I have a very interesting guest on tonight's show.

He has such an extraordinary background that he's featured on not one, but two shows.

You first heard about Good Earth Plants on Sustaining US, hosted by my friend and colleague David Nazar.

Tonight, I'll talk to the man behind Good Earth plants and will discuss earth friendly strategies for a safer workplace after COVID.

I'm so happy you're joining us.

Welcome to everybody.

With Angela Williamson, a public affairs program produced in partnership with PBS's L.A.

This program is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Biophilia is a term that was coined several years ago, but it's really come into the forefront lately.

Biophilia simply means our love of nature.

We are nature.

We only separated ourselves out from it a few years ago when we started making buildings.

We love plants.

And when you go on vacation, you're probably going to the beach or the mountains or the desert or some place that nature restores us.

There's a term there's a mouthful called building integrated vegetation, and it really says what we do.

So I wish we had a better term for it, but building the integrated vegetation says it all.

We essentially put plants on the floor, we put them on the walls, we put them on the roof.

And every now and then we put them on the ceiling as well.

Jim Mumford, owner, president of Good Earth Fire Company and Green Scape Buildings.

We know all the reasons that plants are really good for an office.

They help cut down on absenteeism.

They increase productivity.

It's spontaneity.

It's creativity.

It's it's energy.

There's no such thing as an indoor plant.

All plants are outdoor plants.

Some have adapted.

They grow inside.

They're seen as fantastic news because every palm is all classical.

Look to it leaves a lot of clamshells.

These are familiar as orchids we use inside so we can bring color and life indoors space.

And people really get jazz and find these different ways that art that it creates.

It's like living art.

So to have nature in your office space help reduce stress and floor space is such an important thing.

I mean, place the space is expensive.

Now we go up on the wall, you get the same effect of the plants.

It's just not taking up that much room.

So if a business is thinking about bringing plants in to their office, it doesn't have to be that difficult.

It doesn't have to cost that much.

I think it pays off in the end.

Just how happy makes people, when they come into an office for beautiful plants and plants will help clean the air.

I remember somebody giving me a green room and it really was a tray.

Green roof is not something we do today.

We've moved past it.

But it was a very simple way of looking at building green roofs.

And certainly when I saw the sustainable aspect of the ecology benefits of it, I started attending seminars and workshops in other cities and it seemed to be, Oh, there's none in San Diego.

There should be good.

The work we do up there in Eco Roof personally I think is a phenomenal asset to a building and the ability of plants to clean, volatile organic compounds otherwise known as VOCs out of our air.

The VOCs are things like benzene and formaldehyde, things that, you know, that new carpets smell or new cars.

And that's not necessarily good for you.

That's actually toxic cost gas.

It's not so much the leaf, it's the roots and it's the microorganisms that live in the roots of them and actually cleaning toxins out of our air.

Now it's inhabited by birds and bees and butterflies and insects.

And so all of a sudden there's a little stamp of biodiversity with this whole industrial area that great So far it needs some of these emission standards coming down the road.

That is the best way to help keep an airplane.

For the longest time, I felt that we were selling plants just because they're pretty.

And there's a lot to be said for that.

I mean, the joy of giving something to an orchid is unbelievable.

Sometimes the how well it's received walking into a space like downtown with our living wall, we'll see.

It's overwhelming how beautiful it is, how big it is.

And that became something that was interesting for me to say, We make people's lives better.

Plants aren't bad.

They're not going to take away from someone's life.

They're only going to enhance it.

And if we had Rich our our clients and our my employees and our community, anybody would come into contact with.

I think that's a special thing to do.

Jim is our guest tonight.

What a fantastic video.

I can't believe everything that your company does, but it didn't start out that way.

So tell us a little bit about the beginning, Jim.

Oh, that was a very long time ago.

43 years to be exact.

I started out as a florist and an opportunity presented itself.

I borrowed some money from my dad and bought a little plant stand on the corner downtown San Diego and then built from there.

Wow.

Now you're being very modest because I know there is there's more to it, because with that stand, you had some adversity.

So tell us a little bit about that as a business owner.

Oh, when I was 20, I was relatively naive and young.

