[Heather Smith]

But can you pay back your loans with the pay you will receive at entry level?

[Heather Smith]

Thank you so much! I will definitely add these items to my list. I have several of them, but hadn’t heard of a lot of them! I am super excited!

[Heather Smith]

I would branch out away from any degree that has you specializing in something that requires a kickin’ economy. That would definitely lead me away from Resort Planning…unless you plan on saving a lot of money when it is bustling! 🙂 Even Urban design…all of that is contingent on a healthy economy. I guess I would lean towards an MBA.

I would actually caution you from getting a graduate degree unless you really veer off and go into something entirely different, like physical therapy. haha.

I would look for work in places that you haven’t thought of or that you think may be “beneath” you. I don’t mean that in a snobby way either…but for example, we have our own lets be truthful, landscaping business. In school and often professionally there is a tendency for professional LAs to look down on this. For us, this has meant opportunity. And not just financially…which it is. With our business(and my husband does have his LA license) just this summer, he had the change to produce his first construction documents, met professionals running a huge construction business out of Portland, Oregon, worked with them and let them know he was an LA, made it onto the small works roster at WSU where he is meeting other LAs and professionals, has created working relationships with multiple plant vendors, area contractors, and masons. Just today he had a call from someone that was referred to him by the contractor that he drew up documents for…a local vineyard that wants master planning done. He graduated in 2008 and I in 2009…for five years he has been slowly building experience and knowledge. And it wasn’t the way we thought he would. This summer I stuck my toe in and started doing planting plans…so now I am getting an opportunity to use my skills and learn about the more practical challenges of design such as fitting within a budget. 😉

Opportunity comes in many forms and sometimes you have to be willing to change the way you look at them. If I were you, I would check out local landscaping businesses, see if there is an LA running her/his own business…you may be surprised at the opportunities that could come your way. We have had a hard time finding reliable, hardworkers…my husband would LOVE to be able to trust someone that understood design, so that he could spend more time meeting clients, etc.

[Heather Smith]

I see what you are trying to say now, Andrew. Yes, not ideally but pragmatically.

I agree with someone that posted that a lot of the green growth is in tightening up door leaks, insulation, new windows, etc. When I worked at the City of Moscow it was my job to measure the energy use, costs and carbon footprint. I actually found it very interesting, and there is a lot of money to be saved by just making changes in our building codes to require higher standards of efficiency. We could say the same for water conservation, a lot of our sewer systems are very antiquated and lose water every year. These investments in infrastructure are not sexy in anyway, but very practical and necessary. We shouldn’t be focusing so much on the Keystone or coal, if we poured money into updating even our electrical infrastructure we could make do with less energy. We lose so much water and energy because we have not maintained what we have. Of course, these ideas aren’t as exciting to politicians.

The woman that worked in my position after me is actually an LA grad that is now working on her PhD in environmental science, she is currently a NASA fellow, studying energy use at the Sustainability Base in CA. She told me that NASA is now focusing it’s energy on sustainable earth systems meant to decrease energy use but also prepare for the changes that global warming will bring about.

I have always felt and recognized it when working at the city that “green” needs to mean green as in money, as in the savings. It isn’t hard to show the money and payback time that such investments would require. Often the savings are so high from retrofits that the initial investments are paid back very quickly. The money saved can be rolled over into other energy saving projects. One quick example being our local high school that received a grant to replace a very old, inefficient boiler system. This led to HUGE financial saving costs for the district as well as energy savings for all of us. Our local utility is heavily involved in encouraging and offering incentives for increasing energy efficiency. I helped gather information for some of the huge block grants that Obama put into place to help stimulate the economy. These things are just coming to fruition. A local parking lot downtown is receiving funding for lighting retrofits that will use a lot less energy, other places where energy could be saved is on traffic signals. Changing to LEDs saves a TON of money…even the utility guy I was working with was stunned by the savings in dollars. This parking lot is also be repaved and will use swales for storm water mitigation.

So following the original intent of the conversation I guess we could ask would Romney/Ryan approve such funding?

[Heather Smith]

I don’t see it as failing. And I disagree with the notion that the government shouldn’t invest in green energy. As with business, investing in new technologies is inherently risky. The government in general has been the one to pave the way when it comes to researching new ideas.

People are being hired, it has been slow growth but that was expected. Even Romney’s job promise of 12 million simply follows the projected job growth of economists with or without Romney. Anectdotal evidence but we are doing very well businesswise. We were speaking with another small business owner in town and he mentioned that it will never be what it was before the crash. But why should we be surprised? That wasn’t real. We borrowed from future growth and therefore we see a sluggish(which was predicted) growth. I for one find it ironic that conservative small business owners blame the government for their businesses failing when businesses have a high failure rate regardless of which party is in charge. Obama has not hobbled our business. Obama did not cause the crash of 2008…I hear a lot of complaining about this slow growth and no acknowledgement of the severity of this depression.

All indicators point to positive gain in the economy, whether that is home sales, car sales or even our own little story. This is our best year yet…by a long shot. Obviously our bar is set lower because we started in 2008…but I also think it is more realistic. I wish conservatives would stop complaining about the government making their businesses fail when it probably has to do with a lack of demand for their product or poor business skills. What a convenient scape goat.

