Meeting with Senator Carper

Jim McCulley was part of a small group from the Homebuilders Association of Delaware to meet with Senator Carper yesterday on housing issues.

Discussed were:

1. Extension and broadening of home buyers tax credit

2. Problems with appraisal process

3. Problems with Mortgage and A.D. and C. lending practices.

The Senator was very gracious in extending time to us and we believe that he will bring our ideas back to the Senate when they are back in session.

For more details contact Jim at jim@jcmenv.com

Teacher Externship Appreciation

From Jodi:

I received a thank-you note from Lori Aldrich of the Delaware Business, Industry, Education Alliance for participating in the Teacher Externship Program. She said that the teachers found their experience to be very rewarding, and hopes we’ll participate again next year.

iPod Winner Announced

A few JCM Environmental staffers oversaw the drawing of the winning entry for the iPod give-away from the Delaware State Fair.

Congratulations to Gloria Saatman for being the lucky winner. We will be contacting you for details on getting your your prize.

Thank you to everyone else for participating.

We were proud to support DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife for the third year in a row by providing critters and man-power at the Delaware State Fair. We believe that this is a great way to educate the public about the natural environment and the critters that share our great State.

Special thanks to Dawn Webb of the Dupont Nature Center for all of her support.

State Fair iPod Contest Winner

JCM Environmental was proud to sponsor the critter display at the DNREC Fish and Wildlife Building at the Delaware State Fair. Because of a few jealous people, we were not able to advertise. However, we did collect over 300 names and e-mail addresses in our iPod give-away contest.

We will announce the winner in the next 24 hours. Stay tuned!

Bestfield Homes Green Home Open House

I was able to join Bestfield Homes yesterday at their Fairways at Odessa National model while they headlined green and their green certified homes. It was a good session and a nice day, probably a dozen or so couples came in to see the homes, take advantage of the free BBQ cookout and water ice Bestfield provided, and take away an appreciation about green homes. Most of the folks appreciated learning about green certified homes and I think some of the sales traffic will likely buy a home from Bestfield. It seems like more and more people are learning about green and the NAHB green building certification program.

Georgetown Chamber of Commerce with Alan Levin

Dave attended the Georgetown Chamber of Commence luncheon yesterday at which Alan Levin, Director of the Delaware Development Office (DDO), was the guest speaker.

Alan Levin presented his vision for the DDO which is to focus on small business growth and tourism promotion, both major engines for Delaware’s economy. He shared his philosophy that government should facilitate and not stand in the way of responsible economic growth. To help achieve this goal, Mr. Levin announced that there will be a major reorganization of DDO placing less focus on staff functioning as experts to drive business direction but rather on staff functioning as generalists that help facilitate private sector experts’ initiative and entrepreneurship. Mr. Levin also emphasized that efforts are being made for State agencies to better communicate and coordinate to help rather than stand in the way of economic growth; he also met yesterday with DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara to work to develop ways to enable DNREC to change its process to be more efficient and responsive to enable economic growth while ensuring environmental protection.

JCM will continue to work with DNREC on important issues that affect our clients, with the current opportunity described by Mr. Levin an excellent opportunity to do just that.

Layton Construction Holds Dover Brokers Open

Right after the ERA Harrington Realty sales meeting this morning I attended a realtor brokers open hosted by Layton Construction's realtor JT Takacs also of ERA Harrington Realty. Ted Layton is a new Green Systems client and built a beautiful home in Estates of Wild Quail outside Dover. This spec home is in the final process to receive NAHB Gold certification because it uses ARXX ICF outside walls (which stands for insulated concrete walls) so instead of lumber they are concrete exterior walls sandwiched between insulated foam. Very energy efficient and makes the home very comfortable and quiet. The home relies on renewable energy - it has roof mounted solar panels to generate electricity and uses geo-thermal heating and cooling. Ted builds a nice house and we look forward to this becoming a long term relationship. Besides some pretty good eats it seemed like most of the realtors i saw there were pretty impressed.

ERA Harrington Realty Learns About NAHB Green Building

Today I was privileged to speak at the ERA Harrington sales meeting to tell them about green building, their colleague JT Takacs handles sales for our client Layton Construction. There were 40-50 realtors at this meeting and they listened to me, a financial planner, and a local real estate attorney. I explained that the NAHB green building program encompasses envirornment protection as well as energy and water efficiency and homeowner education, so they are able to thus educate their prospective clients. A few asked me about the NAHB green home certification process for builders. I also explained that green sustainable homes are selling better than non-green homes according to an Oregon marketing study. I further told them about our menu of services including phase 1 environmentals, brownfields redevelopment, wetlands studies and pond management for hoa’s. Nobody fell asleep and I was complimented afterwards so thats a good sign!