And I one of my favorite stories is there was a big sign of the banks have business loans and when I how to take a business loan they said well you need to fill out this form or your tax returns.

It's a tax returns.

Who does that for me?

And then I went to the point of how much do you want to go?

But I don't know, we'll have $40,000.

And so it was a learning experience for me that I was actually the biggest risk out there as a business person, not somehow less risk.

When you found out that you were more of a risk, was that like eye opening for you or.

Yes.

So tell me how that was, because people are watching tonight and they are either entrepreneurs or thinking about being an entrepreneur.

And they don't realize that there's risk involved.

Somehow, in my head, I thought that the title business owner was something greater than it was.

And the reality, the kick in the pants was I was a bigger risk than almost anybody else.

And it was it was an early a good lesson to learn, to be quite honest.

Well, now there was a fire that changed the way that you started doing your business.

And that story is so inspiring that I would love for you to tell us about that story because it really changed to the business that we see today.

The wow that I lost my home in the Cedar Fire back in 2003 and that precipitated divorce.

And from at that point, I had a general manager that ran my business without me and it was it was very intoxicating because I had business 27 years at that point, and I'd work every weekend and all the nights and days.

And so to have a paycheck still come in and not have to work wasn't toxic, hated.

So I backed away a bit, started to explore and look around and was thinking about what else I could possibly do with my skill set and what I knew.

And I discovered green roofs and it had been something I'd heard about, but I looked at it a little bit more and an astronaut architect about it.

And when he responded more or wanted to know what I knew versus what I wanted to know from him.

And that happened again and again and again that I thought, there's something to this.

A green roof is something I really need to explore.

And so I dug it and attended conferences, got certified as a green roof professional and really look at that as a direction to take the business.

And that actually took a sideways turn when Mario Batali asked me to do a rooftop forum on his restaurant and on Sunset.

And we realized we couldn't do it because the infrastructure wasn't on the building, it would've been too big a risk, too costly.

We did an edible wall for him, and when we did an animal wall for Mario Batali and the pizzeria moza, it changed the whole game right there.

So you're talking about changing the game and pretty much you had to make decisions very quickly.

You went in with one idea but had to come out with another idea and then implement that, correct?

That's sometimes really hard for for even creative people or entrepreneurs.

What kind of advice can you give to someone who runs into that same challenge that you ran into?

Because this really change your career.

Term that that's been used a lot in the last year since COVID as pivot, you know, take your business and pivot a different direction, same business, but do it a different way.

And I'm not sure that's exactly what I did at that point.

But I realized when they couldn't do a green roof and it wasn't going to happen with a rooftop farm, that made any sense.

I mean, you can do anything you want if you've got enough money, but the financial return on that would have been ridiculous.

And I'd just been to a conference, I'd seen these living walls and I didn't know enough about them.

I'd done just a couple little ones that intrigued me enough to be able to throw the idea out.

And when they came back, I said, That's a great idea.

Then I went back and figured out how to do it.

Is what they did, throw out the idea.

But then when they say yes, you have to figure out how to get it done.

Yes.

Which brings me to my next question, because you've mentioned this several times that you went and you found information, you did your own research, you went to conferences.

How important is education to what you do?

I'm still learning.

I'm still work to this day.

I was at a I belong to Silverado's is a little roundtable group of similar companies to mine in different markets across the country.

We were in Seattle just a couple of weeks ago and the learning that takes place in a couple of days with my colleagues that we're not competing against each other.

We share those those horror stories that we all understand and can relate to and all the good stuff too.

So there's a lot of good stuff which we channel with each other.

And I never stop when I read books, I watch YouTube videos, I go to conferences and meet with my friends, I talk to my colleagues.

It's an ongoing process.

It is.

And you mention YouTube videos, and I always like to ask owners that have been around for a long time because when you first saw your business, you didn't have to do social media or did you have a website when you first started?

When No, I started in 77.

A website was early, early nineties.

I didn't even know a website was I didn't understand it, but I had a friend that was husband design them and I said, Sure, for a thousand bucks, why not?

I get a website because it seems like the thing to do.

And so you get this website.

Luckily you had help with that.

