealership is completed and is a fine example of green building, giving the Shanks and Greensburg one of the first businesses back up, while being very consistent with the vision for our model green community. The selfless acts of one man concerned about the recovery of this small town had a very big impact on where Greensburg is today.
*Green State Award - Kathleen Sebelius
Governor Kathleen Sebelius brought great resources and the considerable moral support and energy of the Governor’s office to help Greensburg set and achieve its goal of becoming America’s model green community. She was present at many important times in the critical first year of the recovery and her respect and support for Greensburg was always in evidence. Greensburg’s visibility on the international stage is due in part to Governor Sebelius’ advocacy on behalf of our community.
*Inspirational Community Leadership in the Green Initiative - Darin Headrick
Darin was impressively a finalist in a nationwide competition for Most Inspiring Person of 2008 sponsored by Belief Net. He is a popular hero locally because, as most people in a small town know, as a school goes, so goes the town. Following the storm Darin very publicly stated that the school would reopen and he boldly committed to opening in time for the new school session in August, a mere three months after the storm. His confidence and assurance helped others in the community feel hope and to be inspired to make their own commitments to stay and rebuild. Darin was an early vocal proponent of the Green Initiative, flying to North Carolina to see a model green school; he came back to Greensburg even more committed to the town’s direction in going green. Darin has helped design a state-of-the-art school that will be a gem among gems in Greensburg, modeling the best of sustainable building and creating a structure that will be an inspiration and ongoing learning center for students. And Darin has encouraged and supported students and teachers to learn about sustainability and green living, helping make the students in Greensburg the most passionate and effective advocates for the Green Initiative in the community.
*Outstanding Leadership in Residential Building - Farrell and Debby Allison
There have been several trailblazers but none more bold, visionary and committed at the residential level than Farrell and Debby. They chose to build one of the greenest homes in the state, set the tone and demonstrated that individuals could contribute in a very big way to achieving the status of “America’s Model Green Community”. Farrell and Debby have logged countless hours in front of cameras and reporters wanting to show the world what Greensburg meant by building green at the residential level. These are two people who represent the best in Greensburg in that after losing their home, they kept working at their jobs, stayed active in the community, and in their “spare” time quietly led by example, demonstrating the value of the Green Initiative to the community.
*Green Initiative Most Valuable Player, Kiowa County - Gene West
Gene is one of the original “1000 meeting men” (or women), one of those individuals who attended meeting after meeting that first intense year after the storm. He was a diligent public servant who spent many hours learning about “going green” and figuring out how to bring the County into alignment with the community’s stated vision. He worked tirelessly and with the great support of staff handling the recovery process, Kiowa County now has the highest standards for sustainable building. The County gave specific direction in this regard to their architects and builders; Gene gives architectural firm MVP much credit for the success of their rebuilding projects and of course, fellow County Commissioner for 2007/08, Don Richards. Today, County projects are as green as it gets, including the beautiful County Court House, which will be one of the greenest historic buildings in the country. Given that the Court House is only one of two historic buildings to remain as a link to Greensburg’s past, it is significant in offering comfort to the community and serving as a beacon for its future. Thanks to Gene for his exceptional commitment to bringing Greensburg and Kiowa County back, and back green.
*GreenTown Most Valuable Player – Chain of Eco-Homes Project - David Moffitt and Armour Homes
David and his team went to extraordinary lengths to support the building of the first Eco-Home (dubbed the Silo Eco-Home because of its round shape). David has flown from his home base in Florida several times in the past nine months, as have members of his team, with Armour Homes always picking up the associated expenses. As the economic contraction affected philanthropic and construction industry giving, David stepped in and served as general contractor, saving the project tens of thousands of dollars. In addition to his financial generosity, David has continued to find ways to make the home an even better showcase of ideas and a structure fit to house the Green Visitors Center and complement the Big Well across the street. Armour Homes has set the bar very high for other corporations that want a presence here. Their commitment has communicated to other companies considering coming to Greensburg that what we have going here is a very good investment. David really understands what we are trying to accomplish in terms of making Greensburg a living laboratory for the world and he has spent a tremendous amount of time, energy and money to help us achieve this goal. He has a great mind for ideas and a big heart which he has gifted Greensburg with.
