The Forest And The Trees: OGA’s Raul Hernandez and Frank Marrero harvest for the future.

Two Good

OGA saves the forest and patio furniture, too

By Bill Strubbe

A conundrum between environmentalists and loggers has long been how to supply lumber for homes, decking and furniture while maintaining viable forest habitats and watersheds for the future. This is often viewed as an either/or struggle, but Raul Hernandez of Annapolis’ Old-Growth Again (OGA) Restoration Forestry and Forever Furniture believes that his organization may have achieved a happy medium.

“We’re not a preservation organization, but rather a conservation nonprofit that restores forest lands yet also harvests timber for firewood and furniture,” explains Hernandez, 45, who divides his time between Graton and Annapolis. “Our limited harvest rate actually allows the forest to grow bigger.”

Experiencing an existential crisis in his late 20s, Hernandez jettisoned a promising journalism career in Miami to study instead at an ashram in Marin. Eventually frustrated with certain aspects of monastic life (“I realized that the guru was also full of shit”) and what he sees as the self-perpetuating politics of organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, he set out to synchronize his spiritual ideals with environmental work.

Joining the Institute for Sustainable Forestry and delving into books–particularly Gordon Robinson’s 1988 The Forest and the Trees: A Guide to Excellent Forestry–Hernandez found his knowledge literally taking root in 1994 through the purchase of a tract of 40 steep acres above Sea Ranch that had been clear-cut in the 1950s and ’60s. Through backbreaking work, Hernandez and his partner, Frank Marrero of Fairfax, restored the ravaged hillsides acre by acre. Living in a solar-powered cabin, they thinned out the tan oaks, manzanitas and poison oak, and loped off hundreds of redwood trees’ lower branches to raise the canopy, allowing more light for the 5,000 fledgling conifers OGA plants annually. With the help of a sturdy pair of Percheron horses, Sparky and Ike, smaller trees were hauled out without damaging the land, and sold as firewood.

Hardwoods presently comprise about 50 percent of OGA’s trees, but over the next 20 to 30 years the nonprofit aims for stands of about 80 to 90 percent conifers. And instead of allowing some 1,000 trees to crowd an acre, as some timber growers do, their goal is to return the land to its original state of about 100 to 150 larger, higher-quality, trees per acre.

With firewood sales, charitable donations and grants covering only a portion of the thinning costs and the seedling nursery, a furniture component was initially born in 2000 as a gift for patrons. One recipient was so impressed with OGA head carpenter Antonio Toledo’s craftsmanship that he suggested the nonprofit market its redwood furniture as a means to offset conservation efforts. “It’s now become our primary funding source,” Hernandez explains.

The hefty outdoor furniture ranges in style from picnic tables, Adirondack chairs, porch swings, gliders, pergolas, planter boxes, garden benches, children’s furniture, chaise lounges and even a double chaise lounge with a reclining back.

“Pieces can be customized,” Hernandez says. “Most tables are available with benches attached or separate. Table- and benchtop corners can be squared or rounded, tabletops can come with or without umbrella holes.”

Whatever a customer’s specifications, OGA’s Forever Furniture is unique in that all boards are cut a full 2-by-6 inches thick (most picnic tables and benches are only 1 1/2 inches thick and 5 1/4 inches wide). The extra girth significantly increases the furniture’s appearance, sturdiness and durability. Pieces have been purchased by local wineries, and can also be found in a park for handicapped children in the Sierras, at the Vandenberg Air Force Base and even in the Pentagon.

The finest, tight-grain redwood that Forever Furniture makes is milled from “buckskin” logs–those trees abandoned by the original loggers that were discovered and unburied from a hillside by Hernandez and crew. Some of these well-preserved logs are a stout 4 feet in diameter and up to 40 feet long. Regardless of grade, all have a 20-year decay warranty and a plaque that reads “Proceeds Used for Forest Restoration.”

The restoration continues to grow. Currently managing about 580 acres, Hernandez hopes to expand OGA’s restorative work to neighboring forest tracts that might otherwise be felled by industrial, “liquidation” methods.

“The goal is to restore and preserve a healthy habitat while selectively logging out the over-represented species,” he says. “We’re convinced that this is, in the long term, not only better for the land, but also more profitable.”

For more information on Old-Growth Again Restoration Forestry and Forever Furniture, call 707.495.4955 or visit www.oldgrowthagain.org.

From the December 8-14, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Sweat Equity: Petaluma’s Athleta sportswear company assures that it’s possible to look good while being good.

Jock Meets Queen

Athleta proves looking great and shredding are synonymous

By Jill Koenigsdorf

When one imagines life in the corporate world, one often thinks of the “Dilbert” cartoons: a survival-of-the-fittest world of stress, wage slaves and life-sucking cubicles overseen by sadistic, out-of-touch bosses. One rarely envisions a workplace where you are greeted at the door by several happy dogs with toys in their mouths. And while there are cubicles at Athleta, the Petaluma-based women’s athletic clothing company, most of them are festooned with memorabilia from various races and sporting events. There’s even a photo of Marilyn Monroe lifting weights.

