Founder and CEO of Plant Prefab
Steve Glenn is the founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, Inc. Plant Prefab, www.plantprefab.com, is the first prefabricated home factory in the nation dedicated to sustainable construction, materials, processes, and operations. Plant manufactures custom and single/multifamily homes that are high-quality, healthy, and durable. With their patented building system, Plant delivers low cost homes in half the time and with less waste than traditional site-based contractors. Plant models are fully customizable and available to individuals, developers, and architects. Plant recently completed a major financing round which included Amazon, their first investment in a home builder, Obvious Ventures, who led the Seed Round, and others. The company operates out of 62,000 sf facility in Rialto, California. Plant’s Design Studio, LivingHomes (www.livinghomes.net), is a designer and developer of modern, prefabricated homes that combine world-class architecture with an unparalleled commitment to healthy and sustainable construction. The first LivingHome, designed by Ray Kappe, FAIA, was installed in eight hours. It became the first home ever to receive a LEED for Home Platinum rating. Twenty-eight LivingHomes have been or will soon be certified LEED Platinum and one LEED Gold, making the company one of the most experienced designers of homes at the highest level of LEED certification. LivingHomes have garnered significant industry recognition including the AIA’s top sustainable award, Architizer’s Jury and People Choice Awards, Green Builder Magazine’s Home of Year, Business 2.0 “World’s 11 Coolest Products”, Business Week’s “Architectural Wonders of the World”, and the Sustainable Quality Awards Grand Prize. LivingHomes are available in standard or customized configurations to builders, developers and individuals. The company, with team partners Brooks + Scarpa and Community Corporation, recently won a $1M grant from Los Angeles County to develop a homeless housing solution. In addition to design, LivingHomes its own project in Atwater Village, Los Angeles (all seven single family homes were certified LEED Platinum) and has worked with Make It Right on affordable housing projects in New Orleans and the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Previously, Glenn worked with the William Jefferson Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) and managed the development of a $220 million program in Mozambique, the first program CHAI launched in Africa. Glenn is founder and former Chairman and CEO of PeopleLink, a leading provider of enterprise ecommunity solutions, which raised $35 million from AT&T Ventures, GE, Goldman Sachs, Idealab and others. Glenn was a founding partner of Idealab, a business incubation firm that raised $1 billion and that founded or invested in a number of successful companies including GoTo/Overture (OVER), NetZero/United Online (UNTD), CitySearch (TMCS), Tickets.com (TKTS), eToys and CarsDirect. Glenn worked for Walt Disney Imagineering as co-director of the Virtual Reality Studio. Glenn co-founded Clearview Software, which was sold to Apple Computer where Glenn later served as a marketing specialist. He holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from Brown University, studied Urban Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and was a Coro Fellow. Glenn is a co-founder and chair of the Sustainable Business Council, www.sustainablebc.org, co-founder of the Kaia Parker Dance Endowment, www.kaiaparker.org, and a co-founder and former board member of Hope Street Group, www.hopestreetgroup.org and the Brown University Entrepreneur Forum, www.brownep.org. He was a Judge for the US Energy Department’s 2013 Solar Decathlon competition, www.solardecathlon.gov . Glenn was named the Clean Tech CEO of the Year by Clean Tech Week; Environmental Entrepreneur of the Year by LA City Council/Faith2Green; and Greatest Person of the Day by Huffington Post. Glenn speaks regularly about sustainable design, prefabrication, and social entrepreneurship at conferences and universities including TED, TEDx, Greenbuild, TechHome Summit, Sun Valley Institute, Sustainable Brands, VerdeXchange, UCLA, Brown, Columbia, University of Oxford,