To THIA Members & Blog Readers;

After recently joining the THIA team in the capacity of Business Development Director, it’s my pleasure to put up my first blog post on the site to not only introduce myself, but to provide a quick update about the recently held Tiny House Jamboree in Colorado Springs, and to begin linking to and commenting on some of the recent Press Coverage that is starting to trickle out about the Tiny House Jamboree 2016.

The Tiny House “Jam” was absolutely a success for everyone involved !  Kudos to the Tiny House Jamboree Team at EcoCabins  for orchestrating and producing such a great event.  Some of the comments about the event from people who I met in our booth at the show was positive and uplifting, and you could feel the “buzz” of something new, of something emerging and different in the air.  This is what the “birth” of a new industry feels like… (more on this aspect in a future blog post !).

Coming on Board THIA:

After some initial discussions with the marketing and business folks at EcoCabins and the Tiny House Jamboree team over the course of the last several months about the upcoming Jamboree program, who the speakers would be and how the panels were being developed, as well as meeting with Rod Stambaugh at Sprout Tiny Homes about the recently formed Tiny Home Industry Association, (THIA), I was approached to see if I might be interested in helping to develop and grow the new industry association…. my answer, “Hell Yes !”   Ok, maybe it was not that way exactly, but you get the idea.   🙂

And who am I ?  Well, I’m a business development and start-up professional, and I’ve been creating and launching companies and products and services over the last 30 years around the world in a number of industries, with lots of different kinds of technology and engaging an array of talented people.   So, I’ve been through this rodeo before…   And thanks to the folks at Sprout Tiny Homes and to the talented team at EcoCabins and THJ, it’s really my pleasure to now be a part of this new emerging industry association to see if I can assist with its early growth and development.

I’ll be following-up with future blog posts about some of the plans and the vision that the founders of THIA see for the organization, and what we will be working on for the balance of 2016, (including our upcoming October Conference)  and what our 2017 plans will look like.

Press Coverage of the Jamboree:

Over the course of the next several blog posts, I will also be highlighting some of the key media and press coverage of the Tiny House Jamboree  to give you a reference point for the impact that this show is having on the new industry.  Some of this coverage will be local, some will be regional and national in scope.  As you have seen over the course of the last several years, the “Living Tiny” concept is getting “Big” and expanding across the country.

Post Event Coverage from The Independent:

I had a chance to meet with Nat Stein, (one of the young, and recently added “at-large” reporters for the Colorado Springs Independent), which is one of three local newspapers here in the Springs .   Nat attended the Jamboree to get a feel for what this new industry was all about, and to meet with and talk with some of the local companies attempting to create affordable housing solutions as this was a major theme of her article.

I had a chance to meet her in our booth at the show, (Booth #17 Ensemble/VSS), and later did an in-depth telephone interview about a week later.  We covered a lot of ground, but I could tell she was “diving” into the deep end of the “Legal and Regulatory” pool to really understand more about where the challenges and roadblocks might be for the realization of low cost housing.  It’s not a bad first cut for someone new to the industry and she managed to get a number of perspectives from different viewpoints to create a balanced article.

Below is the link to the Cover Story article in the Independent that just appeared in the digital online version of paper today, (August 17th) and will be appearing in the print version that is distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain Region.

Low-cost tiny homes could help alleviate the housing shortage

Tell me what you think !

Mike Schmidt, Business Development Director

Tiny Home Industry Association