For most of my life, I didn't realize I was studying frontier sustainment.
I thought I was studying packaging.
Restaurants.
Food trucks.
Construction.
Sustainability.
Human behavior.
Looking back, I now realize these experiences were all exploring the same question:
How do humans sustain life in challenging environments?
This is the story of how those experiences ultimately led to Frontier Sustainment Group.
EVERYTHING I LEARNED ABOUT SPACE CAME FROM EARTH
How a Lifetime of Packaging, Food, Construction, Sustainability, and Human Systems Led to Frontier Sustainment Group
By Eric Faber
Founder, Frontier Sustainment Group
People sometimes ask me how I became interested in frontier habitats, human sustainment systems, and the future of life beyond Earth.
The answer is usually not what they expect.
Most people assume the journey started with aerospace, engineering, or some direct connection to the space industry.
It didn't.
In many ways, my journey began with plastic spoons.
It began with food trucks.
It began with restaurants.
It began with construction sites.
It began with the ocean.
It began with trade shows.
It began with people.
And long before Frontier Sustainment Group existed, it began with curiosity.
Looking back, I realize I have spent most of my life studying systems.
I didn't call them systems at the time.
I was simply fascinated by how things worked.
How products were made.
How food was prepared.
How buildings were built.
How people were served.
How resources moved.
How communities functioned.
How problems were solved.
And perhaps most importantly, what happened when those systems failed.
At the time those interests seemed unrelated.
Today I understand they were all connected.
They were all different pieces of the same puzzle.
How do human beings sustain life?
A Childhood Fascination With Space
Like many children of my generation, I grew up fascinated by the Apollo program.
My parents owned records and books documenting America's journey to the Moon.
I listened to those recordings repeatedly and absorbed every detail I could.
I remember sitting in front of the television watching Walter Cronkite explain the Apollo missions and the significance of what humanity was attempting to accomplish.
The idea that people could leave Earth and travel somewhere entirely new captured my imagination.
That fascination never left me.
Throughout my life I followed the space program closely. I watched launches whenever I could.
I followed the triumphs, setbacks, and evolution of space exploration.
When private companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin emerged and began pursuing ambitious visions for humanity's future in space, I found myself just as captivated as I had been decades earlier.
What I didn't realize as a child was that while I was fascinated by rockets, I was simultaneously receiving an education that would ultimately shape how I think about life beyond Earth.
I was learning about sustainment.
Growing Up In The Disposable Industry
My stepfather, Paul, was one of the pioneers of the disposable foodservice industry.
Beginning in the 1950s, he manufactured some of the first plastic spoons, forks, knives, straws, and related products used by the rapidly growing foodservice industry.
He developed the spork, combining a spoon and a fork into a single utensil.
Over time, his companies became major suppliers throughout the United States, including supplying some of the earliest McDonald's operations.
Eventually, the businesses grew into some of the largest foodservice disposable manufacturers in the world and were ultimately acquired by Coca-Cola.
As a child, I grew up surrounded by manufacturing.
Factories.
Warehouses.
Distribution centers.
Packaging operations.
Production lines.
Truck loading docks.
Inventory systems.
Most children saw a plastic fork.
I wanted to understand how it got there.
Who designed it?
How was it manufactured?
How was it packaged?
How was it distributed?
How did millions of products move through factories, warehouses, trucks, and distribution systems before arriving in someone's hand?
Without realizing it, I was learning logistics, manufacturing systems, inventory management, distribution, and supply chains.
I was learning how modern life works.
One of my earliest memories involved the spork.
At the time it was simply an innovative product.
Years later I realized it represented something much larger.
One product replacing two.
Less material.
Less manufacturing.
Less transportation.
Less waste.
The same function accomplished with fewer resources.
It was one of the first examples I encountered of intelligent design creating efficiency.
That lesson would stay with me for the rest of my life.
The World's Largest Classroom
Before the internet, industries learned from one another differently.
They met face-to-face.
Trade shows were where people exchanged ideas, introduced innovations, and discovered new technologies.
Because of our businesses, I spent much of my youth attending foodservice, manufacturing, packaging, and industrial trade shows throughout the United States and around the world.
