Marketing and Events Intern for the Loeb Center, Isa Nava ’28, talks to Alumni-in-Residence guest Jason Mackie ’17, president and co-founder of InOurHands, as he reflects on his journey since graduating, and offers current and future Amherst students advice from the lessons he’s learned along the way.
The transcription below has been edited for clarity.
Isa:
Welcome back to the On AiR podcast. My name is Isa Nava, and I am a Marketing and Events intern at the Loeb Center. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Mackie, Amherst class of 2017. Jason is co-founder and president of InOurHands, a nonprofit developing scalable, high-performance housing by using advanced cellular concrete technologies. Enjoy the interview.
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Isa:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the On AiR podcast. My name is Isa Nava, and I am a Marketing and Events intern at the Loeb Center. I’m here today with Jason Mackie, class of 2017. Jason, I’m glad to be able to talk to you today. I just wanted to ask, before we start, what’s it like to be back on campus?
Jason:
Oh, it is lovely. A bit nostalgic. It feels like home. It’s been a while. I did get to come back last October for the first time in years, to give a TED talk, but this time has been wonderful. I was put up at what do we call it now? 30 Boltwood? At the Inn. And, it’s just been relaxing and lovely, and I’ve gotten to see some faces that I’ve wanted to for a while. So, it feels like home. I’m happy to be here.
Isa:
Well, we’re glad to have you back. I wanted to start with a question that’s kind of a tradition on this podcast, which is just give us a brief elevator pitch: who you are and what you do.
Isa:
Okay. My name is Jason Mackie. I am a co-founder and president of a nonprofit that was founded here in Amherst after my partner, Aaron and I, Aaron Resnick and I, graduated. And what we do is kind of strange. We’ve developed a technology that enables us to build really high-quality, energy-efficient homes at a price point that is actually kind of affordable. And so what we’re doing now is, we’re working on disseminating our technology, teaching it to others. So we have a partnership with Northern New Mexico College and their trades program to teach other folks how to build using our techniques. And that is kind of my whole life at this point. It’s working on the development of this technology, improving it, and teaching it. The goal of making it scalable and attainable for more folks that could use homes that are affordable. Okay. That’s, in a nutshell, the elevator version, a brief one, of what we do.
Isa:
Did you have an idea of affordable, scalable housing as something that you wanted to do when you were at Amherst? And if not, how did that grow?
Jason:
Absolutely not. No. I, in fact, when– now my wife Audrey– when she had suggested I go back to school in 2012, when I, my job had ended at the time, I was enthusiastic about it because I wanted out of construction. I’m a smaller-stature individual, and I had been beating up my self, my body, doing construction, trying to keep up with these bigger folks for a long time. So no, it wasn’t at all what I was intending to do. But somehow the world led me back into construction. But I will say it’s very different. Now, it’s something I really want to do. It’s exciting. But I had ambitions of drafting policy and environmental studies. I was an environmental studies major here. As well as geology. I wanted to draft policy. I also interned with NASA, and I was really excited to go do science. Not a different kind of work. But again, I’m very happy to be doing what we’re doing now. It’s– I have a feeling it can help a lot of people.
Isa:
Me too. My next question actually has a lot to do with your background experience in the construction trades or doing research for NASA missions. I wanted to know how those experiences helped shape your approach to the housing crisis or how they influenced your career path.
Jason:
Well, having a background in construction, it was very familiar. Although what we’re doing now is very different than conventional construction. I will say the background in NASA, for both myself and my partner, Aaron, that was pretty critical. We didn’t really plan on it. It was an awesome opportunity for an internship, and we ran with it. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But what it ended up happening was we got tooled up, having– learning to code and even just sort of the field rigor, of what we were doing, prepared us for a life outside of Amherst and for what we we’re doing. So I’d say it was pretty critical, even though it’s totally unrelated to what we do now.
Isa:
As someone in the midst of internship search right now, it’s really reassuring to hear that your experience has helped you so much.
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah, it certainly was, I guess, critical, informative. So that whatever you end up doing is going to be something that jazzes you, it gets you excited, because even if it’s not related to what you do in the future, you might likely take something from it. I certainly did, and I’m [unintelligible] the time of my life.
Isa:
That’s really reassuring to hear. As an entrepreneur and inventor, what was one significant challenge that you faced when starting up InOurHands? And how did you navigate that? I know you talked last night a little bit about the finance side of that. If you want to continue with that, or if there was any other really big challenges that you can think of.
