Constructing Hope: How Recycled Steel is Building a Sustainable Housing Legacy | Rory Rubin
Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who want to change the world for good. Today, we have a very special guest, Prepare to Be Amazed by Rory Rubin, who leveraged 18 years in management consulting to found
SI Container Builds creating fire hurricane and tornado resistant recycled steel dwellings for everything from affordable housing to commercial spaces Driven by their do-good mantra this innovative team partners with community leaders and nonprofits to deliver purposeful low maintenance Structures that people feel good living and working in you can learn more about their impactful work at SIContainerBuilds.com
Rory, welcome to the show.
Rory Rubin (01:01)
it's great to be here, Jen. Thanks for having me.
Jen Porter (01:04)
I am delighted to have this conversation with you. When we first spoke, I just fell in love with your mission, what you're doing, what you're building, who you are. And I was so excited to share this with the world.
Rory Rubin (01:16)
Well, sometimes I still, when someone, I'm listening to you talk about my business, I'm like, that's a really interesting business. Whose business is that? It's kind of, it's ⁓ evolution because it certainly didn't start, this wasn't what I thought I was gonna do. It wasn't what I was gonna be when I grew up. And you know, I'm sitting in my mid fifties, it's different now.
Jen Porter (01:34)
Well.
We never know, right? It's like, yes, the evolution of life can be such an adventure. So I do want to find out how you got to this place, but first tell people what it is that you're doing.
Rory Rubin (01:48)
Sure. So I run a steel frame modular factory outside of Chicago area where we repurpose shipping containers. We broker them from all over the country and people don't typically know that there are more than 26 million shipping containers just sitting around. We don't send them back. So we get our goods overseas. We bring them over by container. They get the goods dropped off and the containers get dropped here permanently.
So oftentimes people will drive down the highway and see them stacked. People will think they're being stored for something and that's just a container graveyard. They're not being stored for anything. So other countries have been doing this for decades. There are other people in this country doing some of this, but it is a newer wave of being able to repurpose something that is truly meant to be repurposed into amazing different structures. That's pretty crazy.
Jen Porter (02:24)
my gosh.
Okay, that's just crazy. You're
saying 26 million just in our country?
Rory Rubin (02:46)
know all across the globe. And so there's more. And that statistic is probably a good five or six years old. So.
Jen Porter (02:48)
in the world.
old.
So
you were to, so you're saying we as America ship things, we import things, and then it's cheaper to build another container in another country and ship another one as opposed to use that one that we've already received and ship it back with something.
Rory Rubin (03:11)
and we'll
Yeah, well, we don't typically do a lot of exporting anyway. So we're not shipping a lot of goods overseas just in general. We do do some, but we're not known for exporting. I mean, this is a whole other topic we can get into, but we won't go there. But ultimately, is just is simply less expensive for manufacturers overseas to do a new container.
Jen Porter (03:26)
We're consumers.
Rory Rubin (03:38)
And they have to follow certain guidelines. So since 2016, these have been legally allowed to be repurposed in the United States alone for residential and commercial use. So we know exactly how this container is built and what it withstands and what came over, what the manifest came over with it. So it's not toxic waste, it's Nike shoes. So we understand all of those pieces as well.
Jen Porter (04:01)
And so what kind of an impact is your company making right now?
Rory Rubin (04:05)
So, you know, this ties back to my roots. Oftentimes people will ask, well, how did you get here? And I started off as a clinical social worker and now I get to do good in a different type of way. I'm repurposing the steel structure for things like wellness pods, yoga studios, affordable housing spaces, buildings that people need, pop-up spaces, really cool community spaces.
Jen Porter (04:17)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (04:31)
And so it's the container, you think it, you can build it kind of concept. Architects are phenomenal in how they can recreate what they want.
Jen Porter (04:40)
So I love this so much and I love that you get to be creative with your work. It's not just like churning out the same structure over and over, but I'm thinking about two things. One is the affordable housing piece and how important, essential, like critical that is for different parts of our country right now. Maybe every state. Every state's dealing with it.
Rory Rubin (05:03)
all parts of our country. Every state, every area,
we are so short in housing. I can't even think of the statistic just from a United States perspective, but we have the capacity to house everybody. And yet we are boggled in red tape and municipalities and codes and all of these things that are just not getting the housing delivered to the people who really need it.
And then there's the misconception of I'm creating a rusty old box, which a lot of people think, I see that going down the highway on a truck and it's rusty. What we create out of this is a home that I personally would want to live in. And so we're doing everything to code standards. We're building these out so that it feels, when you walk in, you don't know you're in a steel frame. You know you're in a home, dry wall, beautiful cabinetry, you know, all the finishing work, the bathrooms, the kitchens.
Everything is exactly the way you would want it to be as a home. So that's really important to us. So we're not just providing a home that is more affordable and sustainable, but we're providing a home that you kind of want to be in. It's your home. It's not just a dwelling that has a roof.
Jen Porter (06:13)
Yeah. ⁓
Well, you said how important that is to you that people feel good in these structures that you're building to either live in or work in or play in.
Rory Rubin (06:27)
it's gotta be their safe spot. The world is really tough out there. It's a lot of challenges and you need to be able to come to a space that you can feel good about, that you can wrap yourself in a blanket and sit on a couch or crawl into a nice bed and feel like a tornado's not gonna come back and shake you. So one container, when I build it out to a one bedroom unit is 18,000 pounds.
Jen Porter (06:45)
No kidding.
Rory Rubin (06:51)
That stinker is not moving. That's why I can say that we have just a better structure in terms of dealing with the elements that are affecting all over the country from a tornado to an earthquake to a hurricane and fires in California. Yeah.
Jen Porter (06:53)
Really?
Wow, that's a really big deal. I'm curious who you're partnering with. I know you have a ton of small projects. You probably have some larger volume projects too. Tell me about where these partnerships are happening.
Rory Rubin (07:24)
So we made a real pivot when we got into the factory. So we started off doing things that would be an onsite build and realized that is not cost effective. is not making, it's not getting to enough people. So we started to develop a strategy to do more of a B2B business. So we're working with developers, we're working with nonprofits, we're working with like, we would work with the city of Chicago.
