JOE’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I stumbled into the field of public health 15 years ago when my wife, Mary, pulled off the contact info tab on a help-wanted poster advertising a research assistant position at the Harvard School of Public Health. The rest is history. So my first thank-you is to Mary for grabbing that tab, and then to Angie Craddock, Steve Gortmaker, Maren Fragala, Robin Dodson, and Debbie Bennett for giving me my first job in public health.
Soon after I started graduate school at Boston University and met my doctoral adviser, Mike McClean, he asked if I had ever considered a doctoral degree, and the next thing I knew I was working with Mike as his first doctoral student. I learned from Mike how to mentor students, and I still find that I ask myself, “What would Mike have said to me in this situation?” A special thanks to my many great professors at BU, who reignited my scientific passion: Tom Webster, Wendy Heiger-Bernays, Tim Heeren, Roberta White, and Dick Clapp. Thank you.
My professional life was guided by two Jacks—Jack McCarthy and Jack Spengler. Under Jack McCarthy’s leadership at Environmental Health & Engineering (EH&E), I took what I learned in the classroom and was mentored in how to make it practical. I received invaluable life lessons on how to be a good scientist and communicator, under pressure. As I was at EH&E for five years, I cannot name everyone who should be acknowledged, but special thanks to David MacIntosh, Jim Stewart, Taeko Minegishi, Matt Fragala, Kathleen Brown, Will Wade, Brian Baker, and the world’s best engineer, Jerry Ludwig, for problem solving with me every day.
While at EH&E I had the unbelievable good fortune of also working with the inimitable Jack Spengler at Harvard. We started working on research together while I was at EH&E and formed a genuine friendship. He is a true visionary. Jack has been at the forefront of every great environmental health movement since the 1970s. So when he talks, I listen. Carefully. For 15 years he has been the invisible hand guiding me, never asking for credit. What I love most about Jack is his spirit—generous with his ideas and always looking forward, with an unmatched passion. About everything. I’m forever indebted.
When I joined the Harvard faculty, I was warned by outsiders about the lack of collegiality I could expect in academia and told that, rather than collaboration, I would find only competition. I have found it to be the opposite. I’m grateful for Dean Michelle Williams and faculty colleagues for their support, guidance, and encouragement: Russ Hauser, David Christiani, Francine Laden, Elsie Sunderland, Francesca Dominici, Brent Coull, Diane Gold, Petros Koutrakis, Doug Dockery, Howard Koh, Aaron Bernstein, Ashish Jna, Juliette Kayyem, Naomi Oreskes, and many more. To the corps of “junior” faculty, thank you for being wonderful colleagues: Tamarra James-Todd, Jin-Ah Park, Gary Adamkiewicz, Jamie Hart, Quan Lu, Kris Sarosiek, Zach Nagel, Shruthi Mahalingaiah, Carmen Messerlian, and Bernardo Lemos. To the administrative teams—thank you for the magic behind the scenes. Special thanks to Amanda Spickard and Sarah Branstrator for supporting our every move in the Healthy Buildings program, Jen Rice and Grant Zimmerman in the Office of Technology Development, and Heather Henriksen and the Office for Sustainability for collaborating on driving research into practice across Harvard.
I also want to thank my Healthy Buildings team, starting with my trusted and valued associate directors, Piers MacNaughton (now at View) and Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent, and my current doctoral students, Anna Young, Emily Jones, and Erika Eitland. This is a special team of postdocs, doctoral students, professional researchers, and administrators. On my first day at Harvard I was challenged with this question: “How will your research impact the world?” I wrote this question on the whiteboard in the Healthy Buildings program lab and we have used it as a way to reflect on the projects and research we are taking on. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by such a stellar group of scientists and people.
I want to thank a few of the pioneers of the Healthy Building movement individually, some of whom I have worked with directly, and others who have influenced me through their work. This includes Linda Birnbaum, immediate past director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, as well as Rich Corsi, Elaine Hubal, Frederica Perera, Tracey Woodruff, Charlie Wechsler, Bill Nazaroff, Carl Gustaf-Bornehag, and Bill Fisk. I have also been inspired and influenced by the next crop of superstar Healthy Building researchers—the likes of Shelly Miller, Marina Vance, Jon Levy, Brent Stephens, Pawel Wargocki, Michael Waring, Gabriel Bekö, Usha Satish, Christoph Reinhart, and Heather Stapleton, just to name a few. I’m also thankful for the first giant in the field of worker health, Harvard’s first female faculty member, Alice Hamilton. To find myself in her lineage is, to say the least, humbling.
