015 Brian Crutchfield on sustainability since the 1970s

Brian Crutchfield joins Lee in studio for a discussion ranging from tobacco farming to photovoltaics and the Tennessee Valley Authority. A North Carolina native and Virginia Tech graduate, Crutchfield has seen his share of changes in the field of sustainability since the 1970s. Crutchfield shares some of the ways he has found to make real and lasting impacts in your community. 

 

Lee Ball:

Welcome to another episode of Find Your Sustain Ability. My name is Lee Ball. Today, we have joining us Brian Crutchfield, a longtime energy advocate, and I was really interested in getting Brian on the show because of the current state of energy in the world today. Brian worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority for many years. More recently, he worked with Blue Ridge Energy as their sustainable development director. Welcome, Brian, to the show.

Brian Crutchfield:

Great to be here, Lee.

Lee Ball:

How did you first become interested in advocating for the environment?

Brian Crutchfield:

Well, I was in grad school back during the original energy crisis, '73 and '74, when there were gas lines. OPEC had cut off the supply, sort of like they just recently did. Prices were high. And not only that, you couldn't get it. It was an odd-even day kind of thing, or according to your name when you could get in line just to get gas. At the time, I was in graduate school at Virginia Tech working on a degree in city and regional planning, had a professor who really was into this type of thing and got us working with a group that was trying to bring coal back to Southwest Virginia. They were selling so much coal and shipping it out of Norfolk to Japan and other places that low income folks couldn't buy it.

We were bringing a carload back on every return empty train just for local folks. It was pretty unusual. Got into energy resources analysis at that time in '74, got my master's degree, did some work up in Washington, DC. Basically being in graduate school regarding planning, realizing that all of a sudden energy was a factor, that you couldn't necessarily predict what was happening in that field anymore. You need to start planning around energy issues, not just transportation and highways and development, because now the cost of energy was driving a lot of things, business and communities and society. That was the beginning, during the first crisis.

Lee Ball:

Going back a little before that, you grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Brian Crutchfield:

Yeah. Mount Airy, Winston-Salem area.

Lee Ball:

Mount Airy is a pretty rural environment. Was there something about your formative years that enabled an environmental ethic that just kept you connected to the land? What was it about your childhood that led to being interested in being an advocate for the environment?

Brian Crutchfield:

Well, my family had been involved in agriculture. My great-grandfather was one of the folks that actually blended Lucky Strike and had his own tobacco company in Reidsville, North Carolina. Ended up selling his company to James Buchanan Duke of American Tobacco Company. And back then, it was the old handshake kind of thing. If you'll sell me your company, I'll make sure any of your kids, their kids and grandkids will always have a job. My grandfather worked for the company. My father worked for the company. It almost seemed like I was heading in that direction to be a tobacco buyer.

But knowing all the hard work that went into growing tobacco back in those days, they really didn't use a lot of chemicals. Everything was pretty non-filter even. But it was interesting to see how agriculture was changing, so an appreciation for rural farmers and what they had to go through. My dad was a tobacco buyer. He would buy tobacco from farmers. They would show their appreciation for him and the company buying from them by bringing us country hams, things like that. Nice relationship back in those days.

Lee Ball:

I have a very similar story from my family on both sides of my family. My grandfather was a buyer.

Brian Crutchfield:

Oh, is that right?

Lee Ball:

Yeah. He was born in Roxboro. He worked for American Tobacco Company and Virginia Tobacco Company in Danville. They probably knew each other.

Brian Crutchfield:

Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure they did.

Lee Ball:

And then on my mom's side, they grew tobacco on a farm in Edgecombe County outside Rocky Mount. That's where I spent a lot of my time really just wandering the woods, and I think that had a profound impact on me growing up. You mentioned before pesticides and herbicides and fungicides before what they called the Green Revolution. Now our Green Revolution is more about energy and sustainability. Back then, it was about trying to grow food more efficiently and feed the world.

Brian Crutchfield:

Exactl