Steve Hall: Building Projects, Unity, and a Better World
Steven Chandler Hall believes in the possibility of a better world, and believes that we can build it, step by step, together. He’s trying to do his part to translate these principles of hope, sustainability, and unity into practice in the world of construction. Steve is the founder of Chandler, LLC, a firm located in the northeastern United States that provides owners with planning and management services for the development of their building projects. This means he helps owners navigate the often complex relationships with architects, other design and engineering professionals and contractors, in order to ensure a smooth-running and financially-efficient project.
He has been managing both design and construction for projects in the United States and overseas for over 30 years. Steve has worked on a variety of projects: restoring historic buildings and homes, building educational facilities and a campus in the Caribbean, private homes in the United States, a coastal village development in Brazil, and an award-winning 500,000 square foot rural office headquarters with cogeneration facility in New Jersey, USA. He is working on another co-generation project now for the Princeton Club in New York city that will reduce its carbon footprint by as much as 70%. Steve ventures that altogether the value of all projects he has worked on may total well over $1.5 billion in today’s dollars. The services Steve provides are sought after because by ensuring quality control, financial oversight and coordinating the different players and tasks involved in a large project, the owner can save many times the fee he charges them (on one project he calculated it was a ratio of 10 to 1).
EBBF: How did you get started in this line of work?
Steve: From an early age I had a curiosity about how other people around our planet lived, what they thought, what values they lived by. My parents invited foreign college students on their school breaks to stay with us as they traveled to learn about the US. I kept them up late at night asking questions about their countries. I also took opportunities to travel in college and later the US Navy made good on its promise to let me "see the world”. I came to the conclusion that all humans share basic desires, reactions and given the chance, love for each other – that the world is indeed one family, one country on this single Earth. I also learned that one can choose conflict or cooperation in resolving issues. I learned that understanding, education and cooperation are by far the best, and in fact, the only ways for humankind not to destroy itself and for civilization to advance for the prosperity of all.
Art and working with my father in his workshop building things informed my childhood. In particular I remember my joy at building a large railroad set where I could shape hills, streams, tunnels and villages. My mother was artistic. She taught me and made sure I had lessons. I worked at construction jobs during my summer high school years. Our physical environment and our ability to alter and picture it drew me to the study of architecture at Princeton. After my service obligation as a pilot in the Navy, I had a job offer at Bechtel that I took me into the planning and management systems of large projects. While I took satisfaction in being the part of physical manifestations of my work and felt that these projects were of benefit, I did not delve very deeply into either the higher purpose of the work or how we did our work. After all, it was just a good and interesting job that would lead up the corporate ladder to success measured in pay and prestige of a position. My early attraction to common human values was not stimulated, but in fact was submerged beneath the normative measures of success.
- Steve Hall on Site
EBBF: At the 1996 UN Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, I know you served on different fronts—as an Official Observer, as chairman of the World Business Forum’s “Corporate Best Practices Panel – Housing”, and speaker in the NGO forum on “Sustainable American Cities, Dream or Reality?” This had an impact on you as a person and on the kind of work you want to do, didn’t it?
Steve: Yes it did. “There are none so blind as those who will not see” – a quotation that I recently ran across that seems very appropriate for me then, and for the world now. At Habitat my eyes, ears and heart were all opened. I felt a common plea and tremendous energy resonating from all quarters of the world from all levels of humankind to work together to solve the issues of resource and wealth distribution, of pollution, of energy conservation, of infusing love and compassion into all that we do—and especially into business. As in discovering the Bahá’í Faith a few years earlier, I had been unaware of the universality of the values and the yearnings for positive change, and of the dimensions and scope of transformation needed. When I learned that EBBF was promoting values and ethics in business, I thought, “What a novel idea!” Always one to take the “road less traveled” and to tilt at windmills, I immediately joined.
So Habitat indeed was another watershed event for me and an inspiration. In my public service life, participating or speaking at events, writing articles, in interviews or just in conversations, I do what I can to advance vision, mission and values of Habitat. In my business I have done the same and am finally experiencing positive results and reactions. I and others can finally come “out of the closet” with what I term “eco” design/build solutions. Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, has coined a wonderful term for what many have been advocating for a long time for the United States, “Green is the new red, white and blue” [a reference to the colors of that country’s flag].
EBBF: On your website you mention that you strive to “create a win/win proposition for the owner, architect and contractor”. This seems to refer to one of your principles, a commitment to unity. Could you say a little more about this idea?
Steve: I believe the best analogy to the role we play is a comparison to that of the symphony conductor. We are both tasked to assemble the players with skills most appropriate to the piece we are to perform. All have individual talents and each section plays a different role, none more important that another (including the conductor) in producing a great performance. It is an exercise of creating unity in diversity to achieve a higher purpose. One that none could achieve by themselves. The role of the conductor is to be a servant leader bringing forth the best that each individual and each section (or firm) can offer. I tell my project team that it is my job to facilitate their work, to make their job as easy, comfortable and efficient as possible. They earn their fees more easily and quickly. The owner is the direct beneficiary of a team that works well together. All win.
- Environmentally-friendly residence in New York City. Design development managed by Steve
EBBF: I know you’ve worked on projects with renewable energy sources (hydro, solar, wind) and local environmentally-friendly materials. Do you think these advances in green technology represent the solution to our environmental crisis or is this too simplistic a response?
Steve: These practices and technologies are important and some form should be incorporated into every project, but they aren’t in themselves the panacea. The project must be approached from a unity perspective - all parts adding value to the whole. A holistic integration is needed. But the most important change needed in the industry is the change of attitude of people locally and globally not to just accept change, but to seek change and be active participants in the change itself. This applies to first the owners but also the architects, engineers and contractors. Any one of these team members can effect change. We all must become change agents in all that we do. Otherwise change will not be sustainable, as we will rely on a few visionaries who by themselves will be unable to face new challenges as they arise.
Also, we must completely reverse our frame of reference from what has become the expected right and norm of consumption to that of conservation. This value must become internalized in each individual. The Japanese have done so as a culture and once again as in the automotive industry, we must follow. There must first be a moral imperative, then all else will follow.
New environmentally-friendly technology, products and practices are constantly emerging and at increasingly rapid rates. It has been clearly demonstrated that designing and building “green" can be no more expensive and in fact may prove less expensive than conventional practice if the project is conceived and begun with these goals at the outset. But it is the attitude and process that represent the fundamental change needed.
EBBF: So what does this mean for the future? Do you see much hope?
Steve: We need to even now be moving to the next step of thinking and acting from just conservation or mitigation of damage, to an attitude of regenesis where all that we do or make or build must meet the benchmark of creating positive energy for ourselves and for the world: leaving the world a better place than when we were born into it. My eyes were opened when I heard some of these ideas at a think tank session of Regenesis in Santa Fe, New Mexico last November. [Steve recommends going to www.regenesisgroup.com for more information.] These ideas resonate with my belief that our purpose on this planet is not accumulate wealth and indulge in consumption, but rather to understand the world and its peoples and try to serve humanity in order to contribute to a world civilization in which the material and spiritual dimensions coalesce in a dynamic reinforcement of each other.
As to hope, the good news is that being “Green” seems to be blossoming in the public consciousness of America and around the world; the bad news is that time is running out. So let’s all get going!
