Rowena Finegan

Perched on a sofa in her airy, colorful showroom, Rowena Finegan, BBEC, declares: "Our mission has always been to provide a next wave of green furniture and design, one that combines social responsibility and healthy habits with color and texture and, well, fun."

The idea for this particular combination hatched years ago as Ms. Finegan visited various countries all over the globe, where she developed her design sense, which is especially influenced by African and European pattern and style. Emigrating from Brighton, England when she was in her early thirties, she started her business life in Jackson Hole, Wyoming by building her own work room in the resort town. She built a tiny shop handling ski clothing alterations into a very successful interior design concern that handled high end clients and hotels in the area.

Though successful, she was not satisfied with the essence of her work, and eventually she sold her business and enrolled with the Institute for Bau Biologie and Ecology, which promotes the use of healthy building principles in homes and also teaches its students how to identify elements in the home that might be dangerous, such as mold and volatile organic compounds released from such materials as carpet and plastics. Ms. Finegan earned a certification as a Building Biology Environmental Consultant (BBEC) and currently uses the principles of Bau-biology in her work as Owner and Interior Designer in her boutique studio, Eco-Terric, in Sausalito, CA.

Rowena has been specializing in Healthy Home Interior Design for the past ten years. In 2004, Ms. Finegan collaborated with Cisco Pinedo, owner of Cisco Brothers, a furniture manufacturing company in Los Angeles, to create a sustainable, fully upholstered furniture line, utilizing natural, non-toxic and sustainable materials. The furniture line, using only Cisco's Inside Green Technology, is sold, along with many other healthy home furnishings at Eco-Terric.