In 2006, after getting multiple estimates and realizing how expensive a solar energy installation was going to be, Lisa Max began asking neighbors, her local neighborhood association and, eventually, members of the Federation of San Rafael Neighborhood Associations to join with her to get a better price. “I formed a group, gave it a name and, with two friends, created a Request For Proposal that asked solar vendors to bid on a specific set of criteria—for an unknown number of installations.”
By March of this year, about 150 households had so far installed systems through GoSolarMarin, and between 20 and 40 more were in the queue for installation, she says, “our house among them.” As the economy rebounds, expect that number to grow significantly.
What did you do professionally before you started GoSolarMarin?
I’ve had several careers. My first was as consumer correspondent for Revlon. Next, I was a studio potter, ultimately selling at Bloomingdale’s and Gump’s. But when I realized that, to make a living at it, I needed to become a full-time salesperson and hire someone to actually make my designs, I got a job with Aetna Insurance. I later became a real estate broker specializing in hotel and golf course property.
Lately, “community organizer” best describes what I’ve been doing. In New York, I organized the owners in a 500-unit co-op apartment to vote out an entrenched board and install a more supportive one. I helped organize the legalization, design and renovation of a now-landmarked dog run in San Francisco’s Union Square. I served on the steering committee for the Bellevue 50-Fest—a year-long celebration for the 50th anniversary of incorporation—and also on the citizens’ steering committee that drafted Bellevue’s first comprehensive arts plan. Then we moved here, and I started thinking about solar, as well as other environmental issues.
How did you meet your spouse?
Gary Tobin and I each moved to New York (I from San Francisco and he from Washington, D.C.) on the same weekend in October 1987. We met three months later, when my second cousin told me Gary was a public relations genius who could help me market an invention I’d been working on, and told him I was an heiress and inventor. The three of us had dinner at a very pricey restaurant on New York’s Upper East Side. He and I talked so much, my cousin went off for drinks with three Turkish men at the next table. Gary had to pay with a check, as they took no credit cards. We got married November 14, 1992, in a jazz club owned by a friend of ours. Every year, he pulls out the cancelled check and asks when that inheritance might be coming through.
What do you love to do outside of work?
On Tuesdays, I pick up my granddaughter from kindergarten and take her for “tea” and then to gymnastics class.
Are you a cat person or a dog person?
Gary and I raised seven pups for the Guide Dog Foundation back east, and now I volunteer for both Guide Dogs for the Blind and Marin Humane Society. Two of our dogs, Beau the standard poodle and Fairway the golden retriever have been Certified Therapy Dogs for 10 years. Our newest addition, 1-year-old Frisco, a yellow lab adopted from Guide Dogs, was the youngest dog ever to qualify for a Canine Good Citizen Certificate. All three dogs visit patients at long-term care, hospice and hospitals, as well as children in schools and libraries as part of Share-a-Dog at Marin Humane.
Describe one of your funniest life moments.
There’s always a lot of laughing anytime someone tries on something I’ve knit, as I tend to resist following patterns…with sometimes very bizarre results.
What’s the most interesting thing in your wardrobe?
A fabulous black silk chiffon couture gown that I wore to a New Year’s Eve Ball when I was 21, in an unbelievably small size.
If you could go back in time to any era, what date would you choose?
I used to collect vintage clothes and hats from the late 1930s and early ’40s. I was watching the original, 1939 version of “The Women” and realized I’d collected almost all the hats worn in the movie. I feel an affinity for the way women related around that time, so maybe that year.
What’s one question you’re asking yourself these days?
I’ve always been the kind of person who just does things, even when I’m told, “That’s not the way it works” or “That’s not how things are done.” My reaction is always, “Why not?”