We would work with a big developer ⁓ that is partnering with ⁓ an organization. doing a girls group home for girls who have been trafficked and that's sponsored by DCFS. And so, you know, these are the larger scale partnerships because what I do, I can do it faster. So now I'm providing an ROI. I can build a one bedroom unit in less than four weeks. I can build out.
We just built a two story building that we'll talk about, I know, down at Navy Pier in Chicago. We did that in four months for the two story building, totally built out in the factory. And it's like Legos. We just recreate it down at the pier. this is what we do. And then Alex in Legos says, well, think it's Legos can be elegant. I've seen crazy Legos now. They're making everything.
Jen Porter (08:30)
but elegant, right?
True. This is true.
So where are you helping to solve the affordable housing crisis?
Rory Rubin (08:45)
Yeah, I mean, this is a great pitch because right now I have a formal meeting with a big time developer in the city of Chicago that's partnering with multiple charitable organizations looking for housing. And he needs a thousand doors, which means a thousand units, whether it's single family or multifamily units to be done within the next couple of years. And that's just one person in the city of Chicago dealing with that. There are more.
And so we're in the process, because we're able to stack, they're meant to be stacked, that we're talking about multifamily and small multifamily, because we can stick into the infill places that need that. A plot of land that hasn't been developed over there, the city of Chicago owns it, they'll give it to you. We can put something up in just a couple of months, and now we have multiple people being able to move into housing.
Jen Porter (09:35)
Do you and your team have capacity to do like a thousand across two years?
Rory Rubin (09:42)
I would love to say that that would be incredible outcome. think that we would be moving into a different factory to do a thousand, but can we do several hundred? Yes. The way I always talk about the solution that we have is that we have a solution, but we need to be with partnerships with more solutions. in, I, there are competitors out there. I don't like to say they're competitors or colleagues of mine, cause we're all kind of doing the same thing.
Jen Porter (09:49)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (10:11)
If we have a thousand doors, we can split it up and all do quite well to provide housing, but we can't do it alone. So it's good to have those relationships.
Jen Porter (10:22)
Is there an alliance?
Rory Rubin (10:24)
We're getting there. There's a network Audrey Grubessick has started. She's a modular guru. She is, I would say, a colleague, peer, and a mentor to me. She started ⁓ an organization called Offsite Dirt. And that network is all over the country for people who are invested in modular building and development. so that
Little entity is something that is growing. There's the modular build Institute that's out there that I've been a part of for a while. So there are groups of people that are coming together to share challenges, to share outcomes, to share technology, because if we can do it faster and better, then we're getting more product out to the people who really need it.
Jen Porter (11:07)
Wow, and so you're saying it's off-site dirt? Because if people want to look this up, because people are feeling this in their communities, and a lot of them are leaders in their communities and may want to check it out.
Rory Rubin (11:10)
off site dirt. Yeah.
Yes. It's a great site.
It's a great site. And we're opening up our factory to actually their very first event in October. We're doing a Halloween party in our factory to bring in a whole bunch of people at the same time to do a factory tour so that they can come and see what we do. It's an intimate group of developers and investors and technology people. I'm working with ⁓
Jen Porter (11:29)
cool.
Rory Rubin (11:42)
A new ERP system that will help us streamline what we're doing will help us from a procurement standpoint, an estimating standpoint. If I can save cost, then I'm going to pass that down to the people. So that's why we do what we do. Being able to do it in a factory all year round, I don't have to deal with Chicago weather. I have people that can work. We don't have to deal with the site work.
Jen Porter (11:55)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (12:06)
I mean, building off, we build off site and we only have to deal with the site work, which is very minimal, typically a couple months worth of time. So it makes a big difference. So Merlin technology is Merlin AI is something we're implementing. So we're trying to really move the needle forward in all of this.
Jen Porter (12:14)
incredible.
No kidding,
you've had to learn so much.
Rory Rubin (12:24)
my gosh. Well, I feel you probably have the same journey in that way. I am a clinical social worker that is now in the manufacturing plant. Go figure. It is what it is.
Jen Porter (12:36)
so you didn't
grow up in a manufacturing plant.
Rory Rubin (12:38)
I did not grow up in a manufacturing. My dad is an architect. So I did grow up around the love of building and design and enjoying the architecture piece and the art history piece. But I didn't do anything with it until I woke up at 48 and I turned to my husband and said, I want to start a business. And the joke was he just looked at me. He's like a midlife crisis. Don't you think you could just buy a car? And I said, no, I'm going to start a business. So, you know.
Jen Porter (12:42)
Okay.
Okay.
What was that about
what happened on that morning? What was happening in your life?
Rory Rubin (13:10)
What was happening? I had done management consulting for a while and I had worked in a manufacturing area in my last gig as a consultant. It nothing to do with what we're doing now, but I liked it. I thought it was interesting. I like the business side of social work very much. I think I tie in my social work because as a leader of a company, everything is about my people.
And so I want to make sure that they enjoy coming to work. I want to make sure that the environment that I am providing to them makes sense. They are, I invest in them wholeheartedly, even as a startup, as a founder, it's important to me. And I just feel like I was missing out on taking control over some of that and leaving a legacy. know other people talk about leaving a legacy. have two children who are about to be an empty nester. And I was thinking,
When I'm gone, have I done something that is meaningful enough for people to say, I remember she did that. And I hadn't done that yet. And I need to see that. What was on my mind for a long time. For a long, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to do that in my twenties and thirties and not until my late forties was I able to take that risk and say, I think I'm ready to do this.
Jen Porter (14:15)
That was on your mind.
Yeah.
So
what was happening in year 48 that you woke up and said this to your husband?
Rory Rubin (14:35)
I mean,
it's truly like a joke. He's looking at me. It's like, this is midlife crisis, right? Because this is how it works. And I'm like, I don't know. But I really, you know, this is my chance to do it. I felt like it was now or never. I felt like I had just enough experience and knowledge to do something good. And the lessons that I learned is I don't have to know everything. I'm just going to find out how to do it and surround myself with the people who know how to do it.
Jen Porter (14:59)
That's right. Well,
so let's pause there. We don't have to know how to do everything.
Rory Rubin (15:10)
We think we do sometimes.
Jen Porter (15:12)
what we want to know because we
love certainty and it just doesn't exist.
