What We Value

Building Sustainable Communities

Our community includes the larger global community and the town where we manufacture our products. Our community relies on the relationships we cultivate.

Global Community

Highland Craftsmen Inc.® recognizes that resources have to be protected and renewed globally and we enact that in our practices. For example, Highland Craftsmen Inc. is the Original Manufacturer of Poplar Bark Shingles. We utilize a waste product of the logging industry and produce a natural bark shingle as home siding. The manufacturing of this product uses very few resources like water, electricity or fuel. Hand tools and brute human strength are the staples of Bark House® Shingle manufacturing. This is a maintenance free product. It never has to be sealed, stained or painted; therefore chemicals are not added. Bark House Shingles last up to 80 years and when it’s finally time to discard the product, it’s all natural, so it won’t harm the environment. Highland Craftsmen is mindful that we are a part of a larger system for a lifetime that is longer than our own.

Plant Location and Structure

The 1999 President’s Council on Sustainable Development recognized the importance of place. In particular, more and more individuals and leaders are recognizing the intrinsic value of the places in which people live, work, and visit. In part, they are recognizing that healthy and livable communities provide a measure of security and stability in a rapidly changing society. The HC team recognizes and appreciates the warm embrace of our old home town.

HC® has one primary manufacturing facility at 534 Oak Avenue, Spruce Pine N.C.. We have maintained a compact footprint, so as to minimize impact on the surrounding neighborhood. HC strives to integrate into the community by providing Green spaces and landscaping materials to buffer our industrial impact.

Before HC was founded, there was a simple question of who we wanted to be. Spruce Pine is asking itself that question right now. Our stake is that this town become an archetype for Sustainable Home Towns. HC is modeling an option to the local economy, that entrepreneurism, recognizing hidden treasures (waste), and hard work can make a difference.

Safety is paramount for HC. We employ off duty police officers to maintain security at the plant. The officers patrol the area to ensure that pedestrians remain in designated walk through corridors. The Safety and Health Plan is overseen by a registered occupational nurse and administered jointly with a veteran quality control officer.

Building Sustainable Relationships

The relationships HC cultivates with clients, employees, vendors and support services are integral to our work. A longtime friend and client passed along an important lesson during a transition period for HC. He stated that our company does not want every client or every vendor. Embracing this allowed us to eliminate factors that were contrary to our values. Quality in its most wholistic scope is the central qualifier in our relationships.

Clients

The HC client values quality products, services, relationships and outcomes above all. They are driven to identify a particular aesthetic that is unique, classic and harmonizes with their particular design, and in the case of Green homes, the design’s intent. Our clients understand that upfront savings do not necessarily mean savings to the bottom line for the life of the project. The HC client is often visionary and is typically well educated.

Vendors (Raw Material Suppliers)

Before HC, there were no Bark Vendors. We created this job and provide Specification Sheets to all suppliers with specific harvesting and procurement criteria and work on a relationship based on Quality at the Source. We encourage the use of best practices to minimize environmental impact. Vendors are made up of local professional loggers, foresters and independent agents.

Creating Green-Collar Jobs

In the October 23 (2007) blog written by Meghan Moore, Green-collar jobs, the key to a greener economy, it was noted that with ever-growing concerns about the scarcity of resources on our planet and the popular belief that only the rich can afford to go green, Monday’s forum at the Center for American Progress was a necessary response to the public’s dismay. It stressed the need for the creation of green collar jobs in order to produce sustainable, renewable energy and the promotion of green industry, specifically in poorer neighborhoods throughout the nation.

Creating Sustainable Products

Highland Craftsmen is a Green Friendly company. Most of our materials and products are 100% reclaimed. Our manufacturing processes utilize minimal energy (with the exception of man-power) in their formation. Our mission since 1990 has been “to produce a product line that is harmonious with nature (green) and minimizes the impact of construction” in an area of the Blue Ridge Mountains where development was expanding quickly. We recognized that development would increase; we wanted to offer green, indigenous, building products that were historically appropriate to the area to create more harmonious, balanced living spaces. Today we maintain the same mission and have expanded our scope. We sell Bark House® Elements for the Whole Home™ in over 32 states and see our role as a part of the larger whole. What we do is a result of what we value.

Summary

Highland Craftsmen Inc. embraces a three tier strategic plan:

People • Planet • Profit