GO Getter: Justin Hough

C-Street's Innoviro is a local leader in green construction and production. Meet its mastermind.

Justin Hough owns Innoviro, a design and manufacturing firm on Commercial Street that is dipping its hand into many aspects of the rapidly growing “green” construction movement. Hough, who opened Innoviro last year, is invested in the Earth-friendly craze, but keeps his customers in mind, as well: He wants to get beyond the green fad and have responsible designs that high-end buyers will want. We sat down with Justin, 30, in his C-Street storefront (311 W. Commercial St., 417-866-5920) to talk about eco-friendly wood and stuff.

You graduated from Drury in 2002, but didn’t open Innoviro until 2007. What happened to make you want to do this?
I got married for one thing, but before that ... I did a huge big tour in Costa Rica on my mountain bike, so I was sort of living this post-grad lifestyle where I wasn’t going to work at an architecture firm. I wanted to do something a little more unique and creative. When I got married, I started looking at jobs at firms, but I knew deep down it wasn’t what I wanted to do. So in 2004 my wife and I started looking for an opportunity for me to launch a design/build company.

What’s the most cutting-edge green item you’re selling right now?
We’ve got Paperstone, which we’re staring to see a lot more of right now. It’s a countertop-type of material made out of 50 or 100 percent recycled paper. They’re experimenting with it as a tile or flooring material, and Starbucks is using it as an exterior rainscreen in the Pacific Northwest.

What do you sell the most of?
We do a lot of wood flooring—we’re actually a little overweighted on wood flooring. The concept has gotten away from us a little; instead of huge displays from the manufacturers, we’d rather have a boutique deal where we have items from those companies in some sort of showroom.

How has the concept for the store evolved?
Ideally, the concept toward design/build is still there, but as I was researching, I knew I wanted to launch more of a toothy business that would have more of a regular [business base]. I saw a lot of these products that nobody was offering in our area.

What is the bulk of your business at this point?
Mostly things like wood flooring materials, recycled rubber… something in the flooring area. Also, right now we are building fixtures that will be used at the new Dynamic Earth. It’s the ultimate parlay for the two companies [Innoviro and Outre, the fabrication arm of Hough’s business]… This is really my cup of tea.

What’s down the pike?
The next big thing is a solar job. We’re doing a 4.5 kilowatt solar power system for a resident on the east side of town. It’s basically a shot in the dark to some degree as to how much power it’ll produce—this is new construction and it’s a monster house, but they wanted to do something responsible.

Are you getting people you wouldn’t expect coming in and saying “I want an eco-friendly floor!”
There’s a ton of buzz within the industry right now. We try to filter through that. We didn’t develop the retail store because there was a green movement. We developed it because we think the materials are either a really high quality... We want to be green, but we also want to have a really nice design edge.