Rory Rubin (15:17)
Yeah, it really doesn't. And being at the leader as a woman in a very male dominant industry, I felt like what if I don't know what I'm doing? What if people look at me like she's a social worker, she's crazy, like this is nuts. And I still sometimes feel that way. But at the end of the day, I know the people that I'm hiring around me are all experts in what they're doing. So I just want to lead.
Jen Porter (15:20)
And
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (15:45)
And I want them to do what they do best, is manufacture, build.
Jen Porter (15:47)
Yeah.
So where did the idea come from for the business? You knew you wanted to start something, you wanted to leave a legacy, you wanted to do good, make your mark in this world that people could see.
Rory Rubin (16:01)
I wanted to be more sustainable, personally. I felt like we're very wasteful and I grew up very wasteful in a lot of ways. And I was realizing what's most important to me was not really my material things. And I often thought about, God forbid I had a fire in my house, people who lost everything in California, what would I miss?
And I was thinking, if I had the people that I loved around me and all of my pictures were up in the cloud, I was going to be okay. So how do I live in a way that's more sustainable, smaller footprint? And so I started to poke around and I started to see these really cool pictures of container builds and other parts of the world. I'm like, this is really cool. Like, are they doing this here? And, you know, in Canada, they were doing it.
I could Australia and Europe and Asia. And I'm like, why are we not doing more of this? And it just started from there and it snowballed. said, if I can live in this and I can create this, I know other people are going to want to do this too. That's not exactly how this whole journey went. Not everybody wants to be on the same journey. Not everybody wants to live in the same space. And I realized very quickly that the majority of the time I spend is around education of the container.
and that it's not that rusty old box and that's a really beautiful home and that's okay. So that's my mission, I guess, is to promote something really special.
Jen Porter (17:29)
Yeah, so it's the education, but also the tangible outcome of having these spaces that are being built.
Rory Rubin (17:35)
for sure. Now I can say that people are living in these spaces. People are utilizing them. The Taraji Henson Foundation, Boris L. Henson, her father's foundation, ⁓ that she started in honor of her father. put yoga studios, wellness spaces on HBCU campuses to support young black women's mental health. know, it's things like that that I can say this is impactful. It's getting to people that
are really able to enjoy a space that is repurposed, that would just be sitting around. It wouldn't be doing anything.
Jen Porter (18:11)
Do you
have any videos of these structures that you've built and the people's testimonials of experiencing them? Okay.
Rory Rubin (18:19)
Yeah, absolutely. They're on our website. have
testimonials. We have some videos. Our Instagram actually has a lot of videos. People love seeing when we place the containers, especially the big crane and we're putting it down and they think, oh, you know, this is a really cool thing. It truly does become like a Lego set, like an adult version of a Lego set. It really does. So it's fun.
Jen Porter (18:30)
Yeah.
Incredible. So I want to hear ⁓ about Navy Pier because that's a, so you're in Chicago and how did this project come to be?
Rory Rubin (18:52)
for instance.
We were really lucky with this project because it's not something we would have been pursuing or knew to pursue. So an investor in us is a Marina guy. owns a Marina outside of the Chicago area. He happened to be talking to another developer that was saying he was finally able to put the first transient Marina in downtown Chicago, which has never happened before. It's taken 10 years to do this project from that end.
and that he was looking for a cool idea for an amenities building and what better use for containers than containers to be on water. They come from water on a ship, they should be on water. So we've literally placed this two story building that we just placed last week on Lake Michigan on these huge piles that have gone into the sand bed of Lake Michigan. It's really a cool thing.
having the mayor, Mayor Brandon Johnson last week at the soft opening, you being able to see the building and represent what Chicago really is, which is a wonderful place to live and enjoy. now boaters from Michigan and Wisconsin and Indiana and anyone who just wants to take their boat for an hour can come down and enjoy Navy Pier where the big Ferris wheel is in downtown Chicago with the building.
Jen Porter (20:10)
And say more about why that's so significant for Chicago. Why has it not had something like that before?
Rory Rubin (20:18)
You know, I don't know the whole history. All I know is, is that the marinas that Chicago have are marinas that people pay for. think it's either for a season or year long to dock, to keep their boats during the time of the boating season. And for whatever reason, Chicago has never had a transient marina where people could enjoy, come down into the city, dock their boat and then spend money in the city or spend money on Navy Pier before. So.
Jen Porter (20:32)
Mm-hmm.
Rory Rubin (20:46)
the revenue that it will have coming in for Chicago is, I can't even fathom it. I mean, it's really a special thing. I think it's very special for me because now I get to say in the back of my head, my father being the architect, that we've actually changed Chicago's skyline. You can actually see this building and the skyscrapers behind it from Lake Michigan on Navy Pier. I mean, it's really fun.
Jen Porter (21:04)
Yes!
Amazing.
Rory Rubin (21:13)
It's amazing.
It's almost like something I don't really understand quite yet until I can see people truly enjoying it. But it's it's been fun.
Jen Porter (21:21)
So people would not have been able to come to shore, come to the marina, park their boat and get out and enjoy Chicago. They would not have been able to do that. Now they can. So what is that building like? What's inside it that people are gonna be able to use or enjoy?
Rory Rubin (21:39)
So when you book a slip for whether it be an hour, a day, a week, however you want to do it, when you register your boat for that particular time frame, you're able to use what's called the amenities building, which will give you access to the bathrooms, the showers, the laundry facilities, a ship store, a boaters lounge where you can make have food and enjoy family time, watch a game.
managers, lounge, staff lounge, and all of that if you want to get off your boat and just be off your boat for a little while and have like a nice little space. The view is beautiful of Lake Michigan. So you can just enjoy that or you can enjoy Navy Pier itself, which has wonderful restaurants and everything on it. But I think it's nice just to be able to go to the bathroom, take a shower, do your laundry if you have to, stay in Chicago for a long weekend and enjoy it if you're coming to Michigan or Wisconsin.
Jen Porter (22:23)
Yes!
Wow, what
a win, because it's a win for the boaters, right, who can enjoy this. And then it's a win for Chicago because they're spending money there and it just changes the whole quality of the experience for these individuals. And you built that.
Rory Rubin (22:33)
It's a win-win.
