Seeding Revival
When I was officially opening up Revival (Revival Development Services, LLC). “Launching” to take a phrase from our friends in Tech and media. I had used the picture above on a few of the businesses social media pages.
My wife saw it and basically said “ew”. She did not get the meaning. And she thought others may not either. She thought I should be showing prettier photos. So I de-adopted it. More on this shortly.
The image reminded me of what I was most intrigued by going back to my undergraduate days at New Mexico State University #AggieUp. While at NMSU I had the opportunity to work on a community data collection project with a few others. I was the sole undergrad and I had to force my way onto the team basically. That project was done in 2000 right after the census. It was sponsored by HUD and the North America Development Bank.
We as a team surveyed over 50 places in southern New Mexico called Colonias. Some are incorporated political subdivisions in the state, others are census designated, while others, as they are in Mexico often, informal settlements that grow to a scale that in many ways formalizes them. The data was used to help these places support grants from HUD. Housing, infrastructure uses through CDBG….Some day I will dust that off and update it for fun.
I took that experience and ran with it. Spoke at conferences, wrote articles... Learned a lot. Some of what I did and the value earned went dormant until recently.
The work I did sparked in me a desire to be part of improving places that need some love and redeveloping (not necessarily mass urban renewal). But redevelopment of elements of a place.
Academically I wrote papers on redeveloping places like El Paso (about an hour from NMSU and also a place that I got to know in the Army) and even looked west to the Phoenix area (where I live now).
Professionally I took few turns in some other directions, but ultimately came back to what grabbed me back in 2000.
Back to the photo.
One of Revival’s “tag lines” is “Serving Communities on The Rise”. When that thought came to me, I thought more in terms of the picture than massive high rises sprouting from foundations of smaller buildings and turning over entire cities to something that looks like Disney Land. I thought about incremental changes like renovations of existing housing, fixing buildings and blocks versus starting over. And helping people incrementally versus changing them completely (unless they are seeking a whole new world of their choosing).
I thought about how can I help knock some rust and decay of things and help to bring them a Revival. And help people rise with that change.
Maybe it’s the confidence in having generated some business. As of today we have served communities nationwide — delivered work in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Utah in the past year. Our first official year open.
My wife is right (really about everything). The image does need some explaining.
Some who see it will connect it with what they think we do and others will make assumptions that aren’t accurate. We may not connect with some folks because of it (but the same is true with slick drawings that could be construed that we are a design firm). All of which is great. I would love to talk about that image in reference to what it is we are about with anyone interested. Even for a moment. Those who aren’t, I can appreciate as well.
I’m happy that we get another year to do it. And hopefully many, many, more.
At some point I hope to talk to those who may not get the image today, but will later.
If you have worked with us in the past year. THANK YOU! We have been thrilled to have done so. If not yet, we look forward to meeting you and helping you thrive and helping you by “Serving Your Community on The Rise” and being the “Chief Champion of You.”
