Adventure experiences translate beyond the trail

Green's Eco Build & Design owners Tyler Smith, left, and Sam Young stand beside the remaining recycled plastic buckets they have available at their new business on Riverside Drive. (Photo: Tim Barber)
Green's Eco Build & Design owners Tyler Smith, left, and Sam Young stand beside the remaining recycled plastic buckets they have available at their new business on Riverside Drive. (Photo: Tim Barber)

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PAINT: As an interior paint, primer or chalkboard paint, Green’s offers Colorhouse to keep your home both stylish and safe with an eco-friendly paint that does not include toxins, VOCS, harmful fumes or chemical solvents.FLOORING: Green’s Eco Build & Design tile comes from StonePeak, a state-of-the-art facility which focuses on producing sustainable, green, environmentally friendly porcelain tile. The process StonePeak uses is meant to reuse, recycle and reduce.FLOORING: Green’s Eco Build & Design carries two different types of lumber. The first is a certified SFI lumber, which is most often southern yellow pine. Much of Green’s lumber comes from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee and is considered a sustainable resource because of its abundance in these areas. Green’s also carries the least toxic form of treated lumber in order to remain in line with its eco-friendly business plan.

Two months ago I was filling out applications for jobs that had nothing to do with my field of study. "Experience required" meant I couldn't apply because since graduating from college, my only professional experience has been in the classroom. There was no room on these applications to list the variety of skills I had from venturing into the wilderness - like that summer I spent in the Northeast canoeing the Allagash River. I'd seen a moose family swim by my canoe, sat where Thoreau wrote parts of Maine, and helped build a steam room out of tent tarps. On the final day of the trip, I T-rescued another canoe in Class III waves, salvaged coolers and oars while communicating with others under stress.

However, on the typical job application there isn't a space to tell stories.

Soon after moving to Chattanooga I met a kindred spirit named Sam Young. He had the same sort of experiences which are rarely relevant on job applications. Yet he'd found a way to bring aspects of his outdoor leadership - as well as his design and architectural skills - to his career as a small-business owner.

Young is the only full-time employee of his shop, Green's Eco Build & Design, which sells non-toxic, American-made building products. He brings attributes to his business principles and practices from his most recent adventure: a thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail.

"There are many grand and small challenges when starting and running your own business," Young told me when I sat down with him recently. Earlier that day, he and Green's graphics and marketing guru Mark Song had been speaking about some of their business challenges and possible solutions.

"Every journey starts with a step, whether it is a 2,168-mile hike, maintaining a small business that sells green building materials, or peering up a mountain, metaphorically or otherwise, with a 2,000-foot elevation gain that you need to tackle today. You have to approach all of these one step at a time," said Young.

Years before Green's was conceptualized, Young had been planning for the AT with hiking partner Chris Hoy. Hoy (trail name: The Cops) and Young (trail name: TrailmiX) first imagined their trip in 1999 during a night studying for a Spanish exam. A friend from Marietta, Georgia, called Young and asked to be fed and housed when he came through town. The friend was thru-hiking the AT.

This is when Young's trail fantasies first began. For Young, life is all about creating and experiencing adventure, whether that means opening a business, taking off into the woods for a few months or making a move across the country.

As I talked to Young about his time on the trail, he shared several stories of chance encounters with people from his past who happened to either be hiking the same section that he was or swimming in one of the many creeks winding alongside the white blazes. But there was one story he shared that stood out as the epitome of Young's perspective, spanning his hike almost five years ago to his current business venture.

One night early in their trek, Young told me, he and his two trail mates were hunkered down for the night when two men approached them. The men said they were going about five miles farther, down to the Kincora Hostel at the bottom of Moreland Gap in Tennessee. They asked Young and his group if they wanted to join. There was a nasty storm coming in, so Young's two trail mates passed. But Young decided to go.

Young recounts the trek: "The entire five miles was along a ridgeline and the storm just came at us. It was pitch black, the rain was monsooning, we were trekking in head lamps, my poncho was flying in the wind, even my [hiking] sticks felt unstable. But I felt so alive. When we got to the hostel I had some tea, read, relaxed and slept in a bed. The next morning, I'd just eaten some delivery pizza when my buddies came in and asked how my night was. I answered by offering them a slice of pizza while they told me that it was their worst night on the trail so far. While it was raining on us, it had snowed on them, and they'd put the tarp in the mouth of the shelter at the summit and hardly slept at all. So obviously there's something to be said for there being an adventure that begins with elements not in your favor."

Young's approach to his business has been congruent with his openness to take on opportunities as they present themselves, whether the odds are seemingly in his favor or not. And while the journey is constantly changing with the needs of his customers or the materials he hopes to sell, he has maintained his trek to the summit since moving to Chattanooga.

I asked Young, "What would signify a culmination of your efforts at Green's? Your career 'summit?'"

"Making a positive impact on the Chattanooga community, in some sort of tangible way, and have a positive influence on people's consumer psychology," he responded. "People need a few things to survive and four to thrive: food, water, shelter and the fourth, love. So if someone goes to the farmers market or Whole Foods, they are getting the food and the water, hopefully finding love in similarly healthy, conscious ways. But what about their shelter?"

Similar to the preparation Young took before walking north, he laid out a map for his business; envisioned his destination. But he doesn't want to finish there. He wants to enjoy the scenery while making Green's more than a business venture. So much of his business model was brought to life during the months surrounding his thru-hike - like how to prepare for the unexpected, plan with others and compromise during unforeseen circumstances.

"When you are struggling, questioning yourself on the trail, you do not have to be alone," said Young. "Your tribe encourages you to take part in the adventure and all you will take from it." And that is what Young aims for his business to be in Chattanooga's marketplace: a place that works to create a sustainable community, a place that works with and for each other out of love and creativity.

Love, after all, is one of the scariest adventures.

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