Chris Jaeb

People often ask me why I started Common Ground. The answer to that question is not simple but to me is really definite. I had been part of the explosion of the new ideas in business that was called the dot.com bubble. I had created a successful company called broadcast.com, and when I left the business – with much of my life still ahead and not needing to actually do anything ever again – the only question I had was, “What should I do?”

I had always wanted to contribute to the development and growth of the human condition – that is how I had seen the world of technology and the internet – but I slowly came to understand that only in the exploration and execution of triple and quadruple top and bottom line thinking would the business world and the natural world find connection, engagement and meaning. With my wife I traveled to several places not only looking for somewhere to live but also for a place which would catalyze me to do something relevant, different and inspiring for myself and many others. We found it in Kauai.

I purchased the land of the old Guava Kai and began the work of shaping an environment and an experience that would attract like-minded people to bring of themselves their ideas, entrepreneurship and emotional capital. I wanted to create a container that would facilitate sustainability, environmentalism and green business, to be held by everyone involved, and to set an example of how local community can affect world thinking. That was three or four years ago.

Today we have come someway down the road towards the ideas of Common Ground, and now you can see, feel and touch what we are doing. Moving on I am looking forward to Common Ground adding new elements of green businesses as our site master plan will allow us to add facilities of several kinds. And I am developing a media idea based on what I have learned, and continue to learn, from our own work and from the work of others worldwide, to continue the awareness and the education, the challenges and opportunities of how the work of nature and the work of man are inextricably linked, and how it holds the keys to the way our children, and their children, can live their lives.

Please feel free to contact me at chris@cgkauai.net with your thoughts and ideas, and anything you would like to discuss or contribute to Common Ground.