Permaculture Design:
Toby Hemenway. Toby Hemenway is a professionally trained scientist, but he prefers spending time in his ever-evolving garden in Oregon. He is an associate editor of The Permaculture Activist, North America's leading journal of ecological design, and author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture. He teaches and consults throughout North America.
Jude Hobbs. Jude is a horticulturalist, Permaculture designer and instructor. Since 1982, Jude's landscape design business has provided environmental design solutions for urban and rural settings specializing in soil building, water harvesting and selecting the right plant for the right place. Jude has presented workshops and courses throughout the West for 15 years and wrote A Guide to Multi-Functional Hedgerows.
Jordan Fink. Jordan's work centers on the interrelationship between landscape and culture and includes ethnography, construction and sense of place, special/ethical patterning and initiation, perennial polyculture food systems, and Cascadian botany, ecology and plant physiology, and a Permaculture Design Certificate.
Renewable Energy:
Doug Boleyn. Doug has been active in solar energy in Oregon since 1974, when he built his solar heated gome in Gladstone, near Portland. Doug was employed for 22 years for a utility as solar/renewable energy consultant and also developed conservation marketing programs. He currently owns Cascade Solar Consulting, LLC, performing a wide range of renewable energy consulting, engineering, design and project management. Doug is currently president of the of the Solar Energy Association of Oregon, a member of the American Solar Energy Society and registered professional engineer in Oregon. He also serves as a member of the Renewable Advisory Committee for the Energy Trust of Oregon and is an energy consultant to Oregon Interfaith Power and Light, a program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.
Plant Propagation and Use:
Bonsai Matt James. Bonsai Matt has been a bonsai practitioner since 1984, after being inspired by 'The Karate Kid.' He had a small bonsai nursery by age 15, began teaching at 16, and has owned and operated a nursery and landscape business since 1999. Now, as a certified permaculture designer, nursery owner and successful professional artist, Bonsasi offers both individual and group workshops to all ages in the fields of: native and exotic bonsai cultivation, permaculture design and practice, landscaping & gardening with natives and exotics, stone masonry & sculpture, tincture & salve preparation from wild crafted herbs, natural building, earthen oven construction and baking, and photography.
Market Gardening:
Mark Bassik. Mark is a farmer with eight years of experience growing for farmers markets; he farmed in the Willamette Valley for two years, and Southern Oregon for six. He is currently the owner/operator of Rock Creek Farm in Williams, Oregon.
Biodynamics:
Don Tipping. Don runs a certified biodynamic farm located in Southern Oregon that produces seeds, fruits, vegetables, eggs, wool, meat, a myriad of secondary forest products, and information. Seven Seeds Farm has been developed as a model permaculture site laid out with Permaculture principles.
Wilderness Skills:
Al Thieme. Founder and previous Executive Director of Cascadia Wild!, Al has 8 years of experience teaching wilderness skills, naturalist training, animal tracking, wild edibles/medicinal herbs, as well as over 15 years of rock climbing, backpacking, hiking, canoeing, and kayaking experience. Al has Wilderness First Responder Medical Training and Swift Water Rescue Certification. He also has received numerous hours of training and coursework from Tom Brown's Wilderness Survival School and Wilderness Awareness School, including but not limited to, the 12 month Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and the Shikari Tracking Program, the Art of Mentoring, and the Mystery of Animal Tracking Series. Additionally, Al has worked with environmental advocacy and education non-profits for the past 10 years, including outreach coordinator/grant writer for Adventures Without Limits, and a term on the Board of Directors for Oregon Natural Resources Council, and a term on the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club Executive Committee.
Felting & Dyeing:
Samantha Backer. As a child, when adults asked Samantha what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said that she wanted to be "the person who names the colors." As an adult, she has fulfilled this dream, co-owning a clothing company that focuses on natural dyes and fibers. Artistically, Samantha is fascinated by the many ways to create beauty with fiber-sewing, dyeing, knitting and felting are her favorite activities.
Natural Building:
Arjon Nance. Arjon has been building with natural materials for the past six years. His major projects include a 1000 sq. ft cob and bamboo home, a garden palace, gazebo, and a cob sauna. He recently completed a serpentine earthbag garden wall which is featured in his documentary "The Sculpted Earth."