While my stepfather worked the booth and met with customers and suppliers, I wandered.
For hours.
Sometimes entire days.
I explored everything.
Restaurant equipment.
Packaging technologies.
Manufacturing machinery.
Foodservice innovations.
Distribution systems.
Marketing firms.
Design companies.
Insurance providers.
Consultants.
Supply chain specialists.
I was fascinated by how everything connected.
Looking back, those convention halls may have been one of the most important classrooms of my life.
I wasn't learning individual products.
I was learning ecosystems.
I was learning how industries function.
I was learning how systems support other systems.
I was learning how one decision affects another.
Many of the ideas that eventually shaped Frontier Sustainment Group can be traced back to those trade show floors.
Learning About Food
Food entered my life through a very personal experience.
Before I was born, my mother was involved in a serious automobile accident.
As a result of her injuries, she lost her sense of taste and smell.
Watching how she experienced food taught me something many people overlook.
Food is not simply flavor.
Food is texture.
Food is temperature.
Food is appearance.
Food is consistency.
Food is experience.
That observation sparked a fascination with food, cooking, restaurants, and hospitality that would eventually become a major part of my life.
Food nourishes people physically.
But it also affects morale.
Comfort.
Community.
Identity.
Culture.
Human connection.
Those lessons would later influence how I thought about restaurants, delivery systems, food trucks, and eventually life inside isolated frontier environments.
Because feeding people has never been only about calories.
It has always been about sustaining human beings.
Watching How People Are Fed
As I got older, I found myself increasingly fascinated by food systems.
Not just food itself.
The systems behind it.
My father was a professor at UCLA and my stepfather was deeply involved with the university.
I spent countless hours on campus attending football games, basketball games, track meets, and other events.
Most people watched the games.
I often found myself watching everything else.
I watched concession operations.
I watched food preparation.
I watched how vendors moved through the aisles.
I watched how thousands of people could be served in a relatively short period of time.
I watched what worked.
I watched what didn't.
Even as a young boy, I became fascinated with efficiency.
Why were some lines organized while others became chaotic?
Why were some customers happy and others frustrated?
How could the same event produce completely different experiences depending on how the operation was designed?
Later, when I attended The Cate School, I found another opportunity to observe.
The school had to feed hundreds of students every day.
I worked in the cafeteria and watched the operation from the inside.
Inventory.
Preparation.
Serving lines.
Storage.
Cleanup.
Waste.
Labor.
Workflow.
At the time it simply felt like part of school life.
Looking back, I was learning how sustainment systems function.
How do you reliably feed hundreds of people every day?
It's a question that sounds simple until you actually have to do it.
The Food Trucks That Started It All
My interest in food trucks began long before food trucks became fashionable.
Throughout my father's manufacturing facilities and distribution centers, food trucks regularly arrived to feed workers.
I spent weekends, holidays, and summers around those operations.
Over time I became fascinated with the trucks.
Eventually I worked on some of them myself.
At the time it was simply a job.
Today I see those food trucks very differently.
They were mobile sustainment systems.
Limited space.
Limited water.
Limited power.
Limited storage.
Limited labor.
Limited waste capacity.
Every square inch mattered.
Every process mattered.
Every resource mattered.
The more I study frontier habitats today, the more similarities I see.
Different environment.
Same challenge.
How do you efficiently sustain human beings when resources are limited?
Years later, that fascination led to the creation of U.S. Food Truck Consultants.
What began as curiosity evolved into a national consulting practice helping entrepreneurs, operators, municipalities, and organizations understand mobile food systems.
At its core, the work was never simply about food trucks.
It was about understanding how people create reliable foodservice operations within highly constrained environments.
Looking back, many of the lessons learned through food trucks mirror the challenges future frontier habitats will face.
Limited resources.
Limited space.
Limited infrastructure.
High expectations.
And very little room for failure.
Building Companies Around Systems
Over time my interests evolved into businesses.
Not because I was chasing industries.
Because I was following questions.
Each company I founded represented another attempt to better understand a particular system that fascinated me.
Packaging Resources grew from a lifetime spent studying packaging, manufacturing, materials, logistics, and resource movement.
