During his junior year of high school in 1972, Terry emptied his savings account to go to Chile as an exchange student. He spent a few months in a Catholic school in Concepcion. After he learned enough Spanish to get along, he decided he’d learn more outside of school--especially since there was a revolution going on--and took off hitchhiking around the country. AFS didn’t know where he was most of this time, so couldn’t send him home for breaking so many rules. Many years after living in Chile, Terry’s still dissatisfied with the same old, same old way of doing things and still way more eager than the average person to take a chance on the unknown. That’s what eventually led us to China. (And to his trying out the pickled silkworm condiment for his breakfast congee today. We do not stock this in our kitchen--he was at a hotel in Shanghai.)
20 years ago Terry started his own business as an environmental consultant. A few years after starting out, he had a chance to work on a project in Pakistan. He drew on some old AFS courage for that project and for other work abroad that followed. Eight years ago he came to China to work for the first time, and he’s been working on various projects here ever since.
In 2009 Terry was given a contract by the Environmental Defense Fund to work with sourcing operations here in China for the world’s largest retailer, Walmart. EDF paid him to work with factories that make the goods that Walmart sells. He’s developed a template for evaluating current factory energy use, for making recommendations to reduce their energy use, and for measuring change. He’s training young Chinese sourcing people how to do what he does because he needs a veritable army to make some headway. Walmart buys goods from an estimated 200,000 factories here. So if Walmart insists on more manufacturing energy efficiency and the factories can get the help they need, the potential for change is huge. There are other aspects to his work, initiatives related to finance, for example. He’s met with an investor representing Chinese power companies with a plan to buy energy-efficient equipment to lease to factories, who will pay for it through their energy savings. Terry especially likes working with innovative ideas like this one.
This past year I began to refer to Terry as the family migrant worker. He went back and forth between Shenzhen and Minneapolis, spending about 2/3 of his time in China. He has a new EDF contract to work here fulltime for the next year, and Leah and I have the privilege of joining him to live here in Shenzhen.
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