Joshua Klyber. Joshua is a natural builder who is dedicated to bringing Earth construction to the urban environment. When he is not plastering, he is focused on expanding the city's building code and getting natural materials more widely available to the public.
Nature Writing:
Michael Oliver. Michael is finishing his Master of Arts in Writing (nonfiction) from Portland State University. He has more than 10 years of experience as a writer and editor; and has taught writing (including a nature-based writing course) and outdoor education at the college level for the past four years.
Environmental Education:
Tania Parks. Tania worked as an environmental educator at Moran Outdoor School on Orcas Island for the past 5 years. She has worked with all ages from 1st grade up to senior citizens as a hiking guide, naturalist and educator. She also worked at Gnat's Nature Hikes as a naturalist, and for Rainshadow Solar for 3 years where she learned about renewable technologies and was able to connect extensively with the solar community.
Roots of Awareness in our own Backyards:
Jen Seamans Blatner. Jen has worked or volunteered at Tryon Creek since 2000. Currently she is finishing a masters degree at Portland State, a permaculture design course in NE Portland, and with partner Neil, designed & is helping build a "green" home remodel. She previously lived in an intentional community/farm in the eastern Siskiyous, and did salmon habitat restoration and environmental education in AmeriCorps at Mt. Adams. In the past, Jen also led retreats and workshops on nonviolence.
Environmental Monitoring and Design:
Jennifer Rasor. Jennifer has been involved in the sustainability movement for many years and have a wide range of experience teaching classes related to practical hands-on approaches to reducing human impact on the planet, including riparian restoration, urban street tree inventory, oral history projects, organic gardening, biological monitoring, designing and building greenroofs, creating video documentaries, found-items sculpture, bioswale design and monitoring.
Listening to the Land; Listening to your Soul: a primer on dowsing the inner landscape:
Elizabeth Fox. Beth facilitates workshops by drawing upon the skills and experience of the group in developing an intimate understanding of the subject. She has been dowsing for 3 years, is a member of the American Society of Dowsers and has attended several intensive conferences on the subject. She is currently studying Permaculture.
Critical Thinking:
Peter Boghossian. Dr. Peter Boghossian is a philosophy professor (Loyola University, University of Portland) and currently teaches moral reasoning to inmates in the State of Oregon Department of Corrections prisons. His professional life is devoted to providing people with tools to enable them to think clearly and critically, and his specialty is the use of the Socratic method.
Earth Activist Training:
Starhawk. Starhawk, committed global justice activist and organizer, is the author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and the award-winning Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising. Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature, her latest, addresses the profound spiritual and conceptual disconnect at the root of our environmental destructiveness, and shows how permaculture can help reroot our spirits, our politics, and our day-to-day life in deep relationship with the Earth. She is a veteran of progressive movements, from anti-war to anti-nukes, is a highly influential voice in the revival of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion, and has brought many innovative techniques of spirituality and magic to her political work.
Public Participation in Public Lands Management:
Brenna Bell. For the past seven years, Brenna has been monitoring timber sales on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands. She has taught many workshops about the laws regulating public lands management and how the public can be involved in the process of public lands management. Brenna holds an Environmental and Natural Resources Certificate from Lewis & Clark Law School and practiced public interest environmental law for the past three years. She is also an experienced environmental educator and crafter.
Purchasing and Using Biodiesel:
Brian Bontempo. According to Sarah Hope, founder of Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley, CA, Brian may have filled up at more biodiesel stations than anyone in the west coast. He is knowledgeable about the issues in using biodiesel in older vehicles and in the cold weather, and is currently converting his house to be heated with Biodiesel.
Contact Improvisational Dancing:
Carolyn Stuart. Carolyn has spent the last 20 years fascinated with the movement form Contact Improvisation. After the last 5 years of teaching and performing around the world she now bases in Portland again to raise her granddaughter, Shalene. C.I. explores interdependence and co-creation through touch and movement. It is an opportunity to embody an alternative to the current cultural paradigm, to experience union in our diversity! She calls her approach to C.I. the touchmonkey method.