12 FLOURISH • SPRING 2014
Here Comes The Sun
Meet Marin's solar energy ambassador
by penny popken
photos by stuart lirette
Bob Herbst on the roof of a hangar at the San Rafael Airport.
Y
ou can take the boy out of the woods of northern Wis-
consin, but you can't ever really take the woods out of
the boy.
The "boy" in question would be Bob Herbst, a Ross
resident and principal in San Rafael-based JHS Properties. Grow-
ing up on a 40-acre farm outside a small town in rural Wisconsin,
Herbst spent his childhood romping in the woods with his siblings
and canoeing, camping and hiking with the Boy Scouts.
"That's where my environmental sensibilities come from," says
Herbst. "The Scouts have a strong ethos of coexisting with the
land, living in harmony with nature. That was all part of my up-
bringing and my life. I'm not a city guy."
Nevertheless, Herbst left the wilds of Wisconsin for the East
Coast to attend Harvard University, where he pole vaulted and
studied economics. Degree in hand in 1989, he came to California,
attending business school at U.C. Berkeley with a focus on real
estate.
"What drew me to California was the good weather," he ex-
plains. "Sally brought me to Marin."
That would be Sally Shekou, a local real estate attorney and his
