John Schaeffer

While attending the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1960s, Schaeffer was inspired by Stewart Brand and his colleagues who published the Whole Earth Catalog, particularly by the cover of the issue that featured a 1968 image of Earth taken from space by Apollo 8 Astronaut William Anders. Schaeffer became one of many young people rejecting the established values of the 1950s in favor of the communal living practices associated with the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The Whole Earth Catalog, which promoted access to tools, became the bible of this movement and the inspiration for Schaeffer's own catalog, the Real Goods catalog, which sold products useful for independent life in the commune. By the 1980s the Real Goods catalog had become the successor to the Whole Earth Catalog.

In 1971, Schaeffer graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and moved north to a 300-acre commune in Mendocino County, California. He embraced the self-reliant lifestyle that included growing his own food and building his own shelter. While he adopted the communal lifestyle, he never accepted that doing so meant he had to sacrifice modern amenities, including watching Saturday Night Live on TV. By hooking up a direct current television to the battery from his VW Bug, he was able to watch his favorite shows. Later, as solar electric panels developed for the space program became available commercially, he used those as the source to charge his storage battery.

Schaeffer started selling solar energy products and earth-friendly tools to his neighbors, and opened the first Real Goods store in Willits, California with a partner in 1978. When the store closed and the partnership dissolved in 1985, Schaeffer, operating out of his garage, continued the business as a mail order catalog.

Schaeffer serves as president of Real Goods. He and his wife, Nancy Hensley, live near the Solar Living Center in a passive solar house that is a showcase of the design practices and products that are now defined as the "real goods." The house is made of Rastra-block (a combination of cement and recycled polystyrene beads) and other recycled materials. It is off-the-grid, powered by solar electricity and hydroelectricity, and incorporates principles of permaculture in its grounds and gardens.

Schaeffer and Hensley are organic gardeners who grow most of their own vegetables.

They also make Demeter-certified biodynamic wine from grapes grown on their property, and grow olives and press their own olive oil.