Wiebke

Wiebke [pronounced 'veep-kah'] grew up in Germany in a family full of artists, teachers, and a few mad scientists. Her childhood was filled with huge family feasts and magical holiday traditions. She came to the States as a high-school exchange student and fell in love with the American optimism, can-do attitudes, and, of course, then there was that handsome prom date. 

Fast forward 25 years and she is now married to that prom date and lives with their two darling daughters in Oakland, California. Wiebke went to business school, became a strategist with McKinsey & Company, built a corporate career and ran sales and marketing at Silicon Valley start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. 

But all throughout, her German roots made her cook from scratch, recycle, compost and apply her grandma’s savvy around the home. She took a lot of that wisdom for granted until she had her girls. It was then that she realized how hard it was to find eco-friendly solutions for the home that also appealed to her design aesthetic.
Who wants to live green if it's not gorgeous?  Believing that making sustainable solutions irresistibly beautiful is the only way to win over more families to live lightly, she started Blisshaus in 2015.
It’s not just green living – it’s gorgeous living. 

As head of creative for Blisshaus, Wiebke now applies her German design sensibility and organization skills to make sustainable living simple and stylish. Marrying elegant product design with great cooking, eco-smart shopping and time-saving cheat sheets she hopes to makes it easy for families to stop wasting so much food (40% of our total production as of 2015) and packaging (123 pounds of waste per week for the average family of 4.) Wiebke's mission is to help families discover how delightful and easy low-impact living can be - without sacrificing style.

In the end, Wiebke believes that we can get to closed-loop systems that produce zero waste. If nature can do it, we can, too.  Watch Wiebke's TedX talk for more on nature's wisdom and what we can learn from 'lowly' organism such as slime mold.  
On a day-to-day basis, Wiebke draws her inspiration from her dear grandma in Germany who ran a household before there were any ziplock bags, plastic containers, or frozen foods. Her grandma hosted fabulous parties and always was ready to treat even surprise guests. She did all this with a discerning artist husband, 5 kids and no dishwashers or laundry machines, but always with loads of style!

Today, Wiebke is constantly testing the Blisshaus system: Stop by her house and at any given evening you're likely to find a couple of friends who've popped in for some appetizers or even a full-on impromptu dinner. If her grandma could pull it off, then we can, too!