How To Survive and Prosper
Success requires
tempering missionary
zeal with good
business sense
by Charles Wing
"It's no longer acceptable to buy a truckload of material, nail it together, call it a
house, and hope that it works." With these words, Bill Eich of Spirit Lake, Iowa,
speaks for a new generation of builders.
Many of these builders got their start in the period following 1973, when the
Arabs unwittingly introduced a powerful marketing strategy for energy efficiency—
basic fear for survival. Jimmy Carter proclaimed energy conservation the moral
equivalent of war, and the government poured millions into energy conservation
research. No idea was too kooky. And into this vacuum stepped hundreds,