Our business spotlight looks at New Era Paint, an environmentally friendly retail paint store offering non-toxic interior and exterior paints. New Era Paint founder Laurie Hessemer shares the story of New Era Paint here.



The Long & Winding Road That Leads to My Store….

I never aspired to being a paint storeowner—that is, not at least until a couple of years ago.   I graduated from college with a degree in Marketing, and had my first career in retailing.  I worked for Macy’s in San Francisco and The May Company in Los Angeles, where I rose to the rank of General Manager, then did something that’s become characteristic of my working life:  I quit and went to work in a completely unrelated field.

I followed my bliss (a moving target, as best I can tell) and went to work for an international non-profit, which eventually got me to India, where I lived in an ashram and supported the work of a mobile hospital, tree planting projects and scholarships for impoverished students.  I will always be grateful for that experience, because it opened my eyes to how much I took for granted at home in the U.S.—and, sadly, I observed that the most fundamental things, like clean air and water, electricity on demand, a roof over my head and medical attention when I need it are often beyond the means of so many people on the planet. 

Several years later, in the job that first brought me to Denver, I had the “ah-ha” moment that put my feet on the path of sustainability.   This time I was a salesperson for the largest division of the then largest corporation in the world, and doing quite well at it--except that, successful as I seemed to be, I was really pretty unhappy.  So, as is my habit, I made a trip to a bookstore to try and tease out answers to life’s persistent problems (oh so Guy Noir).   The Ecology of Commerce (a classic among books on business and the environment) made its way home with me that day.  By the time I’d finished it, I was resigning that sales job and heading to Boston to help bring The Natural Step (an environmental education NGO) from Sweden to the U.S.

After a sojourn of several years in my native Portland, OR, where I lived the green lifestyle that we aspire to here now, I found my way back to Denver and worked at Janus Capital Group in Cherry Creek.  (Guys, to this day I tell everybody I know you were the most decent men I have ever worked with and I’m sorry I had to leave that job—Janus is a great place to work because of you and your values.)  But life has a way of pulling us along to the places we’re supposed to be, and for me the next destination was Phoenix, where incredible luck and undeniable grace converged in the job of my dreams: Store Manager of a green building supply!

That’s where I got the grounding I needed in green paint products and hatched the scheme that’s resulted in NEW ERA PAINT.  Somewhere in all my training I’d learned that building green—that is, smaller, cleaner, energy efficient—is one of the best ways we can impact the environment for the better.  So, NEW ERA offers only the best non-toxic, zero VOC paints and primers available, from leading environmentally responsible paint companies—products that, in addition to eliminating the volatile organic compounds that contribute to global warming, also have no known carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxins in them, so they are safe for you, your children and pets, too.

We opened our store in June, on Sheridan in a repurposed building that faces Sloan’s Lake, and have been busy tinting paint ever since.   Thanks, Denver, for getting us off to such a great start!  We’re just winding up our first series of workshops on green remodeling, and looking forward to kicking off a study group on Voluntary Simplicity in January—we’d love to have you join us for that.   We hope you’ll stop by soon and let us share what’s special about our local, clean air business.

Wishing you all Peace & Prosperity in the New Year!


Contact Info:

New Era Paint
Laurie Hessemer
2045 Sheridan Blvd, Unit B
Edgewater, CO  80214

303-237-6337
see their listing in the Colorado Local First directory