Dave Ray

I grew up on a farm in Virginia, this was the beginning of my sustainability journey. Our small mostly self sufficient farm taught conservation, care, hardwork, and problem solving. After graduating from UMASS, I knew that I wanted to help people, but was unsure of my path. I was a financial planner before helping people open their own businesses as a franchisor. This turned into my second business ownership, a commercial cleaning company. Our team consisted of a very diverse group, where I was the only white person in the company and the majority of our team, including management and upper management were women. During this period, the work that I enjoyed the most was developing people. I replaced myself at every turn empowering our team and the company grew until I sold it. After helping many lives and buildings improve, my goal was to work on bigger issues with a smaller staff. GRN Vision provides education and building certifications, but our most impactful work is providing sustainability inventories to help organizations improve and working with multifamily developers to improve their buildings for the vulnerable populations. It has been too long where unhealthy buildings are the norm, where the population with the least has to pay and suffer the most. Everyone should be able to have a healthy home and work space in a safe environment. Imagine when buildings contribute to health and wellness…