We built that, know, Randy Pogalski is the developer who put this building up there and he built the Marina itself. And there are a lot of people involved in building that Marina that would have been way over our pay grade in terms of the technology needing to build an actual Marina. But I do think that this building itself is pretty special and I think people really enjoyed it. And I love the fact that actually kept it container ask.
Jen Porter (23:05)
⁓
Wow.
Rory Rubin (23:14)
So part of it is cladded and so it's cool. can see cool blending in, but then part of it is the actual just the containers and you can tell it's a container. And I think that's fun too. So you can do it both ways.
Jen Porter (23:15)
Okay.
Yeah.
Did they feature this?
there like news clips on this?
Rory Rubin (23:29)
Yeah, it was in the paper.
It was in all the newscasts. All the people were there. So you'll be able to look it up and see it as it progresses. The official opening day is in mid-June. It was a soft opening last week. So it's the season and they're sold out as far as I know for they have like really big events downtown that people are sold out for. So that's a really cool thing. It's fun. It's fun. ⁓
Jen Porter (23:44)
Amazing, amazing.
Rory, talk about legacy.
Rory Rubin (23:58)
It's a legacy. Yeah, it's good.
Jen Porter (24:00)
What an incredible
project.
Rory Rubin (24:03)
And if I can do that and a whole heck of a lot of affordable housing in my journey here, I will feel like I've made an impact and I've done what I'm supposed to do. For sure.
Jen Porter (24:08)
⁓ my goodness. Yes. So
when did you start this?
Rory Rubin (24:17)
started the company at the end of 2018, got into our factory three years ago. So it didn't become this company until three years ago.
Jen Porter (24:27)
Yeah. And what is it like to be a founder, a female founder in a male dominated industry too?
Rory Rubin (24:35)
well, I'll start with the first part. What is it like to be a founder? Because I shared when we were talking offline that I had one of those moments this morning where it was not my best moment, where it was just hard. It was a hard day. was stress that was beyond stressful. I wasn't performing the way I felt I wanted to. I was.
Jen Porter (24:39)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (25:01)
down. was angry. I was sad. I was going through all of these crazy emotions. And then I had to sit back and say, my gosh, I'm having my own mini tantrum on this. And that makes me angry at myself that I would have that moment. at the end of the day, they're just so real. It's not easy. People think being an entrepreneur is glamorous and fun. And it is
Jen Porter (25:16)
Yeah. Yes.
I'm
Rory Rubin (25:26)
not glamorous and there are fun moments but it is hard. It's hard.
Jen Porter (25:31)
It's so hard.
Yeah. And you had one of those moments just this morning.
Rory Rubin (25:35)
Yeah, I really did. you know, to be able to share that, to let people know that it's real, the pain, the journey, it's just real. And this is in the light of Navy Pier landing last week, you know, so.
Jen Porter (25:41)
Yeah.
Right,
right, it's like a mountain top experience and then you you have reality set back in and you've got challenges to overcome. So what triggered some of that? Are you able to see like the stressors, like a pattern with that?
Rory Rubin (25:57)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I would say that as anybody who's ever founded a company, anyone who's been on a journey of a startup, we're not a startup anymore. I consider ourselves teenagers because we've been a few years in with some good wins, but being a teenager is hard because you're always wanting to make sure the business is on its right leg and fiscally responsible and people are happy. Your clients are happy. The people who work for you are happy.
Jen Porter (26:26)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (26:32)
You're happy, you know, are you doing the right thing? Are you going the right direction? These are just questions that are constant. And then being a female in a male dominant industry where I don't have a ton of peers is always ⁓ just a personal struggle. That's hard.
Jen Porter (26:51)
What does that feel like? I'm imagining I'm seeing the mountains behind you. Do you feel the weight of those responsibilities on your shoulders or what does it feel like to you?
Rory Rubin (27:06)
I think it feels like I need to figure out a better way to practice more grace. And I say that because I think my male counterparts don't even think about that. And I think they just are okay. And for me, I need to be okay, a little bit more so and realize that I'm going to maybe do things differently. I look different, I might respond differently, but it...
It's okay. And those are the things that I have to be good with. It's not really about how everybody else sees me. It's really about my own personal inner journey, right?
Jen Porter (27:47)
That is so true. That is so true. It always starts with us.
Rory Rubin (27:51)
Yeah, it does. And that's hard. And there are days that it works and there are days that it just doesn't work, that it sucks.
Jen Porter (27:58)
Yeah, that's
right. And it's so interesting you mentioned the word grace. I was just talking with a dear friend who is grieving and I just, I left her a message yesterday. said, I just, just remember to have grace for yourself through this. There's no, there's no right way or easy way to, move through what you're going through. And those expectations that we have, we can't be a hundred percent all the time. We just can't. I I shared with you before that.
You know, I am an emotional person and so it's not uncommon for me to throughout one of my days to have tears because I am affected by things. I'm affected by things that happen to me that are happening to people that I love. And I let myself have those good cries and then I come back into
supporting a client, they don't know that I've just gone through that. Sometimes I share, but a lot of times, you know, with a client, it's always about them. It's totally about them. It's the same thing with your partners and your team. You want to show up for them as the leader, but we have to be able to take care of ourselves and be honest and true with how we're doing and give space for that.
Rory Rubin (28:56)
Right.
We do.
We're not ⁓
as women. don't feel at least I wasn't, know, the generation, I guess I'm generation X came from parents that grew up with a very different work ethic with a very much pull yourself up by your bootstrings. You don't show emotion. Emotion is weakness. And, you know, that's something that I did not want to pass down to our kids. I wanted to learn a different style faster. I don't.
Jen Porter (29:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (29:45)
always do that. still have my parents in my ear a little bit. One is deceased, but I still have her and my mom in my ear too, I think. But yes, ⁓ it's real. It's emotion. I I think empathy and being intuitive to people's energy and feelings should be embraced. And it's not always embraced because it's to be in that space. And you obviously
Jen Porter (29:52)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Rory Rubin (30:12)
feel that you have an intuition, you feel people and you feel their energy.
Jen Porter (30:15)
yeah.
so much, so much. I'm a deep feeler. And I like that about myself. I didn't always. And I can remember growing up and being told, you know, stop crying. Don't cry.
