-- Dennis Maq Crook

Author, Speaker, Consultant, Home Energy Investigator
Cell-610-384-7866

Dennis Crook was only 14 when he designed his first building, a barn he made for his parents. His first real job came a few years later with an insulation and home improvement company in the small Iowa town that was his home. Dennis learned it was easy to convince people to buy insulation and other energy saving improvements – he just showed homeowners how much they'd save on heating bills.

“Winters are cold in Iowa ,” he recalls. “We offered them comfort and savings. People were interested.”

Dennis remembered the lessons he learned early in his working career. Later, when he was a master carpenter, he was troubled by the shortcuts contractors took to save building costs. Such “savings” only ended up costing homeowners a bundle in heating bills in the long run.

Construction work in Iowa was scarce. Dennis was traveling to jobs during the day, and going to college at night. In 1979, he packed up his tools and moved to Philadelphia . His life changed in a big way when he met and married Siti. As their family grew, he had to earn a better living. Figuring that he could make more money as a contractor than as a union carpenter, Siti and Dennis started their own firm, E=MC 2 . With Siti handling the marketing and financing, they made a name for themselves in Philadelphia .

Drawing on his early experience, he designed homes using every possible energy saving technique. At the time, the US was in the midst of its first energy crisis. Energy efficiency was headline news. Researchers rushed to find alternative energy and ways to make homes more energy efficient. Reading every study he could find, Dennis found that he already used many of the techniques explained in the studies.

In 1985, he put his research to the test. Using his unique Ecobuilit Home design, he built a housing development in Philadelphia's historic Overbrook Farms. The city fathers and Owens-Corning company praised the Ecobuilt Homes. As timing would have it, by the time the development was done, the energy crisis was over. Consumer concern about energy costs began to fall by the wayside.

Not long after, Dennis received word that his mother, Elaine, lost her home in a fire. He and Siti packed up the family and moved back to Iowa . His first job was to build Elaine her own energy efficient home. With that accomplished, he and Siti went back to school, attending Iowa State University in Ames. Dennis concentrated on environmental studies that he could apply in his construction business. By this time, he had made a commitment to building environmentally sound, energy efficient homes.

After a year, he accepted an invitation from the University of Wale 's European Business Management School. The Crook family moved to Wales,where Dennis completed a research survey of the United Kingdom 's green housing market. Through the study, he learned the difference between “green” practices in the UK and the USA.