OUR MISSION

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Reuse materials to facilitate landfill diversion. Rebuild communities by strengthening capacity of local residents. Restore lives by teaching trade skills to help people secure a living wage.

 

1

We provide a place and framework for collaboration that can evolve with the demands of time, and promote entrepreneurship among traditionally disinvested populations.

2

We involve designers and trade apprentices working side by side to increase understanding of social issues in the communities where they live and serve.

3

We work with new and used materials in nontraditional ways to tangibly elevate the way we think about and act upon full cycle sustainability.

PROJECT RE_ MEETING
PROJECT RE_

OUR SPACE

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Our space is a community workshop, job training facility, and fabrication center for value added products ranging from furniture to buildings. It is a partnership between three non-profits who are leveraging their assets to have greater collective impact in the communities where we work. Products and housing prototypes developed at PROJECT RE_ will be used to sustain the center and fund future community outreach projects.

Crucial to the success of our mission is the creation of community-based entrepreneurship models that emerge from programming offered at and products created through PROJECT RE_. Community partners and members of the three organizations maintain a vested interest in the mass production and marketing of developed prototypes. 

 

Meet the founders of PROJECT RE_

 

John Folan
Co-Founder

John Folan is the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture and Director of the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) at Carnegie Mellon University. He has also served as track Chair of the Masters of Urban Design (MUD) Program and a member of the Urban Laboratory faculty.

Included in his body of work are the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the National Wildlife Federation Headquarters, and the United States Embassy Compound in Nairobi, Kenya.

His teaching was recognized at the University of Arizona with six consecutive Robert C. Geibner Awards, the Daryl Dobras Award, and the university's highest teaching honor, The Five Star Faculty Award.

 

Stephen Shelton
Co-Founder

In 2009, realizing the need in the masonry trade for a new generation of masonry professionals, Stephen Shelton founded the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh. He is not only its founder, but also serves as TIP’s Executive Director.

 While he oversees all of the school’s functions, his primary day-to-day roles for the Trade Institute are financial management, public relations, and job placement. Mr. Shelton also serves as Chairman of the Board of Pittsburgh Youth Partnership; a 501(c)3 organization that was established to fund youth related programs.

In 2002, Mr. Shelton started Shelton Masonry, Inc.; a firm that is renowned for some of the finest restoration work performed in Pittsburgh.

 

Mike Gable
Co-Founder

Mike Gable is the founding Executive Director of Construction Junction (CJ), a nonprofit used and surplus building material retail warehouse.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Resources Council and the Resource Exchange in Philadelphia. With over 20 years of nonprofit management experience, Mike has consistently been involved in operations that had major earned revenue components.  He has grown Construction Junction from an idea into one of the largest used and surplus building material reuse retailers in the country. With an operating budget of 2.2 million, a staff of over 30, and numerous partnerships with organizations that provide recycling and reuse services through CJ’s 100,000 square foot facility, Mike’s leadership has helped create a highly valued community resource.  

Since 2011 he has raised over $1,788,500 in grant money to support special projects and infrastructure investment into Construction Junction.