Rory Rubin (30:21)
Okay.
yes!
There's nothing to cry about. This is crazy. Stop crying. It's like, okay, well now I want to cry more, but then...
Jen Porter (30:32)
It's
So how do you handle this? I mean, it sounds like you have wanted to be really intentional with particularly how you parent, how you show up as a leader. You want to, you mentioned like, I want to be more okay. And so how do you do that?
Rory Rubin (30:57)
Mm-hmm.
I have a great spouse. I don't always give him enough credit. We've been together over 30 years and he is very different in how he processes than I am. And so we can support each other in that way. I have great girlfriends. I am blessed to have these girlfriends. I've had friends since I was seven years old and I've lived a lot of places, a lot of states and other countries.
So these are my peeps that have come on a journey, people that I know I can be much more myself than anywhere else. That if I have a fallen moment, it's not a fallen lifetime, it's a fallen moment. And it's, you know, they cut a lot of grace. And so those people are everything to me. And then I have responsibility to two younger people. Now one turning 21 and one just turned 18 that I want to be able to show up for them.
Jen Porter (31:35)
Yeah.
Yes.
Rory Rubin (31:57)
truly what rides me every day to make sure that if I'm doing what I'm doing, it is meaningful so that I can show and demonstrate that giving back a piece of you, being impactful, living that's in that space is how you should live your life every day.
Jen Porter (32:17)
Well, how different is it for you to be in a job that is not easy at all, but deeply meaningful versus other types of jobs that you've had in the past?
Rory Rubin (32:32)
I would say it is the thing that wakes me up at night. It's the thing that gets me out of bed too. I'm up because of all the stress and how to make sure that this is real and it's moving in the right direction. But I get up in the morning because I know that I'm doing something that truly means something for me finally. everything has led to that piece and I didn't realize it until, but it's, you know, it's a good thing.
Jen Porter (32:37)
No.
What's the impact for you to be doing something that's so deeply meaningful versus just having the jobs that you had before that might not have been as much?
Rory Rubin (33:09)
I think originally it started off as ⁓ in my own mental health, pleasing people and wanting to please and wanting to get that out there to make sure I was doing something that was going to be impactful. And that wasn't the positive piece. The positive piece came when I realized that I was meant to do that. And that's a good thing. And so I could kind of rephrase and reframe.
the people pleasing in me to actually be impactful to people because it's supposed to be that way. I don't know if I explained that correctly. ⁓
Jen Porter (33:46)
Say more about that because you're
onto something really important.
Rory Rubin (33:51)
Yeah, and it's funny, Jen, I don't think I've ever really actually looked at it that way before and so we started talking about it. I think honestly, I was an only child. I moved around a lot. I had to fit in wherever I went. So I was always learning how to please. And that was just a part of my personality. And then when I decided to take more control over what I was doing or how it was pleasing or how the impact was,
That's how the company kind of developed and created. And now I can say I'm pleasing, but in a positive way.
Jen Porter (34:26)
What's
the difference? You were people pleasing out of a survival mechanism before?
Rory Rubin (34:31)
Probably
anybody. Now I'm actually very, it's very meaningful on the projects that we're choosing and pleasing people in a way that is impactful to them.
Jen Porter (34:45)
That's so interesting.
Rory Rubin (34:46)
I want to dig
at this more, but it doesn't have to be on the podcast. I almost think like this is very therapeutic. So we have right now, we have a 6,400 square foot group home that's going to be used for girls who've been trafficked here in Illinois. There's nothing like it. Forget that it's built out of containers. There's nothing like it in the state. So girls as young as 12 years old are coming from off their street, sleeping on their social workers floors because there's no place for them. DCFS has sponsored this.
Shelter Inc is going to run this home and it's also put on by the developer HODC. And we're a part of this group and I can say I am impacting a whole group of people. So in a way my pleasing behavior now is impacting in the right way because I want these people to have what they have and what they get.
Jen Porter (35:33)
Wow.
I think intentionality is the real key differentiator here. Because before you were doing it out of, it really is a survival mechanism to be able to adapt to new environments and want people, you you have to be accepted and liked in order to belong and to have our needs met, particularly as kids and so many clients and friends that I know.
Rory Rubin (35:39)
That's it.
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (36:00)
still struggle with people pleasing because it was developed in us, know, for reasons that served us really well. Now, I hear you saying, still want people to be pleased, but I'm going to decide and be intentional about what effort I put forward and in what spaces and with whom I put forward my effort and my talent to be able to please in ways that are meaningful.
Rory Rubin (36:17)
Yes.
Yes.
That's right. Absolutely. Thank you.
Jen Porter (36:28)
Not manipulative.
Whoa.
That's incredible insight there, Rory.
Rory Rubin (36:41)
You just helped to frame it. And now, you know, really today after this, I'm really going to dig into that a little bit more because that is really meaningful. And that is a basis of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it every day.
Jen Porter (36:56)
That's leadership too. It's leading because you're being intentional in how you want to operate, how you want to show up.
Rory Rubin (37:05)
And maybe it's a piece of healing. Maybe this is the way that I'm healing myself from stuff that I wasn't serving me in the same way, but I still, it's not bad to be a nice person and to be well liked. That is not the bad part. It's now, you're right. I can be intentional about how I spend my energy and use that power.
Jen Porter (37:08)
See you
Right.
Wow, what other projects are you just so proud of and excited about?
Rory Rubin (37:31)
We are going to be partnering with Habitat for Humanity of Lake County to do their first home in hopes to do multiple homes because having a modular arm for them would be wonderful. Then they could impact communities faster, which will be really, really, really cool. We have
Jen Porter (37:42)
No kidding.
Rory, you
are like, this is like a movement.
Rory Rubin (37:51)
I hope it's a movement. I want to have a lot of people join my movement. That would be wonderful.
Jen Porter (37:55)
I mean,
yeah, I feel like you are sort of the hub of the alliance that we talked about earlier.
