I owe my status as a LEED AP to Sholem Prasow, even though I had never met him until recently. During the economic freefall that was happening during the early months of 2009, I joined hundreds of other people across the US, Canada and other parts of the world, in each of our respective Teknion showrooms to hear him speak for an hour a week for eight weeks. His unique vocal inflections, delivered via teleconference every week, guided all of us through not only the logic and text of the documents we were studying, but the sustainable intent of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and their distinctive approach to making the built environment more sustainable. During those seminars, Mr. Prasow made it clear that sustainability is subjective; the practice of being green is different for everyone, depending on what is important to the individual or the institution. I still refer to my extensive notes taken during those classes. Along with a host of other professional colleagues attending the same seminars, I passed the LEED test on my first try with flying colors; for Mr. Prasow, that was the thirteenth time he and Teknion had given the course to their customers free of charge.
As Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Teknion, Mr. Prasow does far more than guide the uninitiated through the tangled web of institutionalized sustainable manufacturing and design practices. “For me, it’s not just about the products we make, but more the processes,” he said. “For Teknion, we work on how to articulate the value that we provide to our clients in a way that they see it and appreciate it. Really, it is about engagement with our customers. One of the things that I do is develop our internal sales training programs. What is sales in the first place but engagement?,” he said. I still associate Teknion with LEED, and always will; to me, the best form of sustainable engagement is brand association.
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