That's really nice.

But now you have to transition to social media because you have a lot of great videos on YouTube.

So how did you start to get those videos and think about what you want to upload?

Did you have help with that one to kids?

Yes.

And so is it if you think this is what you have as a family business?

No, my kids don't really want to have a whole lot to do with my my plant business.

They may come around someday.

My my son's an attorney.

He's up in Sacramento.

He's going to change the world.

My daughter's an artist.

She's smart, She's creative.

She's still trying to find her niche.

But both of them have coached me on videos and YouTube.

And now Tik Tok is coming in and it's hard to keep up.

But they're on top of it.

They're on top.

So are you on TikTok?

Not yet, no.

I also have a very phenomenal gal, Falcon, Thor, as my PR person and she she writes for me better than I can write for myself anymore.

And so she's coaching me on this and making sure I do it right, making sure I don't put things up there, that that's not quite appropriate.

That I think is funny.

So my personal Facebook page has some things on there.

I definitely don't want on my my corporate page.

Oh good.

I'll make sure I don't share those things to her friends.

You mentioned in this you mentioned a while ago, but you mentioned the group in Seattle, the civil rights group, and I noticed that together you turn out some wonderful things like a white paper.

And so how did you decide as a group to write this white paper for how to address the business place after COVID?

You know, it's again, one of those just spontaneous ideas.

I don't know.

I'm not sure who said it, but we popped out the idea as a group.

You know, again, we're ten different companies in different markets and we really are acting as individuals, but come together in this group to learn and teach each other and commiserate.

And the idea came up that we could coauthor this and produce something that was bigger than we are.

And we really wanted to look at it from a perspective that was not a plant group saying, Oh, the answer to the post-pandemic workplace is plants, it would seem self serving.

So we really looked at it from a psychologist point of view, from an architect's point of view, and wrote it in a way that said plants is part of that post-pandemic new office configuration, but it's not the end all.

And as a result, I think we got a pretty good product.

You actually have a very good product.

In fact, a lot of our viewers would love to hear about it.

But before we start talking about getting into detail about it, we're going to take a break and then we're going to come back.

And you are going to I'm going to going to reverse it.

You will become the educator and let us know how this works to improve not only our life style for just esthetically pleasing, but the benefits, the health benefits as well.

Sure.

Thank you, Jim.

So hold tight.

Okay.

We'll come right back to you.

And you stay right there and come back to hear more about my conversation in With Good Earth Plants with my friend Jim.

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Welcome back.

I am going to continue my conversation with my friend Jim.

Jim, before we went to the break, we talked a little bit about that white paper and I asked you just to hold off.

So when we come back, I want you to talk about the benefits that you have listed in that white paper, because I think it's so important, especially as everyone comes back after COVID.

Sure.

I think we all know that business is not going to be exactly the way it was.

And what we're seeing primarily is the hybrid office, where people will go in two or three days a week and work from home for two or three days that that the collaboration that happens in close proximity when people are the office space.

One of the things we found, which was really interesting, we did not lose very much business when the pandemic hit at all.

And a lot of our clients, most of our people were stay at home and the few people who are still in the office.

I need something alive here.

The plant is more important to me than ever before because it's the only living thing in my space with me.

So that was kind of funny.

You know, plants, I think at the end of day, a pretty they just make us happy.

I mean, they never give flowers.

Anybody said, Oh, I don't want those flowers.

That doesn't happen when you've got plants in your space and a little bit of nature, there's a connection there.

In some level, plants give off oxygen.

They take in carbon dioxide.

I can't say if you put ten plants in your office, you don't have to open the windows ever because you're going to die from asphyxiation.

But they do that naturally.

They put off water vapor.

So the room's a little more humid when you're in the space.

And so you maybe don't have to turn the heat up quite as much.

The Japanese have a what they call forest bathing, where they prescribe.

It's called shin ren Yoku, and they prescribe that you go out into the forest and just sit there and soak up the woods.

And so there's a lot of data that shows that productivity goes up and absenteeism goes down.

It impacts our nervous system.

It calms down places that are good for plants or places for good for people, the right ear or the right light.

So and then maybe just add on to that plants are good, separate or two.