U.S. Restaurant Consultants emerged from my fascination with foodservice operations, hospitality systems, customer experience, food packaging, workflow design, and the complex ecosystems required to successfully feed people every day.
U.S. Food Truck Consultants expanded that work into mobile environments where operators must deliver the same results with far fewer resources.
As delivery transformed the restaurant industry, U.S. Delivery Consultants was created to focus on transportation systems, logistics, packaging performance, operational workflows, and last-mile delivery.
Although the industries were different, the underlying curiosity remained remarkably consistent.
I wasn't studying businesses.
I was studying human systems.
Delivery Changes Everything
As foodservice evolved, delivery became increasingly important.
Once again, I found myself fascinated by systems.
How do we package food for transport?
How do we preserve quality?
How do we maintain consistency?
How do we reduce waste?
How do we move products efficiently?
I spent years studying packaging for delivery, transportation systems, operational workflows, and resource movement.
The lessons were profound.
Every delivery system depends on reliability.
Every supply chain depends on predictability.
Every customer depends on someone else doing their job correctly.
As delivery became increasingly important within the restaurant industry, I realized delivery itself had become a specialized discipline.
Packaging.
Transportation.
Technology.
Routing.
Food quality.
Customer expectations.
Operational efficiency.
Every one of these systems had to function together successfully.
That realization eventually led to the creation of U.S. Delivery Consultants.
Once again, I found myself studying the movement of resources, the interaction of systems, and the importance of reliability.
The more I learned, the more I realized that logistics often determines success or failure.
Whether moving meals across a city, products across a country, or supplies across a frontier, the underlying challenge remains remarkably similar.
Getting the right resource to the right place at the right time.
Whether supporting a restaurant, a remote construction project, a research station, a lunar habitat, or eventually a Martian settlement, logistics determines survivability.
Resources must arrive.
Systems must function.
Failure is not optional.
Seeing The World
One of the greatest gifts my stepfather gave me was exposure to the world.
As his businesses expanded internationally, our family traveled extensively.
Those experiences exposed me to different cultures, different communities, different ways of living, and different approaches to solving problems.
I observed how people prepared food.
How they lived.
How they built communities.
How they adapted to their environments.
How resources were shared.
How businesses operated.
How different societies approached many of the same challenges.
Travel taught me something important.
Human beings are remarkably adaptable.
The details change.
The languages change.
The customs change.
The technologies change.
But the fundamental needs remain remarkably consistent.
Food.
Water.
Shelter.
Purpose.
Community.
Opportunity.
No matter where I traveled, those themes remained constant.
Today, when I think about future habitats beyond Earth, I often find myself reflecting on those experiences.
Because ultimately, whether we are talking about a village, a city, a research station, or a habitat on another world, the challenge remains surprisingly similar.
How do we create environments where people can thrive?
Construction, The Ocean, And Human Habitats
My fascination with construction began long before I became a contractor.
As a middle school student, I watched my parents build a spectacular home perched on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The engineering fascinated me.
Caissons.
Retaining walls.
Slope stabilization.
Drainage systems.
I became fascinated by the technologies that allowed people to safely occupy difficult environments.
Then reality intervened.
Several years later portions of the surrounding area began experiencing landslide activity.
Engineers became involved.
Geologists became involved.
Attorneys became involved.
Suddenly I was exposed to questions most kids never think about.
Why do systems fail?
Why do slopes move?
Why do structures crack?
How do engineers solve these problems?
That experience stayed with me.
Years later it would influence both my construction career and my later interest in construction forensics.
It was one of the first times I realized that building something is only part of the challenge.
Understanding how to keep it functioning may be even more important.
Eventually I became a licensed general contractor and participated in the construction, renovation, and remodeling of numerous homes and projects.
Construction fascinated me for many of the same reasons packaging fascinated me.
Both involve creating environments that protect something valuable.
Both involve understanding how systems interact.
Both involve balancing functionality, efficiency, maintainability, and human needs.
Without realizing it, I was continuing to study sustainment.
Everything Is Packaging
Over time, another realization began to emerge.
At first it seemed unusual.
Today it may be one of the central ideas that shapes how I think about almost everything.
Everything is packaging.
Most people think packaging is a box, a container, a bag, or a protective material surrounding a product.
