In the Summer of 2014, friends Rick and Dave and Daniel were working together on a nonprofit board after spending most of a decade together building up the US Green Building Council Nevada Chapter. After successfully growing USGBCNV up to 600+ members and organizing scores of educational and advocacy events, the three men decided to start their, ‘encore careers’ by opening a green building consultancy in Las Vegas.  Rick, a practicing architect for 20 years, was working as the Executive Director for GreenChips.org (now ImpactNV), a public private partnership in the sustainability and advocacy space, and his two initial partners had left their previous companies and were ready for a new challenge. This culminated in the opening of Greenview Global Consulting (Now GRN Vision) in August 2014.

It was not an easy start for a niche design consulting business, as Las Vegas was still crawling out of a deep recession after the Housing Financial Crisis.  This, coupled with the fact that Las Vegas was still mostly unfamiliar with the benefits of green buildings and sustainable design, made things very difficult for the business to take off.  After three years struggling to find clients and taking very low fees just to keep the doors open, it became clear that the 3-way partnership was not going to work and Dave and Rick decided to buy out Daniel’s ownership interest.  The newly branded firm, GRN Vision (pronounced Green Vision) was launched in January 2021 with a renewed vigor and focus.

In spite of the newfound energy, clients and projects were still in short demand and Rick decided to reach out to his former architecture firm as well as another local firm which had previously been one of his biggest rivals.  With GRN Vision literally days from closing its doors, this gambit was essentially a hail Mary pass that had to work.  These friends also believed in each other and believed strongly that quitting was simply not an option.  Dave and Rick knew that the best way they could make a living and leave a lasting legacy was by making sure this mission-based business survived. Shortly after GRN was launched, they managed to secured a large consulting contract for the 1 million square foot Las Vegas Convention Center and a large sustainability research contract at the Harry Reid International Airport.

It was around this time that GRN Vision was referred by an architect friend of Rick’s for its first public interest architecture project, the Division Circle Homeless Navigation Center in San Francisco, CA.  The project had received emergency funding as a result of Governor Newsome declaring a state of emergency for affordable housing.  The modular building design was the first of it’s kind and the project was the first permanent Low Barrier Homeless Navigation Center in California.  This rapid-deployment project was permitted and operational in 6 months and was constructed at almost half the cost of a traditional non-modular building.  Within months, other cities throughout California and neighboring states were reaching out to the City of San Francisco to copy this very successful model for emergency shelters that include on site ‘wraparound’ supportive services.

It was this catalytic public-interest project that brought David Renard and Rick Van Diepen together.  David, formerly a regional sales manager for Sprung Instant Structures, provided the tension fabric buildings for Division Circle, and served as the owner’s representative for the City of San Francisco Bureau of Architecture.  The project was such a success that David founded Rapid Program Management/ RPM Team to provide engineering and owner’s representative services for projects using specialty modular and prefabricated buildings.

Soon thereafter, RPM-Team and GRN Vision entered into a joint operating agreement in which GRN Vision would serve as the Principal Architect under the RPM umbrella.  Since 2017, RPM Team has successfully designed and overseen the construction of more than 30 low barrier homeless navigation centers, shelter dormitories, modular transitional and permanent supportive housing projects in six western states.  Combined, these projects are providing dignified emergency and permanent supportive housing for over 8,000 unhoused individuals every year, and dozens of similar projects are currently in the development pipeline.

As the sustainability consulting work was finally starting to gain traction, GRN Vision saw a need of assistance to spread the word and bring in new clients. Christy Bojda, a former teacher, joined the team as their first business development manager. With her eagerness and motivation to learn about sales and building relationships, GRN Vision began to grow in both the amount of clients and in the size and complexity of their projects. Christy flourished in her business development position and the team was building capacity and experience. The work continued with green building certifications, energy modeling, and teaching courses in LEED accreditation (LEED is a green building certification system through the US Green Building Council and stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

GRN Vision has always been a benefactor of serendipity and impeccable timing for finding excellent new team members who believe in our mission.  It was nearly at a breaking point in 2019 with several new LEED projects all starting at once that a young intern with a passion for sustainability, Rachel Steffen moved to Las Vegas from the Midwest.   Having no prior LEED experience, Rachel studied and passed her LEED Accredited Professional exam very quickly and within a year was already managing several green building projects on her own.  All was going fairly great and then Covid struck.  The firm began working remotely however they immediately began to miss the joking and good-natured ribbing in their small office so they decided to hold the staff meetings in a park near a Starbucks.  Every Monday morning the team would spread out in a circle in lawn chairs under the shade of a tree and map out the plan for the week (after reporting on the weekend’s shenanigans…).

