High Country Green Box LLC Chosen for Green Business Fund Grant

DwellBox Creators Join 18 N.C. Small Businesses Receiving Stimulus Funding

Story by Sam Calhoun

High Country Green Box partners Ethan Anderson and Casey Pond stand in front of the first permanent shipping container home built in North Carolina. The home is located near the ASU campus, took 34 working days to complete and costs under $100 per square foot. The partners are hoping to pave the way for new shipping container home developments that will be green, creative and affordable. Photo by Sam Calhoun

High Country Green Boxes’ Casey Pond and DwellBox owner Katy June Abrams stand proudly in front of the second residential DwellBox ever built. Abrams’ DwellBox, which is located off Niley Cook Road in Boone, is one of 10 current ISBU home projects in the nation and represents a giant leap in aesthetics in regards to building with ISBUs. Photo by Sam Calhoun

Last week, Governor Bev Perdue announced that 18 small North Carolina companies will receive grants up to $100,000 to develop and market promising green and alternative energy technologies and products. High Country Green Box LLC—the brainchild of local entrepreneurs and partners Casey Pond, Ethan Anderson and Jeffrey Scott, and the company responsible for DwellBox, the first permanent inter-modal steel building unit (ISBU) residential home in North Carolina—received $97,989 through the grants, which are distributed by the N.C. Department of Commerce through its stimulus-funded Green Business Fund.

“North Carolina continues to position itself as a leader in the emerging green economy with these kinds of smart investments in promising technology and products,” said Perdue. “These creative entrepreneurs and businesses are turning green into gold by growing new companies and creating jobs.”

According to Pond, High Country Green Box will use the grant money to secure patents on its intellectual property, as the company needs to patent its building process and techniques before it can begin any new construction. Pond said that patents cost roughly $12,000 apiece, and securing multiple patents will dominate the company’s agenda in the coming months.

“We are dropping back into development mode,” explained Pond.

Perdue’s staff estimates that more than 200 private sector jobs will be created as a result of the grants, spread across 18 cities and spanning 18 counties in North Carolina. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money comes through the N.C. Energy Office State Energy Program.

In both 2008 and 2009, the N.C. General Assembly provided $1 million for the Green Business Fund and grants were awarded to 27 firms. In the most recently approved state budget, Perdue, who initially proposed creation of the fund, had $10 million in ARRA funds directed to significantly enlarge the Green Business Fund, which is administered by the N.C. Board of Science and Technology.

The grants awarded last week were based on successful applications that also met ARRA criteria and were reviewed on a merit basis by an external advisory committee.

Roughly half the projects fell under the “environmentally conscious clean technology and renewable energy” category, while the remainder fell under the “green building” and “biofuels” categories. The awards ranged in amounts from $31,985 to $100,000.

For more information about building with ISBUs, click to www.fabprefab.com, www.dwellbox.com/dwellblog and/or www.isbu-info.org. For more information on High Country Green Box, call 828-265-9812, click to www.dwellbox.com or email info@dwellbox.com.