Rory Rubin (38:03)
Well, and that's why, you know, getting our name out there, letting people explore all types of opportunity. You know, we're doing, this is really wonderful. These two sisters in Alabama have done this wonderful project called Fresh Greens Market. We just did their little market. We're shipping it down to Alabama in about a week. They're gonna be growing their own food and they're gonna be selling sandwiches out of the unit.
this great little green, fabulous little farm stand container that they're doing. You know, they noticed that they could do something like that. We're doing a concession stand for our local park district. We're talking with the Obama Foundation to do some really cool pop-up retail spaces when they do their big center here in Chicago. There's all sorts of very cool, the container is a beautiful thing, it really is.
Jen Porter (38:55)
How are you, how are these people finding you?
Rory Rubin (38:58)
I don't know.
have people that work in social media and marketing for me very organically in a lot of ways. I have a really awesome team of people. But at the end of the day, I think it's a lot of word of mouth, right? Like I talked to one person and then that person says, you know, that's really cool. My friend needs supportive housing in their community or, you know, different things. I mean, it just it's amazing. It explodes. It explodes.
Jen Porter (39:25)
Wow. So
how should people be thinking about you? Because the sparks might be going off in their minds as they're listening. Because I think what is super cool about what you're doing is everything can be customized. It's not cookie cutter like, hey, here's your one option. You're listening to what is the need, how is this gonna be used, what's the purpose, and then you're
it sounds like you're like architecting whatever it is that's needed. And so people might have all kinds of ideas like the ladies in Alabama, which is so cool, and the safe house. And I mean, just incredible. So how should people be thinking about when to come to you? They have a concept, they have a need. What's the process?
Rory Rubin (40:05)
Yeah, so.
Yep.
So because we work only with B2B, the people that we would be working with are not individuals that want a custom home. So that would not be somebody, I would refer them out because that is just not part of our mission. But if somebody wants to build a community because they have a need for a group of housing, whether it's
building generational wealth. Or if you're in a 500 mile radius of ours, we do backyard spaces for an adult parent in their backyard. That would be how I would utilize a one-to-one type of situation. But a multifamily unit to build generational wealth. Working in commercial spaces for people or small businesses that want it like this, Fresh Greens people or a pop.
Jen Porter (41:06)
I see.
So the Fresh Greens was a business and that's why it was direct. what's the connection between ⁓ the generational wealth? Tell me more.
Rory Rubin (41:10)
Yes.
So
the thing that I would love to do more of is not just affordable housing, but affordable housing with the opportunity to build what's called generational wealth. So if I can build you a house that you can afford and then I can put an ADU in your, which is an accessory dwell unit in your backyard that you can rent, or I can build you a three flat where you live on the bottom and you're renting the two floors. Now I'm empowering you.
to have generational wealth. And people are struggling with buying their own unit. But now I can give them something that might cost the same as another single family home, but I'm having you rent out one or two other homes.
Jen Porter (42:01)
Incredible.
Rory Rubin (42:02)
It's a big deal. It is, in my opinion, the way to really help people dig out and build the wealth.
Jen Porter (42:12)
Okay, this is huge. ⁓ How is that a business? So the fact that they're renting out to, you know, one or two.
Rory Rubin (42:21)
We're more than one. So I save you money
when I build you more than one unit at a time. So if I'm building you a three flat, that three flat is probably going to be less expensive than one single family home. So I'm going to build you a three flat and you're going to rent out two of those spaces. that.
Jen Porter (42:37)
And
this is a new concept, right? I don't think a lot of people know about this possibility. So ⁓ is this already happening?
Rory Rubin (42:46)
It's starting to. So California was really big pioneer as a state to allow for accessory dwelling units statewide. So they were allowing people because they had such a housing shortage. It's so much worse now than ever before because of the fires, but they were allowing people to bypass a lot of the regulation to get a unit in their backyard so that they could rent out spaces to people. Massachusetts has done that as well. Chicago did a pilot.
where they had different parts of the city of Chicago allowing for ADUs. It is coming. People realize that is a wonderful short-term fix for housing is to build smaller units, sustainable units in people's backyards and allowing them to rent those spaces out.
Jen Porter (43:32)
I think the difference in what you're describing is I'm used to that. So in Colorado, there's a lot of, there were especially, I don't know, early, I mean, 2001, 2002, like crazy ADU. And I think they cut off the, I don't even know what the laws are, but it was hard to get approved for one because there was too many. But,
Rory Rubin (43:52)
Well, and
I think that they were probably not always doing building them to code. So that was the thing that people fell off on and how they were building things.
Jen Porter (43:57)
Okay.
but it was
like already an established home and then they're trying to like force fit an ADU somewhere on that property and then rent it out and make money. But you're saying someone who maybe is their first home that they're owning to intentionally go ahead and build it as three flats and immediately have income coming in to help pay the mortgage and more.
Rory Rubin (44:18)
this.
Yes.
It's huge. It's huge in urban, underserved communities, especially. This is a wonderful opportunity for people to have home ownership and to get something else that they can use to pay their mortgage and keep family members close. I mean, I can go off on a tangent on how we don't support our aging community at all and that our assisted livings and our nursing homes are outrageously expensive. Why not have mom and dad in your backyard?
have an ADU so they can stay as independent, but maybe they do need a little bit more support or an adult child that, can't the Colorado is not cheap. Denver is certainly not a cheap area anymore. Chicago people, the rents are insane. A kid out of college can't even afford to live anywhere. It's terrible.
Jen Porter (45:01)
Yeah.
There.
Well, and you brought up sort of multi-generational living. And I've learned by seeing other cultures around the world that we do it really differently in the US. We're very independent. We sort of kick our kids out and it's like you're on your own. And so then it puts everybody in a hardship because...
Rory Rubin (45:34)
Good luck.
Jen Porter (45:41)
There's no one to take care of the kids right babies toddlers and there's and there's no one taking care of the seniors and And so I see other countries and I'm like, ⁓
Rory Rubin (45:49)
Yes.
That's how it's supposed to be. ⁓ the grandparents can
be in the backyard in their own space. They can help with childcare maybe. And having those bridges built around a family environment, it makes me very sad when I can see other, you know, we're well traveled and we spent time overseas. We've lived overseas. And to see that other countries just really treat the generations differently than we do. I'm not sure why we started off this
Jen Porter (46:01)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I'm in a mentorship program through my church and so we mentor the younger women and ⁓ we were talking about how in other countries that this wasn't, so was one of the women who's also mentor lived in a different country at a particular time and she said, we could start a, we could offer mentorship and the young women were like, why would we need that? We've got our aunts and we've got our.
