Lightning in a Bottle

Inspired by a passion for sustainability and collaboration with several George Fox alumni, Keenan O’Hern is working to revolutionize the reusable glass bottle industry By Jaime Handley

Growing up in Sisters, Oregon, Keenan O’Hern’s philosophy of sustainability was shaped as much by place as by people.

At 13, he met the renowned zoologist Jane Goodall, and his high school created multidisciplinary opportunities to study the outdoors.

“We’d learn how to repair a riparian zone along the river and then write a song about it, perform it for the Deschutes Watershed Council, and even record it,” he recalls. “I developed a robust appreciation and respect for nature there, taking personal ownership of the Leave No Trace principles.”

But as O’Hern grew up, he realized that the burden of stewardship was on the shoulders of his generation.

“You have this expectation as a kid that there will always be somebody to step in and steward those spaces,” he says. “As you get older, you realize you have to jump in. You are it!”

Planting a Seed

As a Ford Family Foundation Scholarship recipient, O’Hern chose to attend George Fox to study marketing, completing his bachelor’s degree in 2018. “I had planned to travel around Italy and work on organic farms. And then I ended up getting the scholarship,” he says. “I was looking for a tight-knit community similar to where I’d come from. That whole Be Known promise of George Fox was appealing to me.”

During his time as an undergrad, O’Hern had the opportunity to study abroad in Rome, which planted the seed for what would eventually become his company name, Revino.

“It all stemmed from being exposed to vino sfuso and the fiasco bottles in Italy,” he says. “I saw how reuse was in step with their wine-rich history and felt the combination of the Re (meaning “again” in Latin, and also a nod to the 3R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle) with Vino was a perfect marrying of two inspiring concepts. It also just sounded good!”

O’Hern and business partner Adam Rack stand atop a custom bottle washing machine in their Southeast Portland warehouse.

O’Hern began further exploring the glass bottle reuse industry while pursuing his MBA at George Fox, which he completed in 2022. Realizing that the U.S. is far behind the global reuse curve, he looked at other markets, like his mother’s native Netherlands, to see how glass reuse could be improved.

He saw an opportunity in his own backyard to create a reuse ecosystem that could serve local farms and businesses and make a marked environmental impact.

“The largest component of a winery’s carbon emissions comes from the packaging and transport of glass bottles,” O’Hern says. “There was no working solution.”

With the input of another George Fox alumnus, Austin Ziegler (B18), a vision for Revino was born. O’Hern then brought in George Fox alumni Sarah Reid (B08), McKenzie Young (B19) and Kayin Griffith (B08, M19) to help shape Revino’s digital marketing communication strategy.

Adam Rack of Cooper’s Hall Winery joined O’Hern in 2022 to bring his expertise and begin building the company.

O’Hern and Rack then hired Callie Edwards, an industry expert with the Oregon Beverage Recycling Collective, who was arguably the only person in the U.S. with experience running a reuse ecosystem.

With their team in place, Revino was ripe for success.

Gap Turned to Gain

As he researched, O’Hern saw that the rise of single-use packaging replaced the once-thriving U.S. glass reuse infrastructure of the mid-20th century. Where others might see a gap, he saw an opportunity.

“It’s quite astonishing when you think about it. Glass is the only material that’s infinitely reusable. It’s a material you can break down – it’s super easy to crush and make right back into glass,” he says.

“It’s quite astonishing when you think about it. Glass is the only material that’s infinitely reusable. It’s a material you can break down – it’s super easy to crush and make right back into glass,” he says.

With 10 million glass bottles going into landfills daily in the U.S., Revino sought to engineer a solution. Enter the Revino reusable bottle. This unique, standardized bottle provided not only a solution for local wineries to save on cost but also found an avenue to extend the life cycle of their packaging, keeping some of those landfill bottles circulating.

As O’Hern moved from ideation to execution, he found support in George Fox’s MBA program. “At every step of the way, I had three incredible cohort members review my business plan,” he says. “I would go to my professors and ask very specific questions. It was like an active case study.”

The support O’Hern received from his George Fox professors and classmates brought clarity and vision.

“Their openness to my ‘What if?’ and ‘Why can’t we?’ questions was instrumental in developing my entrepreneurial mindset,” he says. “Notably, Debby Thomas, dean of the College of Business, has been an incredible supporter, providing guidance and encouragement that have been vital to my journey.”

And that collaborative spirit has extended into each growth phase of the Revino brand. Case in point: O’Hern brought 75 wineries from across Oregon to the table to help develop the Revino reusable bottle.

An Ethos of Partnership

What started as a local model has expanded beyond this Oregon native’s backyard.

“From the get-go, we were getting requests from people on the Eastern Seaboard – New York, Finger Lakes, Maine – saying, ‘We want these systems here,’” O’Hern says.

As O’Hern and his team look to expand, they are solving an old problem – the limitations of the current glass sorting and washing system – with a ground-breaking solution. “We’re building the first industrialized commercial-scale glass bottle washing facility in the United States, opening new revenue streams and laying the foundation for a large-scale bottle washing system,” he says.

Revino has the ability to wash and reuse its specialized bottles along with any other glass bottle on the market. But the company is about so much more than reusable wine bottles – it’s about creating a lasting impact for the next generation.

“As I’ve become a father and thought about what I want to leave to my son, I’ve become even more engaged in creating solutions,” O’Hern says.

And these solutions center on collaboration. O’Hern and his Revino partners have a heart for collaboration and community care. “Partnership” is a high-use word in their vocabulary.

“Partnership with the communities we support is everything,” he says. “We couldn’t have done this without people who came to the table, took an hour for coffee, or even our spouses and partners who walked with us through this process.”

And O’Hern loves to pour into the communities that have poured into him, whether leading trips for his former high school in Sisters or mentoring George Fox students alongside his wife, Stacy, through the university’s Ignite program.

“I’m a firm believer in paying it forward,” he says. “I also believe that not every situation in business has to be two-sided. At Revino, we love helping people, even if we don’t get something in return. Authenticity and integrity have paid off for us in droves.”

Environment, Community and People

As Revino looks toward the future, the company continues to lean into its superpower of collaboration, partnering with Recyclops, a national organization seeking to widen access to convenient recycling.

“We’re planning our expansion across the Western coastline right now, with Washington wineries onboarding in the next two months, as well as expanded locations for drop-off of Revino bottles,” he says.

We want to be able to step into a community and be partners, not takers,”

The company is also pursuing advocacy and policy work to influence the legislative landscape in Oregon and across the U.S.

What they’ve built in Revino is unique – a thriving business that centers on the formation of hope through sustainability.

“This is rooted in faith. We want to be able to step into a community and be partners, not takers,” O’Hern says. “Ultimately, the impact we want to make is tied to more than dollars; it’s directly tied to the environment, the community and the people. That’s our bottom line.”