The separation took a toll on the tight knit company culture and the daily mentoring and collaborative conversations soon began to wane.  Communications became less frequent and less thoughtful/ respectful to the point that the employees were feeling like it had become a toxic workplace.  GRN Vision: A toxic workplace with a mission to change the world and save the environment– can you imagine a worse marketing idea?!  Something drastic had to change, and it did.

Rick and Dave had come to realize that they actually had very different approaches to running a business and how to maintain a strong company culture.  Amicably, the two partners- still friends- agreed to part ways in 2021 with Rick becoming the sole principal at GRN Vision.  With a growing base of new and return clients bringing in large projects, it was becoming clear that Rick and Rachel weren’t going to keep up with it all for very long.  Within days of Dave’s departure GRN Vision was in desperate need of an experienced project manager.

Enter serendipity from the universe and enter Ruddy Rodriguez: A skilled and experienced green building expert with a background in architecture and building science.  Ruddy was in the process of renovating the family house with his father, which happened to be located less than a mile from our downtown office, when his father noticed our small logo on the sign in front of our 9^th Street office. Rick was initially leery of the LinkedIn message he received from Ruddy (his face was serious and more than a little intimidating), however he was somewhat desperate for help and thankfully decided to trust his gut and give Ruddy a call.

Ruddy was a perfect fit from day 1 and has contributed immensely to our growth and our recognized leadership among design and construction industry professionals in Las Vegas.  Ruddy also provided guidance and mentoring to Rachel, who was starting to work on larger, more complicated projects.  Ruddy is now the Director of Sustainable Design at GRN Vision and recently published an E-book titled, The Net Zero Design Companion.

2022 was another major year of changes and transition for GRN Vision.  The public interest design side of the business was growing quickly with low-barrier homeless navigation centers under design in several cities in California.  For nearly 5 years Rick had been managing the architecture side of the business singlehandedly and the business development side was suffering as Rick spent more and more time drawing and managing their architecture projects.  To complicate matters, both Rachel and Christy made career changes late that year and certainly left the company much better than they found it (they remain friends of GRN Vision to this day and keep in touch often).

It was at a networking event with the UNLV student chapter of the American Institute of Architects that Rick was introduced to Michelle Tapia.  Michelle was graduating from UNLV that month and after hearing Rick’s explanation of GRN Vision’s mission-based design practice, Michelle’s passion and curiosity were sufficiently piqued to send her resume.  Michelle and Rick hit it off right away and in an extremely short 3 year internship, Michelle has become an accomplished designer and project manager. Michelle is committed to giving back as well, and her leadership and mentoring of young student architects has garnered several service awards both locally and at the national level.

Just a year later, another standout UNLV School of Architecture found his way to GRN Vision through a 12 month graduate school internship program through UNLV.  Devan and Michelle became quick friends and collaborators and thanks to Devan’s passion for architecture coupled with an incredible work ethic, he has had a meteoric rise in his first two years that has contributed greatly to the growth of the company.  The GRN Vision team attended Devan’s graduate school commencement and he was immediately promoted to Associate based on his excellent project management and leadership skills.  Devan began studying for his architecture license exams soon after graduation and has plans to work in a larger market out of state; possibly in Denver at some point in the future.

Rick has had to learn business lessons the hard way, many times over the years, and GRN Vision continues to experiment with new ways to push high-quality, sustainable design while maintaining an environment of learning and mutual respect that defines our company culture.  At one time (actually two) Rick thought that hiring another experienced senior architect to act as a mentor and provide quality assurance for our young interns would be a good idea that would allow him to spend more time on the critical task of business development.

This experiment would turn out to be the wrong decision and after two highly qualified architects were hired and quickly un-hired in a span of 3 months because they were not good fits with our culture, it was painfully obvious that GRN Vision should stick with what had clearly been working well.  The regular communication with daily check-ins with the intern architect project managers continues to be a winning formula for producing high quality design and well-coordinated construction drawings.  The secondary benefit is that the internship experience is more interactive and impactful. Some businesses can make it work using remote employees, however it certainly makes mentoring and human interaction & office camaraderie MUCH more difficult.

The most recent serendipity story happened in late 2024 when GRN Vision hired its first Business Development Director.  Kristina was referred by a friend of Rick’s and although GRN Vision was hoping to afford a full time BD person later in 2025, it was obvious that the company couldn’t afford to miss out on a golden opportunity simply because the timing wasn’t perfect (BTW, timing is almost never perfect and sometimes you need to just jump on opportunities rather than regretting it later).  In less than a year Kristina quadrupled the number of green building proposals and has helped position GRN Vision to make a huge leap in its growth and potential impact in the community.

GRN Vision will continue to add professional, highly motivated individuals to the team as our work reputation grows so that we can continue to exceed the demands of our clients and give them the friendliest and most professional service possible. It is not our aspiration to provide excellent customer service; it is our mission that is based on our shared values and the only way we know how to do business.