As we have said throughout this book, research in a vacuum doesn’t do anyone any good. So I am particularly grateful for, and proud of, our collaborators in the business world: Mary Milmoe, John Mandyck, Kori Recalde, Ashley Barrie, Caren Kittredge, Alec Saltikoff, Lucy Sutton, Colleen Pham, Maureen Ehrenberg, Bryan Koop, the JLL team, Bob Fox, the Dursts, Samo, Janez, and Iza Login, David Levinson, Shami Waissman, Robin Bass, Ben Myers, Gerald Chan, and Norman Foster.
To my coauthor, John Macomber, who answered my cold-call email and agreed to that first lunch, thank you for engaging (and being engaging). Writing and reworking these chapters with you has helped strengthen and clarify my thinking in ways I could not foresee before we started talking. I’m glad we had that handshake.
In my personal life, I have been given the gift of a large, supportive, fun, and funny family. I am grateful for my parents for giving me street smarts, for my 5 siblings (10 counting their spouses), 15 nieces and nephews, 30-plus cousins and aunts and uncles, and my in-laws, Margaret, Bill and Ann. They have been a wonderful pillar of strength that has spanned my upbringing, education, and current career.
Last, and most importantly, to Mary and our three kids, Colby, Chelsea, and Landon. I love my work, but my first and most important job is as husband and dad. You bring purpose to my work and fill my life with happiness.
To Mary: thanks for pulling that tab in the halls of Harvard Medical School 15 years ago, and for a million other small nudges in the right direction ever since. You have patiently heard me talk enough about public health and my work that I now totally agree with you when you joke, “I have at least earned a master of public health degree by now, right?” Thanks for having fun with me and supporting me through all of this.
Feeling grateful …
Onward!
JOHN’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Three phases of life led me to Joe and this book, and the concepts of modeling finance and environment to try to optimize outcomes for the system, writ large, and its occupants.
When I was a student at Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School, John Kemeny introduced me to probability theory and modeling with computing, Dana Meadows to system dynamics and complex systems, and Bruce Greenwald to managerial economics. These concepts resonated then and they are still important to me now.
In my professional career in construction, there were many mentors, but the team that has been most consistent is that of my siblings and coinvestors, my brother George Macomber and sister Grace Bird. For 30 years I’ve also had a business partner in the real estate industry. Peter Nordblom and his late father, Rod, have modeled healthy buildings—and outside-the-box thinking about the wellness of those who occupy our buildings—at Northwest Park and more. Thank you all for showing me how a forward-thinking commercial landlord thinks and invests in practice.
Fred Moavenzadeh at MIT thought he saw a spark in 1988 and brought me to the front of the classroom. While the content and the venue have changed, I’ve never left the front of the room. Having a chance to help my own students become leaders who will make a positive difference in the world is a real blessing. Like Joe, coming to Harvard I worried about being accepted and welcomed. To my delight, I’ve been embraced and have found a particular affinity in the Harvard Business School Business and Environment Initiative and the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Arthur Segel, Rebecca Henderson, Forest Reinhardt, and Mike Toffel have been allies, colleagues, co-teachers, cheerleaders, and course correctors when needed. Our dean, Nitin Nohria, has illuminated a path for business to help solve the big problems of the world, and given all of us the resources to walk down that path.
My late father, George Macomber, would say, “How can we move the ball of humanity forward?” I hope this book will be useful to that end. My wife, Kristin, has been endlessly supportive of the startups, the turnarounds, the teaching, and everything in between. She’s pleased when I’m away working on education projects, and she’s happy when I’m home.
Mostly, though, I would like to acknowledge and thank my mother, Andy Macomber. She encouraged the life of the mind, gave me free range to chase my passions and ideas, instilled in me a sense of how to be respected and trustworthy, and reinforced the idea that for every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required. Thank you.
FROM JOE AND JOHN
We are grateful to the team at Harvard University Press for taking a chance on us as new authors. We were skillfully guided through the process and received smart edits from our outstanding editors Joy de Menil and Jeff Dean. To the three anonymous peer-reviewers, we very much appreciate your comments and insights on our first full draft. We also thank Harvard University student Sydney Robinson, whom we brought on to work on references, but who offered so much more with her careful reading and editing of the entire manuscript. Last, we thank the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health’s Dean’s Innovation Fund, which contributed to the support of our efforts to foster greater collaboration between the business and health communities.