*Greensburg Green Club Youth Award - The Green Club Founding members
The Green Club has been instrumental in making the Green Initiative a success in Greensburg. Many of the youth in town have been great spokespeople and enthusiastic, persuasive, and passionate advocates for the Green Initiative. The founding members of the GreenTown-administered Club have developed an organizational structure that has inspired other clubs around the country and completed many great projects. They recycle in the school, have kept Christmas trees out of landfill by recycling them as mulch, helped residents save money by going with compact fluorescent light bulbs, fashioned a beautiful bench out of tornado debris for the community, and inspired people from all over the world. This group is our future and their commitment gives Greensburg, Kansas and our country tremendous inspiration and hope.
*The Scholfield Business Partner Award - Scholfield Honda
Roger Scholfield owns and operates Scholfield Honda in Wichita. He was the first Wichita business to embrace the Green Initiative in Greensburg making an impressive initial investment of donating a compressed natural gas car (along with partners Kansas Gas and Fahnestock that donated a natural gas fill station) to give GreenTown an impressive demonstration of the kind of technologies Greensburg needed, to deliver on the promise of becoming a model green community. And while Roger has made generous material gifts (providing additional financial support as well as getting American Honda to donate another natural gas Honda that is going up for auction soon!) his biggest contribution has been his wise counsel and consistent cheerleading to help move GreenTown and the Green Initiative forward. He has also helped build awareness in Wichita about Greensburg and used his very good reputation to strengthen the relationship between Greensburg and Wichita, a partnership that has great potential for both communities. Greensburg is very lucky to have a champion and friend in Roger Scholfield.
* Outstanding Support by a GreenTown Board Member - GreenTown Founding Chair - Wylan Fleener
Anybody who has been at the front end of starting a nonprofit organization knows it takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and patience, and a high tolerance for risk. Wylan served as the GreenTown Founding Chair in the first year. This was critical to GreenTown’s acceptance in the community, because his good family name goes back six generations in Greensburg. His history here helped local residents feel comfortable with this new community organization and its mission to help establish the town as a model green community. Wylan gave to the organization in many ways; most importantly he brought his good nature, generous spirit and sense of humor to lead the organization through its first very formative year.
* Outstanding Support by an Institutional Leader – Kiowa County - Mary Sweet
While everybody in Greensburg has had a lot on their plates, Mary’s workload has been extraordinary. She has gone full speed ahead, managing the hospital without interruption since the storm, She had to tend to a large staff, many of whom were traumatized by the devastation of the old facility, while continuing to run the hospital out of temporary quarters, tending to the intensified health needs of the community. All this while raising children! She and her board made the plans to rebuild the hospital while voluntarily choosing to embrace rebuilding green and to the highest level with the tremendous support of architect Tim Dudte and Associates. Mary has also generously supported GreenTown in a variety of ways.
Her commitment to the community and to the Green Initiative are inspiring and an exceptional act of generosity. What an amazing natural resource this community has in Mary Sweet.
*Outstanding Volunteer Award - Mason Earles and Emily Schlickman
These GreenTown staff members embody the absolute best of young Americans. They care deeply about the future of our country and have taken responsibility to do whatever they can to make a positive impact. Their year of voluntary service to Greensburg and the Green Initiative has been exemplary and has had a profound impact on the future of Greensburg and Kiowa County. Immediately following their graduation from college they moved to Greensburg and embedded themselves in the community. They have put in thousands of hours on dozens of projects while serving as ambassadors to visitors coming in to learn about Greensburg and the Green Initiative. Wherever their future takes them, they should know that townspeople will always be grateful to them for infusing Greensburg with light and optimism that will live on in the fabric of the community. We are pleased to name this award after them. Those who win this award in the future will know just what an honor it is to be considered in the company of Mason and Emily.