At Athleta, most employees don’t sit on chairs in front of their computer screens; they sit on yoga balls, big, colorful rubber balls purported to do away with back pain. None of the 100 or so employees working here has the pasty pallor of those doomed to spend eight hours indoors under fluorescent lights; rather, it seems like taking phone orders for a successful clothing line is just something they do between eco-challenges and triathlons.

The picture of women in sports has changed radically over the last several decades. In my mother’s era, exercise was something a woman did so her girdle didn’t have to work so hard when she put on a cocktail dress. I have a vivid memory of my mother huffing and puffing in front of the black-and-white TV, wearing my father’s swim trunks (lots of give) and the stained gray sweatshirt she saved for her twice-weekly rendezvous with Jack La Lanne.

This was long before the words “personal trainer” or “gluts” were in any woman’s vocabulary; before businesswomen packed running shoes in their briefcases; before Billie Jean King became one of the first women athletic superstars; and even before yoga, in various increasingly sweaty incarnations, took the West by storm. Now, staying youthful and healthy are almost a religion in this country, and I find myself part of a generation that couldn’t even imagine a life without hiking, biking, swimming–physical activities that challenge me and make me feel alive. Yet the eternal question remains: What to wear?

In the mid-’90s, cyclist, surfer and entrepreneur Scott Kerslake noticed that many of the women he was training with complained that the leotards and leg warmers that Jane Fonda had ushered in just weren’t cutting it any more in the outdoor-wear department. He wanted to start a business somehow related to sports, and he suddenly saw a huge need. In 1997– voilà!–Athleta was conceived. Marketing both original goods and other company’s products, Athleta has seen its own line of clothing grow over the years to support half of the company’s sales.

Since Kerslake’s epiphany, the women’s athletic-apparel industry is expected to top $38 billion next year, with Nike and other large sporting goods companies jumping aboard with their own lines just for women. According to Athleta marketing director Tami Anderson, this is merely recognizing the obvious.

“People are finally realizing that women are athletic,” Anderson says, noting that a recent study showed that most active women today regularly take part in as many as three different sports. “It’s nice to see the industry grow. One change we have seen is that women aren’t just using these clothes for athletic pursuits, but are wearing them just to hang out in because the clothes are comfortable. We realized right off that women don’t just want sized-down men’s apparel–the clothing could also have an element of style; it could look good and be functional.”

Kerslake chose to situate his company in Petaluma during the Internet boom as a good cost-of-living draw for his employees. While many catalogue companies outsource their warehousing and calling centers, Athleta’s remain in-house, with all of the clothing made in the Bay Area.

Athleta catalogues differ from many other clothing catalogues in that the women modeling the clothes come in all shapes, sizes and age groups, looking the way real women look, with perhaps a bit more glowing vitality. These real-life models are usually shown actually performing the sport the clothing was designed for–clothing that is presumably making them more comfortable while doing it. Plus, the clothes look great. If a woman has muscles in her legs, Athleta clothes show her muscles off. No more Michelin Man puffy parkas for the cold or swim suits that are only functional when sun bathing.

Athleta classifies its clothes as being appropriate for everything from running to snowshoeing to anything in between, with the possible exception of sumo wrestling. Catalogue sales make up 60 per cent of Athleta’s output, with the other 40 percent sold online.

Women make up 90 percent of Athleta’s employees, and the products are designed and developed by women. Members of Athleta’s sales and distribution team play soccer together, many of them taking part in Colorado’s famed Women’s Quest. At the very least, all definitely share a common interest in sports, which can be very helpful to customers who can speak to women with experience “in the field.” All of Athleta’s models are athletes, and the majority of the company’s workers identify themselves as such–the head of the design team is a former pro cyclist–and many have chosen to take part of their pay in clothing.

The company reinforces five “core values” of “courageous communication, families first, pushing limits, health and fitness and giving back,” which might explain the general good vibe in the office. When Kerslake started the company, he wanted to create a place that didn’t force the worker to separate what was important to her personally from what was important to her professionally. To that end, Athleta employees annually “adopt” a resident at the Pleasant Care Convalescent Home during the holidays, singing carols, decorating a tree and bringing gifts.

While Athleta doesn’t advertise and donates generously to grass-roots events, it still managed sales topping $23.5 million in 2002. The company’s philosophy stipulates an integration of mind, body and spirit, positing that sport is really a metaphor for unlimited potential, ideals that shine through in the spirit found in its offices and in the pages of its catalogues.

Athleta is located at 1622 Corporate Circle, Petaluma. 888.322.5515. www.athleta.com.

From the December 8-14, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.