Rory Rubin (46:24)
you
Jen Porter (46:50)
You know, our grandparents, we've got all the families all around. And exactly. And we don't realize how, ⁓ what's the word? Sort of stripped we are of some of those things. It's like, why are we so lonely? Why are we so isolated? Why are we so stressed out by money? Why are we, you know, it's like all of these things. ⁓ because we're not living.
Rory Rubin (46:52)
⁓ They're so lucky they don't realize.
Jen Porter (47:18)
the way that we were designed to live.
Rory Rubin (47:20)
We're not near our families anymore. We're just
not. And my daughter right now is in Vermont at school and she loves Vermont and I encouraged her to go and do whatever she wants. And I'm thinking like, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Could you please move home at some point? yeah, right. Right, the independent.
Jen Porter (47:30)
Yeah, right.
Well, it sounds like a really good thing, right? Is go, do, live your life, do those things.
But there are trade-offs, very significant trade-offs. So I love what you're offering and I'm so excited to be able to share this because I want other people around the country to know that this is available.
Rory Rubin (47:58)
Well, and to know that even though we're in Chicago, the advantage that I have is that it fits on a flatbed truck or on a rail. Containers are made to go from ship to truck to our factory, back to truck to get to where they need to go. It's an easy process.
Jen Porter (48:14)
Yeah.
And you mentioned in our first conversation, you are licensed in all 50 states. Is that right?
Rory Rubin (48:21)
We are. So that we are able to provide, cause we build a code. we're whatever municipality people are in, if a developer, like we're working in Wisconsin, if a developer wants to do something in an area, we will make sure that we are following and practicing the code for Wisconsin. So it's different how we would build in Northern Wisconsin to how we would build in Texas, where the heat is different, our code, the insulation is going to be different. So we take that very seriously.
Jen Porter (48:39)
Yeah.
So if people are listening in California or Oregon or different parts of the country, and they're, you know, I mentioned to you a friend who is really passionate about fixing, solving the housing crisis in, and she's in Oregon. And so I thought, gosh, what an amazing partnership this could be because they're, ⁓ I don't think that everybody that's working on these things or maybe cares about these things realizes there are solutions.
Rory Rubin (49:03)
And she's in Oregon, I think you may.
Jen Porter (49:19)
It's like you sort of it seems so big that it feels hard to solve. Like, what are we gonna do? It is. Yeah.
Rory Rubin (49:19)
I think.
Right. It does. And it is so big and it is hard to solve. And that's why I
don't look at the people who are doing it next to me as competitors, because there's so much aid. Really to be able to learn from my colleagues and explore and how to fix things together is the only way we're going to do this well. And we can do this well. Other countries have demonstrated this. This is most new.
Jen Porter (49:35)
Yes.
So one of the things that I'm ⁓ tangentially aware of is that you have to get a lot of people to agree, a lot of different kinds of people involved, ⁓ developers, landowners, government, know, city council. Like there's a lot of groups and people that are involved that can almost stand in the way, or it's just hard to figure out how to get all of those different parties with different agendas.
Rory Rubin (50:11)
Yes.
Jen Porter (50:17)
even if they all care about the issue to come together. And so I'm curious, are you able to play a part in some way of being almost like a, maybe a mediator, but as coming in to present solution? Say again? Okay. Yep.
Rory Rubin (50:24)
Yes.
It's an educator. It's an educator. It's an educator. So truly that's where I live in. That's my space
is I spend an awful lot of time educating. So I sit at city council meetings. I go with developers and I pitch with them. I do presentations to nonprofits or building associations or whatever. I would say that 85 to 90 % of my time is truly involved in education. Why I'm doing what I'm doing, how it's impactful.
Jen Porter (50:48)
Yeah.
Rory Rubin (50:58)
how it will save you money, how we can get this to you, all of the nuances of things that are misconceptions. The internet does me really disservice because people are like, anyone can build a container, they can do it in their backyard, but no, they can't because you're going to feel it wrong. And I fix a lot of mistakes and just to be able to share what's the right way to do something and what's the wrong way and how to do it.
that it's here and we're here to stay and I can give wonderful I wish I could say this was my idea and I made it up but it's so far away from my idea and I made it up but I am definitely a cheerleader for it so I'm here to stay here to vocalize it.
Jen Porter (51:38)
Yeah.
So what do you, you know, when you think about, there's a lot of women who I work with. There's a lot of women that are listening who,
If I were to ask them, there is something inside of them. There's a passion, there's a mission, there's something inside of them that they want to do, but it feels impossible. It feels like such a pipe dream that they could never attain. that, so knowing that, that's where my question is coming from. When you look back on yourself at 47 and you see what you've experienced now, what do you...
What are you most proud of? What would you say to that 47 year old?
Rory Rubin (52:30)
I think the stick-to-itiveness is the muscle that I have had to learn more than I ever had to do anything. I would say that I am always comfortable jumping in. I think very quickly, I assess a lot very quickly, and I'm always comfortable jumping in. But this wasn't just, I'm going to jump in and see what happens. This is, I'm going to jump in and I'm going to make it happen.
So I've got to put it all in every day for how long it takes. It could be five years, it could be 10 years, it could be whatever it is, but I have to do this and I got to stick to it. And that's where my husband comes in because he's got a lot of stick-to-it-iveness. So in those dark moments where I'm like, I am done, I can't do this today, this is not happening, I am, you know, wherever my space head is, it's the, okay, you're having a day.
Jen Porter (53:26)
Yes.
Rory Rubin (53:29)
It's a day, you have, you've got this, you got to stick to it. You've got something, this is an important thing. So my recommendation is just get up every day, one foot forward, one step forward, truly, just keep moving forward. Don't stop. If you believe in it, just keep doing it, little by little. And it's morphed and it will keep morphing until it makes sense.
Jen Porter (53:54)
Yeah,
that's exactly right. So much of what you're saying resonates with me because I've had to learn how to be committed to what I care about. And it came for me, I used to think I needed courage. And then a coach reframed that for me and said, you don't need more courage. You don't need more confidence. You need to decide what you're committed to. And it was like, whoa. And so I realized, I know what I'm committed to.