Jason:
Oh boy, we can go on this down some rabbit holes here. It’s all been a challenge. Sometimes I’ll refer to this as the world’s longest job interview. We have been at it since I graduated, since 2017 is when we founded InOurHands, and it has been, I guess, nine years now of trying to pull this vision, this dream across the line. It has changed shape multiple times. We started focused on renewable energy for marginalized communities, but very quickly, within a year, shifted toward housing. And it– this experience has been ripe with challenges. In every way. Developing new technology, there is no blueprint for what we have been trying to do or what we were developing, and so things exploded often, you know, and what I mean by that, literally, we were building houses using these pneumatic forms, these pressurized balloons strapped to a concrete pad. We’d fill the space in between it with this material, High-Performance Structural Cellular Concrete, which was, at the time, very novel for a building material; it hadn’t been worked with before. So, yeah, there wasn’t a blueprint of any kind. And yeah, these pressurized systems would literally explode. We would raise money. Spent, you know, all year raising enough money to do a demonstration, and then it would fail in front of us. And, just as an example, there’s been a– I guess, the whole thing has been a challenge. But exciting. I guess for me, doing R&D, research and development, is the fun part of the job, but it’s also the part that really challenges a person. There is no guarantee for success, but we would still get up every day and try to make it work. When it failed, we would have to figure it out. We’d pump out all of our lives into it. When the money ran out, we would put ours into it. But because we, deep down, I think Aaron and I both knew that what we were doing, like, it will work. It just has to be figured out. And so I guess, for me, that was the reason to get up and do it again the next day, was that, somehow, this is going to work. Like, it on paper, it totally does. And so, yeah, I guess, you know, nine years later, we’re still at after it, you know, still doing it. But now we have something that is actually teachable and scalable, and can do hopefully a lot of good for people, for the environment. And just in general, hopefully a lot of good.
Isa:
I was going to ask how you stayed motivated in the face of all these challenges, but I think it’s clear to me that your belief in what you do and your passion to make a difference have really carried you through this experience.
Jason:
That, yeah. And for me also, well, seven, almost eight years ago now, I had my first child. Now I have two little boys, four and seven years old. And they’re extremely motivating. They’re going to inherit this world, and it’ll be theirs after I’m gone. And I would really like them to live in a world that I would feel comfortable leaving them in. We’re not living in that world yet, but we can create it. That also is motivating me. It keeps me getting up in the morning and doing what we’re doing. I think after we’re done doing this, wherever the line can be drawn, when I’m not needed anymore doing this, I’m excited for whatever the next adventure is. Might be in a similar vein, but, you know, something that’ll keep me motivated beyond just a paycheck would be opportunities to continue to kind of create that world, the one that we want to pass on to our kids.
Isa:
I think that’s really beautiful. In that same vein of action and motivation in your bio that you submitted to the Loeb Center, you emphasized action and a willingness to act. How would you encourage Amherst students to start getting involved, especially if they’re not sure where to begin?
Jason:
Well, having the opportunity to speak specifically to Amherst students, what a unique opportunity and bunch. You know, this place is very special. And I’m sure anybody listening right now knows that and feels it. My, I guess, biggest encouragement to anybody, coming out of here, is to follow your heart. It’s probably been filled at this point with information, enough reason to want to do more than what, I guess, the average person would do. I can’t really speak to what it is that any particular person’s passionate about. But this world is full of problems that can, that need to be solved, and they don’t solve themselves. So it is going to require you, me, all of us, acting and doing. So I guess my encouragement would be just to do it. The world’s going to tell you it’ll be hard or it’s impossible or whatever, but somebody has to. And this place is unique in that not only have you learned a lot, and the challenges are real. But you’re equipped. We’ve been tooled to look at the world in a unique light. It’s sort of the beauty of the liberal arts. You’ll be a master of nothing. You’re not taught to do a specific job, but to look at the world in a different way, one that is empowering; it will make you a better citizen, a better person. You can let that light shine, and hopefully influence others to do the same. Man, the liberal arts is something special, though, isn’t it? You’re empowered. Go out and do it. I guess I’m not sure if I answered that question fully.
Isa:
I think it did. I think it answered it even better than I would have known how to ask it, which is how to use your Amherst education to make a difference. And I think that’s kind of a beautiful note to end off the podcast on. So thank you so much for speaking with me today, Jason. I hope you have a wonderful day.
Isa:
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Jason Mackie. This was our last podcast of the semester, but stay tuned for more episodes of On AiR coming next year.
