Molly Meyer, Founder & CEO, Omni Ecosystems

Omni Ecosystems is a vertically integrated green infrastructure company.  That means they invent, design, supply, construct, and maintain all forms of green infrastructure such as green roofs, living walls, green façades, and on-grade or terrestrial ecosystems that manage stormwater and/or resolve site contamination issues. 

Omni’s proprietary ultralightweight growing media, or soil, makes the Omni Green Roof the lightest and most biologically diverse system on the market, which allows the Omni system to go on more structures with more plants than any other product.  The growing media, or soil, also retains three times the stormwater of typical soils which gives Omni the ability to create landscapes that serve multiple functions such as food production, capping a contaminated site, and storing stormwater without the use of tanks. 

An additional differentiator for Omni is that they are vertically integrated.  Most companies in the space specialize in a particular part of the process such as supply, design, contracting, or maintenance.  Very few, if any companies perform all of the tasks in the lifecycle of a green infrastructure project. By doing so, Omni provides continuous service, and an integrated and wholistic understanding of the project.   

Omni’s projects include large corporations such as McDonalds, schools from elementary to university, commercial multifamily developers, homeowners, and the federal government.   

What do you actually do all day? 

My role is evolving as the company is growing.  I’m the CEO and Founder, so on a day to day basis my work varies quite a lot, including operations, sales, finance, and HR.  I have a great business development team but if a project is of a certain size or there are certain technical aspects to it, then I’ll be involved in the sales effort. 

I also oversee the operations of the company; we have very strong leaders in each of our divisions but I stay involved to ensure we always meet project objectives and to navigate any curve balls. My day-to-day can involve site visits, but I’m not driving the forklifts or running the job sites anymore.   

I also focus a lot on finding staff that can meet our needs as we grow, and I’m responsible for managing our finances including meeting cash flow for our immediate needs and strategic planning for 1, 2, and 10 years out. 

I make sure we stay engaged with the green building community in Chicago.  Our local USGBC chapter is called the Illinois Green Alliance and I’m often attending their events and have occasionally spoken on their panels.  They were kind enough to award me with the Emerald Award for Individual Leadership for my work in advancing the green building movement here in Chicago. 

We also participate in national organizations such as Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), which is the North American trade association for green roof and green wall companies.  A couple Omni projects are subjects for GRHC’s beta Living Architecture Performance Tool, which will standardize the assessment of the quality and functionality of a green roof.  I’m excited to see what we learn from that; we expect it will show strong evidence about the superior performance of our systems.  GRHC awarded Omni projects five awards for green roof excellence between 2014 and 2018. 

We also partner with a number of nonprofits.  Our longest relationship – almost 10 years! –  is with Urban Habitat Chicago which is led by Mike Repkin, our team member who invented our soils.  Mike brings Chicago-area youth in after-school programs to intern with us in the summer and during the school year.  We’ve had as many as 50 students for six weeks one summer come to learn about things such as OSHA training, food handler training, and green roof construction and maintenance. 

What are some of the key skills for success in this role? 

It depends on a person’s role in the company, but at every level we’re looking for an individual to have the ability to carry out work in sometimes adverse conditions.  Our construction and maintenance teams can work in all kinds of weather, and it can be particularly uncomfortable working on an exposed rooftop. Even in our office positions, we’re working in largely uncharted territory in many ways, so we need people who are comfortable saying ‘yes’ to innovative ideas and are willing to go the extra mile and produce exceptional work.  In every position, you need perseverance and fortitude, the ability to follow directions and think for yourself, the ability to complete work on a timely basis, and to understand the big picture of a project. 

Sometimes people come to us with an interest in sustainability, but the most successful people have a high aptitude for getting things done no matter the conditions.  We’re not necessarily looking for people with a green roof background or with a specific degree.  People who have been successful as carpenters or restaurant servers or in the military, but also want to do work that betters the world, find success and fulfillment at Omni.  Our company has an outstanding culture because everyone here is very passionate and is doing it for the right reasons. 

What is your favorite part of your job?

I get a lot of pleasure from our work – the process and the results.  We have created so much positive change for people and the environment, and it is fun to sink our teeth into a bold green project and make it successful. 