And so being committed to the mission or the value, whatever it is, helps me press through what is hard and feels impossible. ⁓ Oftentimes when we're trying something new, we feel like children. It's just so awkward. It's so scary and awkward, but that's what keeps me pressing through. Totally, yeah.
Rory Rubin (54:45)
No, what if I fail? Am I gonna fail? Like there are,
I still fail? Absolutely. Like I have to push those behind because I can't live in that space if I'm going to pick myself up in the darkest of spaces. I have to.
Jen Porter (54:55)
Yeah.
The other
thing that stood out is I have a husband who's amazing and he is, sounds similar, similar characteristics in that he is a very resilient, grounded person. And so he can handle my doubt and uncertainty and like freak out moments. And it's, love to hear you say that, that you have those moments, or you had, maybe you still have in certain, at certain days, those
Rory Rubin (55:19)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (55:31)
things where it's like, I don't even know anymore. Like, I don't know that this is gonna, we can't do this. Can we really do this? And to have people in our lives who believe in us, my gosh. And that's what coaching is. That's what I do for other people. I say, I hold belief for you when you can't.
Rory Rubin (55:37)
Mm-hmm.
But you have to have someone to do that for you too.
Jen Porter (55:52)
Yes,
that's exactly right. Because when people, when somebody believes in me, it's like, it's, like fuels me when someone believes in me. And that's, that's been a huge part of my story is that there are people who across my life have believed in me, saw things in me that I definitely did not see in myself yet. But I needed them to call that out, to see it in me, to believe it in me. And then I could, and then I, was like, Oh my gosh, they were right.
Rory Rubin (55:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jen Porter (56:21)
It was there, but we need each other.
Rory Rubin (56:24)
We do, and we need to be able to talk about it. And it might not be one person, it could be 10 people, but to find somebody that's gonna have that voice for you when your voice is very, very quiet in your head.
Jen Porter (56:34)
Yeah, that's right.
That's exactly right. Wow.
Rory Rubin (56:39)
⁓
I had a mentor. She's still, I consider her my mentor. She was my boss and she used to say that little voice inside your head is not your friend. And there are many times she's absolutely right. That little voice, this is too hard. You don't have to do this. This is not, know, she's right. That is not my friend. Instead of saying, you've got this, you keep going. Tomorrow's another day. You know, I don't hear that voice as often as that little screechy voice.
Jen Porter (56:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
I like to ask clients whose voice is that?
Rory Rubin (57:11)
I honestly don't know because it doesn't seem like it's mine, but it is mine.
Jen Porter (57:13)
Exactly, but to differentiate, right? Because there's a lot of voices
that we can hear, but there is a voice inside of us that is ours. That's our intuition. That's our gut. That's the thing that we can trust, but we have to practice trusting that voice.
Rory Rubin (57:23)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
That's great.
Jen Porter (57:36)
There's
a whole like, probably know about this being a social work, but there's like, there's all these things that we can do to interact with our fears and those voices. I don't think we have to like shove them away. I think we can befriend them, but recognize it's not intentionality.
Rory Rubin (57:53)
It's kind of like a movie.
There's that movie where they talk about all of the emotions. Yes. Yeah.
Jen Porter (57:57)
The Inside Out? Yes, Inside Out. Yeah.
Yeah, it's been really helpful for adults to be able to start. And of course, children. That movie was very helpful to understand our emotions.
Rory Rubin (58:09)
Mm-hmm.
I like what you just said though. The voice though, it's finding the real voice and the other stuff is just noise and it's okay. Noise is there and noise can protect us. We need some of that sometimes, but I'd like to find that real voice, the one that I want to trust. Authentic voice.
Jen Porter (58:17)
huh.
All
Yeah, the authentic voice.
I love what you're doing. It's so inspiring. You're going to change the world. just, I mean, you already are. changing the landscape of Chicago. You you're changing the lives for these girls, changing the lives for these women who are starting their business. People that are going to have homes.
Rory Rubin (58:51)
And people can feel free to
reach out to me. I am all about having conversations.
Jen Porter (58:55)
Well that yes,
I think you're unique in that way that you're not you're not just manufacturing these you know it was so I'm gonna share with the audience when we first came on and You know I said what is that noise and you're like oh, that's the that's I mean, that's the plant They're they're like building the things as she so Rory stands up. She's gone like two seconds Shut it down like shut like she shut down that noise so she is the boss there, but
But I love that you're not just doing that, that's so important, but you're also the educator. You're also the one helping people think through how this could be a solution for their communities. And that's just incredible for you to be able to give of your knowledge and insight about what this could be. And so yeah, if people are listening and saying, this might be able to help my community. Like we've been talking about this, we know this is a problem.
I have this vision of what I want to create for this business or for this, you know, I mean, all the, all the ideas, ⁓ you know, reach out to Rory. So I'm going to give the website again. It's sicontainerbuilds.com. Right. Is that the best way to find you and they can just contact you through the website.
Rory Rubin (1:00:01)
Mm-hmm.
They can, there's a form that they can fill out. Most likely I'll see the form. So they can even say that they heard the show and make note of that. regardless, I will definitely email back. I really try to be very good about calling people back and emailing back in a very timely manner. Because I know how that feels when people just want to know that they got heard, even if it's the right fit, it's okay.
Jen Porter (1:00:19)
Okay.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah. Amazing. congratulations on everything that you've done. All these amazing, deeply meaningful ⁓ transformative projects that you've already done. And those that are coming too, I just am cheering you on in every way.
Rory Rubin (1:00:44)
And thank you.
I it. I appreciate you. It's great.
Jen Porter (1:01:00)
All
right, so reach out to Rory. She's made herself available. And if you want to find out more about the Lioness community, you can do that at jenportercoach.com. I offer group coaching and one-on-one coaching. If you have a Lioness that you want to nominate for this podcast, please do that. You can do that through the website as well. It's jenportercoach.com. The other thing I'm going to do a little teaser, I'm going to do some hot seat coaching.
on the podcast. So if you are somebody who wants some coaching and you know maybe you've got an idea, you're on a mission and you want to kind of tease this idea out and you want to do some coaching on the podcast, reach out to me and I look forward to connecting with you. In the meantime, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.
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