So we want a plastic wall between you and your colleague or a plant wall much prettier.

Oh.

Well, I was thinking about that vegetation, what you did for Mario, where I could just pluck a tomato off in the middle of my break.

I mean, it's just so wonderful.

Well, you talk about this, how you are approaching COVID and your other friends in this industry.

But one thing we have not discussed, but viewers have probably seen in the show before ours.

But I want you to talk about right now some of the fascinating projects that you've done to bring plants into what we would consider ordinary environments, but then they become extraordinary.

Sure.

I think we've fortunately carved out a niche.

Sometimes It's unfortunate then that architects and designers, homeowners, CEOs have some wacky, crazy new idea, a place to put a plant or to display a plant, and somehow they find us.

And so my team is so, so wonderfully innovative that my designers are fantastic, that they're looking at how to solve that problem.

And it may be and I love my plants.

Trust me, that's my, my, my heart.

But sometimes it's a replica plant or sometimes a preserved plant.

So it really depends upon the situation.

How much light do I have?

Does the client want to forgo trying to do any maintenance on it?

And so innovative wise, we just did a project for a client in Malibu where we wanted to frame two very big teak doors.

And so with and so we created a custom designed 3D printed plastic plant holder that fits in the corner of this wall around the molding.

And underneath another piece times 20, going up the side of the wall and framing this this window in I you know, even I am blown away by the work my crew does sometimes.

And so it's gorgeous.

It's a really pretty job.

We've got another job coming up in Santa monica very soon where it's a green roof that blends into a living wall and the walls and straight up and down.

It's a really hard angle, but it's a living wall more than a roof.

So you'll see this kind of blend and then feed into the other side.

And also to I mean, this is just amazing because it sounds like before you even decide the design, you find out about what your customer, your client wants, and then you create that design based on their lifestyle.

But there's something really interesting, too, is that anybody who goes down to the San Diego area can see your work.

So I want you to talk about two projects that I love, and I don't want to give it away.

I want you to tell us about it.

Two projects that you looked at.

One is the indoor living wall that is 23 feet tall.

It's in the lobby of a high rise downtown San Diego, and it's it's on a curve.

And so it's a little different.

A lot of them are very flat.

And this one we built on a radius.

And so it's 23 feet up.

It dominates the lobby.

You can't not walk in there.

And if you get up close, there's a it's a it's a scent.

There's a natural scent that comes off of it that is very appealing.

And it's just it's it's so pretty.

It's hardy and takes my words away from me how to describe it.

A lot of different kind of plants up there is ferns apotheosis.

So philodendron they poke out different distances and some start growing down and other ones start growing up.

It's a very random kind of pattern, which is very different than the other wall that you've looked at, which is at the Oceanside Springhill Suites Hotel, where it's all succulents.

And so the succulents I have to grow outside.

I can't grow them inside.

Okay?

Client really, really, really want succulents inside.

I have to go to replica and I can still do it, but I can't use a live plant in there because the light, light issues but the the wall and the hotel now you can see a very distinct pattern and so we've got waves and different colors because succulents are so wonderful.

They're all the colors and textures that they come in.

They make just beautiful patterns for us.

Wow.

And then that roof at UC San Diego.

Oh, that's that's a wild one.

Yes.

How did that come to be?

I want to hear the story.

It's Korean artist Doe.

Josue was commissioned by UCSD, the Stuart Art Collection, to create or I'm not sure what his mandate was, but what he created was this little house crashed into the seventh floor of the engineering building, almost like Dorothy's house and the Wizard of Oz.

And then our job was to create this very eclectic front yard.

And so seven stories, we've got anywhere from eight inches worth of soil in the middle to three feet.

The corners, we got trees and I think the grass is dead now, but there's a walkway in it.

It's a place you can go.

And if you try to get inside of the house like Disneyland, it's all catty.

What was sideways.

And so you lose your sense of balance in there.

They're very hard project.

Now so you have to you came I thought that you actually designed the entire project so you actually were part of the you.

Are the team.

You were the part of the team.

How difficult is that to be to design your plans, the mission behind what good Earth Plants?