*Outstanding Community Stewardship - Greensburg City Council 2007/2008 - Brandon Hosheit, Gary Goodheart, Bob Mitchum, Bethel Thronesberry, Rex Butler
We honor the Council that was seated from after the storm through May 2008. Many critical decisions were made in this time and the Council was key in supporting the Green Initiative in many ways. One of the best known actions was adopting the resolution to build City buildings to LEED Platinum certification. This was a concrete message to the world that Greensburg was serious about being a model green community, and much recognition and support for the community followed that decision. Council members, who had a very demanding and stressful year following the storm, deserve much credit for their hard work, dedication to the community, and willingness to take risks and entertain new ideas.
*Extraordinary Efforts by an Individual - Chuck Banks
Chuck Banks served as State Director of USDA Rural Development following the tornado until January 2009. Chuck was a fierce advocate for the needs of Greensburg/Kiowa County and was supportive and sensitive to the community vision to rebuild green. Chuck managed a large agency while simultaneously approaching Greensburg like an entrepreneur, open to the unique needs of the town and especially the vision to rebuild as a model green community. Chuck was deeply involved in many of the major projects in town and it was USDA Rural Development that helped ensure that the Mennonite Housing project consisting of up to fifty homes, was built to exemplary energy efficiency standards effectively making it the greenest blitz build project in the country.
In our weekly column for the Kiowa County Signal we have highlighted other people and companies who have been instrumental in the success of the Green Initiative.
From May 6:
Awards Continued!...
The First Annual Green Initiative Awards held at the school gym on Saturday was a success. Thanks to all the people and companies that contributed. It was a very big task and it took major efforts by a dedicated board and staff, and generous companies and friends to make it happen. The good news is that the fears (mostly by our board planning group) of it turning into an unwieldy program that went on into the wee hours of the night were not realized. In fact, people stayed through the program, directing much kindness and enthusiasm toward the winners, and afterward many guests reported having a good time.
The not-so- good news was that many deserving folks and projects did not get their proper due. This was our concern, given the magnitude of the task before us: How do we properly give credit to those responsible for a “barn-raising” of a mammoth group project success like the Green Initiative in Greensburg? One of the ways we did that was, of course, to limit the awards to the Green Initiative itself. The other was to focus the evening presentations to those who were some of the most influential early pioneers, the risk takers and the leaders. Still, we ran out of space in the printed program
So - and this was not communicated very well on Saturday night - these awards will continue, both here in this column and online at our website (wwww.greensburggreentown.org) until we have acknowledged many more key players. There are several categories that we didn’t cover on Saturday: Residents, Commercial Buildings, Residential Building, Generosity, Media, and Projects. In future columns and online we’ll focus on each category, but today we’ll leave you with some tidbits of other notables across the board...
On the Residential building side, the Ellers, Haneys, and Waters all receive awards, as they provided exemplary leadership and went to great lengths, giving the community great showcases of green homes in Greensburg at a critical time. They all have also been very generous in showing their projects to the media and visitors. Other very deserving award winners of great green homes will be made online.
As far as outstanding support by residents, this is a very long list; it includes those like the Goodman family - Erica, Alanna and Gary - all of whom have played vital roles. Alanna was the first board member of GreenTown and then our first office staff. Erica was on the earliest “Green Team committee” and she and Gary have been vocal advocates for the green vision and GreenTown since day one. And, they have rescued the Robinett building and are bringing it back not only to its full glory but even better; it will be very green!
As for the Generosity awards, here again, we could do an entire evening of awards. Sun Chips donating $1,000,000 to make the Incubator building green was instrumental to the entire town’s success with the Green Initiative. Clorox gets an award for helping the school with $500,000 to achieve its green dreams. AT&T giving $50,000 to the Eco-Homes was pivotal.
The Green Buildings as a group were hardly covered at all Saturday. Dwane Shanks Motors (sorry for the reference Saturday as only “the GM dealership”) and Ron, Esther and Dwane will be getting an award for their exceptional project and the extraordinary efforts they made to get their project done and help lead the Green Initiative early on. 5.4.7 Arts Center is another project that with much generosity outside and inside the community along with tireless efforts of Stacy Barnes, the Board of Directors and the students of KU’s Studio 804 delivered a gem of a building in the center of town.