One thing that has pleasantly surprised me is how much enjoyment I get out of creating a meaningful place to work for others who share my passion to create beautiful ecosystems.  It’s incredible to work with so many other people who care about the triple bottom line – environmental, financial and social benefit – and can support themselves and their families doing something that they love and believe in.

What is the hardest part of your job?

Sometimes you have to make hard decisions around staff management, and I find that to be very difficult.  When you’re trying to foster a culture of inclusivity, equality, and collaboration, it can be tough on those occasions when you to have to be the boss. 

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Building a company on sound financial footing with an environmental purpose. 

What are the game changers in your world?  

It would be wonderful if more stormwater regulations recognized innovative soils as a stormwater management tool.  Omni growing media holds three times the amount of water as a typical soil, so policy updated to account for that difference in performance calculations would enable cost effective means of achieving superior environmental results.  It would be helpful if more cities would encourage, incentivize, subsidize, or require green roofs and living infrastructure, with meaningful standards to differentiate among their performances.   

What was your path to this role? 

I completed my undergraduate and master’s degrees in earth systems focused on geology and soils.  I also really enjoyed an elective class on energy efficient building construction, so I worked for a contractor as a laborer and carpenter for a couple years after college to get basic construction knowledge and field experience.  I knew I wanted to start a business and fold in my interest in the environment but I knew I didn’t have enough experience.  An architect I knew suggested I think about green roofs, so I started researching them and went to a Green Roofs for Healthy Cities conference where I learned that Germany was a leader in green roofs.  I applied to a fellowship in Germany focused on building green roofs, and spent a year and a half there working for a green roof contractor and a green roof supplier.  When I came back to the US, I was so hungry to start my own company.  In hindsight I was not prepared, but I’m glad I did it anyway! 

After focusing on consulting and construction for a year, I met Michael Repkin who was the inventor of our special soils.  Together we came up with a plan to bring his soils to market in a complete system, and the name Omni Ecosystems came into being. 

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?

I try to encourage people to keep searching for the whys.  If they’re interested generally in the triple bottom line, they should seek out core causes for problems, identify actual decision makers, and keep their eyes peeled for leverage points to magnify or scale impacts.  Understanding the first two and then coming up with a new way of leveraging can lead to world-changing results.  Smart, hardworking people who are really attuned to those three things can make huge change. 

I love the quotation from Reinhold Niebuhr: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.”  We need to be working on problems we’re not going to solve in our lifetimes, so that we can set the foundations for future generations to solve them. 

What are your favorite resources? 

The Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship in Germany has been occurring for over thirty years.  It’s open to any field, generally professionals in their mid-20s to mid-30s with a graduate degree.  They’re given training in German language and connected with two internships over the course of a year with companies, like BMW, Adidas, or Siemens, or government positions that are aligned with their interests.  My interests in green roofs made me a unique fellow!  It is an outstanding program which provided me excellent experience and introductions to more opportunities and smart, interesting people. 

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has a lot of great information about the basics of green roofs, including training opportunities. 

Some of my favorite books are actually business books.  I loved Blue Ocean Strategy, Good to Great, Shoe Dog, and The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.  I enjoy reading non-business books too; I loved Team of Rivals, The Third Plate, Grit, and all of the Harry Potters! It’s hard to name a few because books are an important part of my life, and I love so many!

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?  

I admire every sustainability professional I know who is working inside a large corporation and doing the hard, often thankless work of making their operations and products more sustainable.  Few people – me not among them! – have the aptitude or the attitude for those roles, and it is so important to the future of the planet.

Another group I admire is Openlands.  Openlands is northeastern Illinois’ oldest certified land trust and conservation organization.  From its leadership in protecting Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, to training 2,000 volunteers as TreeKeepers to protect Chicago’s trees for more than 25 years, to refurbishing Chicago Public School playgrounds through its Space to Grow program to provide new learning and play spaces that also manage stormwater and prevent localized flooding, Openlands has done outstanding conservation work for over 55 years, and it continues to innovate and develop new programs for improving the environment and connecting people with nature.