I see something much larger.
Packaging is the science of containment.
It is the process of creating an environment that protects something valuable while allowing it to function successfully.
A package protects food.
A package protects medical supplies.
A package protects industrial products.
But a home also protects something valuable.
A restaurant protects an operation.
A factory protects production.
A warehouse protects inventory.
A hospital protects patients.
A spacecraft protects astronauts.
A habitat protects human life.
The scale changes.
The principles remain remarkably similar.
As my wife built her career as an interior designer and I became increasingly involved in construction and design, I began recognizing how closely these disciplines were connected.
Efficient use of space.
Flow.
Functionality.
Protection.
Maintainability.
Human interaction.
Adaptability.
The same principles that make great packaging often make great buildings.
In many ways, buildings are simply larger packages.
A building packages human activity.
A home packages family life.
A restaurant packages hospitality.
A habitat packages survival.
When viewed through that lens, frontier habitation becomes easier to understand.
The challenge is not simply building structures.
The challenge is designing the ultimate package.
A package capable of sustaining human life in environments where failure is not an option.
That realization sits at the very heart of Frontier Sustainment Group.
From Disposables To Sustainability
One of the great ironies of my life is that I grew up in a family that helped build the disposable economy.
The products we manufactured transformed foodservice.
Disposable utensils.
Disposable packaging.
Disposable materials.
These products solved real problems.
They improved sanitation.
Reduced labor.
Increased convenience.
Supported modern foodservice systems.
But over time another reality became impossible to ignore.
They also created waste.
A tremendous amount of waste.
As I grew older, I began to realize that every solution creates consequences.
The challenge is not simply solving today's problem.
The challenge is understanding the problems your solution may create tomorrow.
That realization led me deeper into sustainability.
Recyclable materials.
Reusable systems.
Waste reduction.
Resource recovery.
Biodegradable technologies.
Circular economies.
The questions that interested me were no longer limited to how products were manufactured.
I became equally interested in what happened after they were used.
Where did the materials go?
Could they be recovered?
Could they be reused?
Could waste itself become a resource?
Perhaps this was my attempt to reconcile two realities.
I had grown up helping build an industry that changed the world.
But I also recognized that the world needed better solutions for managing the consequences.
That journey continues today.
And nowhere are those questions more important than frontier habitats.
Every pound launched into space has value.
Every material matters.
Every waste stream matters.
The future of frontier sustainment may depend on our ability to create systems where almost nothing is discarded and nearly everything is reused.
In many ways, the sustainability challenges we face on Earth are preparing us for the sustainability challenges we will face beyond Earth.
The Ocean Taught Me Stewardship
Growing up in Southern California, the ocean was a constant presence in my life.
Both of my parents lived on the water.
I spent countless hours near the Pacific Ocean and developed a deep appreciation for its beauty, power, and fragility.
Later, while living in Santa Monica, I became involved with the Santa Monica Pier and served as a commissioner helping oversee one of Southern California's most iconic landmarks.
During that period I became increasingly aware of environmental challenges affecting our coastal waters.
At one point, portions of Santa Monica Bay were considered among the most polluted coastal waters in the United States.
That reality troubled me.
It led me to become involved with Heal the Bay and other efforts focused on understanding water quality, environmental stewardship, and long-term sustainability.
What fascinated me was not simply the environmental science.
It was the systems thinking behind it.
How do cities manage waste?
How do stormwater systems affect oceans?
How do human activities impact ecosystems?
How do we create systems that are both productive and sustainable?
These questions are not very different from the questions frontier habitats will eventually face.
Water management.
Waste management.
Resource recovery.
Environmental protection.
Closed-loop systems.
The scale may be different.
The principles remain remarkably similar.
Learning To Help Others
If my professional life taught me about systems, the people around me taught me why those systems matter.
My father spent his life helping people.
As a psychologist, educator, and author, he was dedicated to understanding human behavior and helping others improve their lives.
My stepfather approached life differently but arrived at a similar destination.
He believed deeply in giving back.
Through his work with UCLA and numerous philanthropic efforts, he created opportunities for countless individuals.
Scholarships.
Housing.
Athletic opportunities.
Educational support.
Community involvement.
