Fresno Bee, May 18, 2007

Mountain Vista Honored
Visalia company noted as ‘green’ builder

The principals of Mountain Vista Construction Co. in Visalia made "green" building a focus of their company before it became fashionable in the central San Joaquin Valley.

“We believed in it,” Stuart Rigney said of their decision four years ago to become a leader in sustainable building. “It was big on the East Coast and in the metropolitan cities of California, and we felt it would get big in the Valley,”said Rigney, chief financial officer and general manager of Mountain Vista.

That decision four years ago led to American Builders Quarterly recently naming the company one of the top environmentally focused construction companies in the nation and one of four in California.

Mountain Vista is the contractor on the expansion of Garuda International in Exeter. The maker of nutritional supplements is remaking the former Waterman Foundry site into its corporate headquarters.

Garuda will have one of the most environmentally friendly structures in the central San Joaquin Valley. The building will be solar powered and have zoned air conditioning so empty rooms won’t be cooled, drought-tolerant landscaping, pervious concrete so rainwater can seep through and twice as much insulation, Rigney said.

The architect on the Garuda project is Thom Black, one of two LEED-accrredited architects at Mountain Vista.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and was adopted by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Rigney said building green is not as expensive an many people think.

On average, it adds 1% to 2% to the cost of construction and can recoup the additional cost in three to four years via energy savings.

Mountain Vista’s eight employees design and oversee six to seven projects per year, half of which are residential.

The company is building two energy-efficient houses – one in Porterville and one in Visalia – in addition to constructing the Garuda headquarters.

“We felt this is the wave of the future and wanted to be on the leading edge,” Rigney said. In five to seven years, what we do will be the norm.”