It's how hard is that when you're the contractor coming in versus then when someone is asking you just to design From the very beginning.

We typically don't do a design unless we do the work as well.

On Fallen Star XD.

That's a case where there's a landscape architect and they created most of the design.

It was our job again to kind of figure out how to make their design work because they really wanted a New England look on a Southern California roof, which doesn't quite mix.

And that job, we had six different bosses.

I had the contract for the Artist, the Stuart Art Collection, the architect, the landscape architect, and probably several other people and put the tree there.

And I'll put the tree here and I'll put the tree there.

And we had to do it all right through the Christmas holiday.

And half my crew had left town because our vacation there was it was and we had a deadline penalty if we didn't make it.

It was a challenge, to say the least.

But we figured it out, made it work, and it still looks fantastic.

And then it's seven, eight years old now, maybe.

Oh, yeah, it's it's fascinating.

So you talked a lot about there are certain plants that you you could you can only do outside.

There are certain plants that you can't do inside.

There are certain plants that we know because of being in California that we shouldn't even attempt to have here because we get drier conditions.

What happens when you meet a potential client and they want a plant that isn't right for where they're living?

Keep this in mind.

You can have anything you want if you're willing to pay for it.

And so.

All it takes.

A while.

Sometimes the cost becomes prohibitive.

Okay, So if it's a highlight plant, you want an inside, we either have to give it a lot of extra full spectrum intense light.

So it's a grow light or you have to go with a replica preserved, you know, and we're a problem solver.

So I'm really looking at what's the look you're trying to create?

What are you trying to convey to somebody walking into the space?

And that's what we want to find the solution for.

A lot of us have plants in our homes and I'm saying us not trying to say me.

And sometimes we get them.

They're absolutely beautiful day one, but by day ten, they don't look as good as when they first got them.

So what's the biggest mistake that people make when they're bringing plants inside their homes?

Twofold.

It's probably light is the first thing.

If it's a low light, loving plant, you put it in a sunny window, it's going to burn it.

It's a highlight loving plant and you put it in a dark corner, it's going to fail.

And from there it's how much water you give it.

So a plant that's in a low light area, let's say, for instance, some of our office space, we water them once a month, just once a month.

And the bigger the pot, the longer the water in between watering so little pots leave a lot of water, bigger, take less.

And so there's a skill to that to understand just how much to give it.

And we have that plant in a lower light situation, give it too much water, rots out the roots.

And if the roots are rotten, then the plant dies.

So you can't recover a plant that's underwater that wilts and you water, it'll come back.

So it's really matching the light with the plant, with the amount of water cuts.

And fertilizer is not a fixer.

You said that like you knew it.

That's what I was doing a lot.

But hey, if I just do it the right plant food, it affects the plant.

Typically, that actually creates a bigger problem.

Oh, wow.

Well, before we end our conversation tonight, and I really wanted to thank you for just being part of the KLC family in this hour that we're doing with you tonight.

Tell us a little bit about what's next for Jim.

Personally, taking my foot off the throttle, back my back.

I'm 63 years old.

It's time to relax a little bit.

My team is so good and my culture is so good at the office.

I can't say enough about how they're getting better than I am.

And as long as I can kind of lead and provide that inspiration and motivation while not working 40, 60 hours a week, that's a good place for me to be.

And it's time for me to get out there, travel a little bit and spend more time with my kids and all those kind of things.

Like, I hate the word retirement, so I can't quite say that, but take my foot off the throttle a little bit, work a little bit less.

And that's I mean, that sounds like that's a wonderful goal.

And then last but not least, how can our viewers get in touch with you?

Because you gave us some wonderful tips tonight, viewers might be thinking about plans for their homes.

They'll be thinking about that for the office.

So tell us, what's the best way to get in touch with that website?

It's easy to say good earth plants with an S on it dot com.

Thank you.

So thank you.

And thank you for everything that you're doing to help us understand plants and how they make our lives so much better.

My pleasure.

We enrich lives of plants.

I love that.

I love that.

And I should have taken that.

But that's okay.

You can have it.

Thanks, gentlemen, and thank you for joining us on everybody with Angela Williamson.

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Good night and stay well.