What impressed me most was not their success.
It was their commitment to helping others.
I watched Paul help people without seeking recognition.
I watched him create opportunities for others simply because he believed it was the right thing to do.
He understood that success creates responsibility.
If you have been fortunate in life, you should help others become fortunate as well.
Those lessons became deeply embedded in my own thinking.
Throughout my life I have been involved in nonprofit organizations, community efforts, humanitarian projects, and causes that sought to improve the lives of others.
In 2010 I was honored to receive the National Humanitarian Award in Washington, D.C.
While I am proud of that recognition, what matters more is the lesson behind it.
People matter.
Communities matter.
Human beings matter.
Technology matters only to the extent that it improves lives.
Infrastructure matters only to the extent that it serves people.
Systems matter only to the extent that they help human beings thrive.
That lesson would eventually become one of the foundational principles of Frontier Sustainment Group.
Understanding Failure
Several years ago, my interests evolved into construction forensics.
Rather than focusing exclusively on how systems are built, I became increasingly interested in understanding why they fail.
Why do foundations move?
Why do buildings leak?
Why do retaining walls fail?
Why do infrastructure systems break down?
Why do projects experience recurring problems?
My growing fascination with understanding why systems fail eventually led to the creation of The Construction Forensics Group.
Through investigations involving homes, commercial buildings, infrastructure systems, water intrusion, structural failures, construction defects, and building performance issues,
I found myself repeatedly asking the same questions.
Why did this fail?
What was overlooked?
What warning signs were missed?
How did a small problem become a major one?
The deeper I investigated, the more I realized that failures are rarely isolated events.
Most failures are systemic.
They involve interconnected decisions, flawed assumptions, deferred maintenance, communication breakdowns, resource limitations, or unintended consequences.
Those lessons extend far beyond construction.
They apply to restaurants.
They apply to supply chains.
They apply to communities.
And they apply to frontier habitats.
Understanding failure may be just as important as creating innovation.
The future belongs not only to those who build systems, but also to those who understand how to keep them functioning under stress.
The Realization
At some point I began to recognize a pattern.
Packaging.
Food.
Restaurants.
Food trucks.
Delivery.
Construction.
Sustainability.
Water systems.
Humanitarian work.
Forensics.
These were not separate interests.
They were all exploring the same question.
How do humans sustain life?
How do we feed people?
How do we shelter people?
How do we manage resources?
How do we reduce waste?
How do we build resilient systems?
How do we support human performance?
How do we create environments where people thrive?
For decades I had been studying different pieces of the same puzzle.
I simply hadn't realized it.
The packaging industry taught me about resources.
Restaurants taught me about operations.
Food trucks taught me about constrained environments.
Delivery taught me about logistics.
Construction taught me about habitats.
Sustainability taught me about stewardship.
Forensics taught me about failure.
Humanitarian work taught me about purpose.
And space gave all of those lessons a destination.
Why Frontier Sustainment Group Exists
Many people focus on how humanity will reach the frontier.
I am fascinated by what happens after we arrive.
How will people eat?
How will water be managed?
How will resources be stored and distributed?
How will waste be recovered and reused?
How will habitats be maintained?
How will communities function?
How will people remain healthy, productive, and connected?
These are not aerospace questions.
They are human questions.
And they are questions I have been exploring, often without realizing it, for most of my life.
Looking back, Frontier Sustainment Group feels less like a new venture and more like the natural convergence of everything that came before it.
The packaging industry.
Packaging Resources.
U.S. Restaurant Consultants.
U.S. Food Truck Consultants.
U.S. Delivery Consultants.
The Construction Forensics Group.
Environmental stewardship.
Humanitarian work.
Failure analysis.
Systems thinking.
All roads led here.
People often ask how I became interested in frontier sustainment.
The truth is I didn't arrive here through rockets.
I arrived here through people.
Through food.
Through packaging.
Through buildings.
Through logistics.
Through communities.
Through a lifelong fascination with how human beings survive and thrive in challenging environments.
The frontier may change.
The technology may change.
The destination may change.
But the challenge remains remarkably constant.
How do we build systems that allow human beings not merely to survive, but to flourish?
Everything I know about that challenge, I first learned right here on Earth.