Romney’s policies do not benefit truly small businesses, but already wealthy individuals like himself that don’t have to worry about purchasing health insurance or figuring out how to find financing. I spoke with the small business and development director down in Lewiston the other day because we are thinking of starting another business and were wondering about the differences in business set ups. When she attempted to explain the s corporation (I believe it was) she had to pause because she said that the tax system was backward from how it used to be. It used to be you were taxed higher on your dividends not your earned income…as a successful business owner and business educator she said this was the opposite of what it used to be. Of course, this is how Romney “earns” his living and why his taxes are so low. We have been experimenting with trickle down economics for 30+ years…how long do we have to see wage stagnation and wealth accumulation at the very top before we admit it doesn’t work? Romney’s plan is the same as Bush’s…according to that mind set we should have had the largest job growth in decades to coincide with the two tax cuts Bush put in and that we still have!

Sorry for the rant…I was just reading a National Chamber post on facebook and they use the term small business to include what would be HUGE businesses to us. They don’t have the same needs as your local mom and pop store, maybe they need a new term so we can have a real discussion on what real “small” businesses need.

[Heather Smith]

Just read an article on Homeland Security spending and how little of that money goes towards fighting terrorism. I found it frustrating to see the consensus that we shouldn’t expect the funding to be cut because of the political power it brings to the representatives of each state. Both democrats and republicans are guilty of this. I do think people enter politics with a desire to help the system, but in order to gain access to the system and remain there they end up selling their souls, or at least bits of it. I look forward to seeing if Jon Huntsman enters the fray again in the future. I think he was very smart to remove himself from the debacle of his party. We REALLY need the republicans to offer up strong candidates. Ultimately, more Americans need to participate in the primaries, then we would have candidates committed to compromise and teamwork. We really can’t blame our politicians when we have so few American’s even willing to do the least time consuming of civic duties, vote.

[Heather Smith]

Thanks Rob…Super Pac spending is not even close…although Obama is picking up some. At one point Romney Super Pacs were raising money 7-1 and then 5-1…probably in no small part because democrats actually hated the Citizens United case. Obviously though, the rules have changed and a candidate could handicap themselves by not playing by the same rules as their opponent.

Interesting to note that Obama has more funds donated to his actual campaign, which means more small donors like you and me…and more disclosure.

I think a lot of Super Pac money is also being used by Senate and House politicians in tight races.

Also, when we say Romney has his own money…that is worth something, I believe he has spent $45 million of his own money.

[Heather Smith]

I didn’t notice if anyone said a third centrist party was out of the question? I don’t see why we shouldn’t but I also don’t think it is a magic elixir. We are imperfect people…if you have three parties, four parties or 100 parties they will all be jockeying for money and influence. You can buy a lot of “speech” these days. The two parties do have differences. This time around, as well as last time, we have had very clear choices. While Obama is not perfect by any measure, no president is. I am not going to agree with someone 100%…heck, I love my husband and we don’t always agree.

One thing that I find VERY hopeful is that despite an avalanche of cash you don’t see Romney doing as well as we would expect. For how many years this man has been running and how much money is lining his campaigns pockets and GOP Super Pacs I am beginning to believe an expert I heard on NPR that said that having the most money does not equal winning.

[Heather Smith]

We need to learn how to develop this in our staff…just finding hard, reliable workers is challenging enough. :/

[Heather Smith]

I am sure many of us think that…and I know that many of the people that would be involved in making an actual difference don’t have time to post about it on Land 8 Lounge. The world has no shortage of people willing to sit back and point out what needs to happen, what we need are people who will go out to local government meetings and become involved. Regionally we all have issues we could become involved with, in my area it is water and recreation. Jon joined the Parks and Recreation Commission this year and is interested in joining a local conservation group at some time. I don’t think we should confuse talk with change.

My advice if you want to change things is to become involved in your own local politics. You actually have a lot of sway in local government.

[Heather Smith]

Because sharing our opinions on land 8 lounge will change the world? Oh boy.

[Heather Smith]

I think a lot of the independents you see could be moderate republicans jumping ship. I was in fact a republican in 2000 and am now a registered independent that is decidedly more democratic leaning.

[Heather Smith]

Working my best to be apolitical…I would say not much would change. If the wealthy get tax cuts…does that really increase their spending needs? Have they been holding back on spending? Not so much. And since I am not convinced that keep taxes low or reducing taxes on the wealthy creates more jobs for the middle class, again, not much change. For us, we do design/build…our clientele will be fine anyway. We typically have clients that own their own businesses, work for government and/or are researchers are local universities.

I really wanted to think of something funny…like, maybe we’ll have more contracts for designing personal horse arenas? Or driveways that can accommodate more vehicles? Nah…not funny enough.

I actually came back to this after thinking about our individual situation. We have now been in business for five years and yes, we are growing. This will be our best year yet. Because our community is built on two different state universities, government funding is VERY important. WSU is heavily involved in animal health research and often wins very large federal grants for this purpose. Obviously, the money makes it’s way into our community. UI has won very large NSF grants, among other agricultural grants at both universities…some private and some public. These too generate work for us. So…for us, it is important that we have a president that continues to invest in both research and education at the university levels. Who is  more likely to do that?

Additionally, as small business owners we are very invested in Obamacare remaining and continuing to work towards a more sustainable healthcare system in this country. I use the term Obamacare, because even though it was originally supposed to be a slight, I think it is a compliment.:) Health insurance costs are insane for small business owners. If politicians truly care about business in this country they will work towards making our care more affordable…this will also help large companies like Boeing which end up competing with companies like Air Bus that have government funded healthcare.

[Heather Smith]

I think what he is saying is more about pragmatism then idealism. Of course having the opportunity to work with multiple designers and feed off of each other is wonderful. But when we see post after post of people looking for work, do we finally come around to the assumption that those getting to do it are the ones doing it for themselves? No one is being handed opportunities in this profession…go out and get them.

[Heather Smith]

You do both. Get your hands dirty and do the business work.

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