Creating 'Layers of Good'

This year, BMAC is celebrating Senior Housing Director Ted Koehler's 24th year of service. Over those years, his work repairing and weatherizing homes, overseeing construction projects, training teams, and managing BMAC's inventory has helped thousands of people. We're so grateful to have Ted's wisdom, vision, and leadership on the BMAC team as we're building thriving communities.

Here’s our conversation diving into Ted's years of Housing and Weatherization work:

BMAC: What is your title and what is it that you do for BMAC?

TK: As Housing Director, I have had the good fortune to help create and oversee BMAC’s housing portfolio—that includes 168 units, consisting of apartments, duplexes, and homes for low-income individuals with added special needs like disabilities, homelessness, aging.

My team manages 18 sites—property operations, maintenance, and occupancy. We also handle repairs, maintenance, and landscaping as well as an after-hours on-call system and regular annual inspections. Together we have grown an over $100,000 inventory of materials and equipment—mainly for weatherization. We do about 20–30 weatherization projects a year, plus projects for a new furnace replacement program we added this year. We’ve also transitioned our home repair program from loans to grants and have several projects underway.

My department also partners with Aging and Long-Term Care to install home modifications like wheelchair ramps and grab bars to keep aging clients comfortable and in their homes as long as possible.

As an agency, we have built/rehabed and sold 25–30 homes to first-time buyers. But overall, my focus areas are housing rehab, weatherization, property development, and home safety improvements.

BMAC: Goodness, that’s a lot. And very multi-layered. You’ve been doing that for 24 years?

TK: Not all of that. I started housing for BMAC in 2001, assisting in the construction of seven homes for first time home buyers. We also had a grant at that time to do lead paint home inspections.

BMAC: And what building was BMAC in when you first started? Because I’ve heard that BMAC has been in so many.

TK: Oh, yes. When I started, my office was in the 3^rd floor kitchen of 34 Boyer Ave. on the Whitman Campus 1993-2003. Prior to that, BMAC was on Poplar St., above the Union-Bulletin, and off Birch St. in a small set of offices.

I was able to help remodel the building on Catherine St. for us to move into it 2003-2013. After that was the design and rehab of the Kelly Place building for BMAC to move there and be cohoused with other partners from 2013-2020. And then I helped oversee the rehab of this building (8 E. Cherry) when we bought it in 2018. This is the first building we’ve owned.

BMAC: I’m surprised it’s taken BMAC this long to get our own building!

TK: Yeah, mostly, it’s been helping people and not helping ourselves. And, also, what made sense was to wait to find a spot that was closer to our clients and closer to other services. And it took a couple of years before we found this building.

BMAC: That makes sense. And over the years, amid the many projects you're juggling, what do you enjoy most about your work?

TK:  Walking with a new resident through an apartment that I helped design and build—they don’t know it, and I don’t say it—but it’s pretty rewarding to see how they use it and to see they’re safe and comfortable.

BMAC: So does that mean you’ve maybe signed studs or put little messages or pictures of yourself on framing before drywall goes up?

TK: Well… actually, yes. We did that on a house we built with Hayden Homes’ First Story project. We all got to sign the walls and raise the exterior walls all at the same time.

BMAC: That’s awesome! On the flipside, can you share what you’ve found challenging about the work, and how you have overcome those challenges?

TK: Sometimes, I would be a year into a project and find out there was a funding shortfall, or there was some big change, and I would just be broken, like, “What? We don’t have money for ALL the apartments?” And it turned out to be a blessing. There had been too many to begin with, and we were able to build other things instead, like The Hub. So, I’ve learned that sometimes a little bit of challenge or change is not bad. It’s good, even though you didn’t know it at the time.

BMAC: Do you have a favorite BMAC story you can share?‍

TK: The groundbreaking at The Hub, well, the whole project stands out. It took a lot of community partnerships—with The City of Walla Walla, Sherwood Trust, and others—to pull it off. And now it’s running, serving homeless teens, providing day care, hosting a student health center… it’s huge. And it all started with just a couple of partners saying, “Wouldn’t this be great?”

BMAC: Sounds like great team work for such a big project.

TK: Yeah. People drive by without realizing how much it took to make that happen. One of the neat things, toward the end of that project, is that we had enough left in the budget to install 26 solar panels on the roof. You can’t see them, but they’re there generating power—offsetting $200 to $300 a month in electricity. And all of that together is helping teens. Helping families. So, it’s layers—layers of good.

BMAC: “Layers of good.” I love that.

TK: Layers of goodness like with the community college construction project builds that we’ve done —we were training students, partnering with a community college class, using new contractors to get them experience, building in lower-income neighborhoods, often on challenging lots, giving neighbors an improved space and the result was a new home for first time homebuyers. So, it had many layers of good.

BMAC: Many layers of good! Yes!