As far as projects that will be getting awards, we acknowledge KSU School of Architecture and their great Cubes, and the fantastic home models and home design book for Greensburg produced by Professor Gary Coates and his class.
So, if you or your company were left out of the proceedings Saturday night, you can see you were in very good company, and that those of us who put on the award presentation had a very difficult task.
Tune in next week where we’ll have more awards, continued!
From the May 13 column:
This week we continue our discussion of the Green Initiative awards. The success of the Green Initiative in Greensburg has been due to the efforts of hundreds of people, and it is very challenging not to leave anyone out. In the residential arena, several families have gone to extraordinary lengths to build green homes. We have already honored Farrell and Debby Allison and there are several more that will be receiving 2009 awards this month whose owners have gone above and beyond in support of the Green Initiative. Scott and Jill Eller and their family have worked with SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) pioneer Michael Morley from Lawrence, Kansas to create a unique, highly energy efficient home that stands as a beacon to “green” for all coming to Greensburg to see. Jill and Scott have been extraordinarily generous with their time and energy, ensuring that their project benefits Greensburg to the greatest extent possible. They have hosted many media and interested touring groups helping tell the story of how Greensburg is going green on the residential side. Other families that have been outstanding participants in the Green Initiative, boosting Greensburg from the residential side, include Greg and Lisa Waters who built with ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) and a geothermal heating and cooling system, John and Janice Haney with their ICF berm home, Brandon and Stacy Hosheit with a conventionally built wood frame and highly energy efficient house. These families built green and did so early on, when it was critical to the Green Initiative to have examples for all the media, volunteers and tourists coming in to see just how green Greensburg was building back. Other very green homes being honored are Paul and Shirley Unruh, Steve and Judi Kirk, Gary and Marilyn Goodheart, Greg and Lori Wedel, Dorothy Unruh, Lloyd Goosen, Jason and Susan West, Bethel Keller, Gene and Kathy McFall, Mike and Traci Swigart, Mitzi and Rod Hesser, and Max and Joleen Seacat. All these homes attained energy efficiency ratings that were 40-60% better than what code required. These are very significant accomplishments and the Green Initiative in Greensburg has been greatly enhanced by their efforts.
We also honor several homebuilders. The Manske family built the Prairie Pointe and Oakview Townhomes all of which are modeled after the eight units of Prairie Pointe that achieved LEED Platinum residential status. This is the first project to achieve this level in Kansas and is among the first in the country. These units were developed early and in a prominent location on Main Street. It was very valuable to the community to have this high profile project be a model of sustainable building in what could have been a very conventional project. Builder Orval Howell has worked with both The Commercial Group on one series of homes and Hayse and Associates on another series of homes. Orval is a creative, innovative craftsman who lent his talent to make the homes he worked on great examples of just how green one can build with ingenuity and “thinking outside the box”. Mike and Amanda Boyles of Cal-Marc Construction are also award winners for their impact on the community related to the Green Initiative. Mike built the Hosheit home and several others, keeping in mind his clients' best interests (and wallets) while learning about building green and incorporating what he could to make the homes as energy efficient as possible. Cal-Marc has spent a lot of time working closely with GreenTown on the development of one of the planned Eco-Homes. Other builders that provided great green homes include Goertzen Homes, Koehn Construction, Owens Willinger Construction, Konrade Construction and Wardcraft Homes. These companies provide not only great energy efficiency but also other green elements like pride of craftmanship and excellent customer service. Mennonite Disaster Services with John Kauffman are being recognized for having built several quality energy efficient homes.
Finally, the self help housing project being built by Mennonite Housing of Wichita earns a special award for what is one of the greenest “blitz build” style projects ever built. NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) provided consulting and USDA Rural Development and its partners on this trailblazing project all deserve credit for this undertaking which will leave Greensburg with thirty exceptionally energy efficient homes. The homes each attained an energy rating of at least 40% better efficiency than code requires.
These awards will continue; if we have left somebody out that you know deserves an award, please let us know at awards@greensburggreentown.org.