Jeff Kaplan
Jeff has been a social entrepreneur since a young age. He was the founder of the Urban Land Institute’s national Young Leaders Program at the age of 21. He was a co-founder of Wulfe Urban, an urban development consulting and brokerage team under the auspices of Wulfe & Co. In late 2007, Jeff started New Living, a green building and home store that became the first certified B Corp (or Benefit Corporation) that was a retail store in the US. His passions are green building, social enterprise business, and the revitalization of cities. He was the Chair of Sustainability for the Houston District Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) as well as ULI’s Urban Marketplace Program, and sat on ULI’s Houston board for 5 of the last 7 years. Jeff has helped develop many small, socially impactful businesses in Houston’s inner-city, including Caroline Collective, The Green Painter, Trentino Gelato, Byrd’s Market, Beaver’s Ice House and Sammy’s @ 2016 Main. He has served on the boards of The Blackwood Educational Land Institute, The Urban Land Institute, The Rice Building Institute, the Architypes steering committee for the AIA, and The Great Plains Council. In 2011 he was named a “Green Hero” by the Houston Chapter of the United States Green Building Council.
Lewis Cauffman
Lewis is our environmental hardware and paint expert and recently received the LEEP AP Professional designation. He has a background in retail management and spent four years managing Wagner Hardware before teaming up with New Living. Whether you’re looking to lay bamboo in your hallway or find the perfect product to stain your furniture, Lewis can walk you through the process and help you find a sustainable solution.
Adam Brackman
Adam is a co-founder of New Living and has an extensive background in leveraging technology and social media to bring new ideas to the market. He is also a partner of Urban Deal specializing in mixed-use development and brokerage. Adam has been involved with several successful start-up ventures including the Caroline Collective. He also has a passion for photography and is New Living’s photographer.
Monte Large
As director of retail development, Monte’s focus is store design and build out. His background in design and business, with focus on retail, first led him to a merchandising and store design position with H&M in New York, then a role specializing in retail site selection and leasing with Wulfe & Co. He is a William Kinne International Development Fellow at and graduate of Columbia University’s Masters of Real Estate Development at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation; an ICSC Foundation Charles Grossman Graduate Scholar; winner of redevelopment proposal for the 950,000 sf Verizon building at 342 Pearl St in New York City; and holds a Bachelors from Bard College in Painting and Architecture.
Evan O’Neil
Evan’s interest in rethinking the way humans operate led him to New Living, where he is the Creative Director of Design and Media. Evan is responsible for the visual look of New Living and marketing communications. Evan doesn’t have any fancy acronyms to add here. He is a proud Project M alumni, an Iceland enthusiast, and Bossa Nova aficionado. Check out lots of Evan’s awesome work here.
healthy green homesAmanda DeMers As New Living’s coordinator of PR, events, and environmental education, Amanda’s focus is raising community awareness of environmental and health issues in order to grow Houston’s local, green economy. Amanda was exstatic to land at New Living after the realization that a BA in History and a MA in International Studies (with a focus on Fijian fisheries) wasn’t as immediately useful as she once thought. Amanda lived in New Zealand for two years as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar, and learned a lot there about human-environmental interaction. Amanda likes travel and policy change, especially when the two collide, and was once a championship Irish step dancer. No, really.
 

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