By Jolene Brink
Jolene is part of the Wolf Ridge marketing team. Her favorite season is the North Shore of Minnesota right about now.
The Concordia Language Villages blog, WorldView, interviewed Wolf Ridge executive director Pete Smerud about his career path, the decision Wolf Ridge made to bring the Living Building Challenge to campus, and his advice for other non-profits who want to optimize their mission beyond the immediate impact of their programming.
Smerud, a former Waldsee (German Language Village) villager and Concordia Language Villages staff alumnus, was part of the team that created the Waldsee BioHaus, the first certified Passive House building in North America which was a predecessor, in many ways, to the leadership and drive behind the Margaret A. Cargill (MAC) Lodge at Wolf Ridge—the first fully-certified Living Building renovation in the world.