What were you doing before you applied to the Conway School?
Landscape design, permaculture design, edible landscaping and before that environmental scientist/ecologist.
What brought you to Conway?
I wanted to get more training and skills in design and communicating design solutions.
How did you first learn about Conway?
I moved to the valley in 2001 and was trying to find some continuing education. I can’t remember how I heard exactly.
Imagine we just met, and recognized we had common interests. How would you describe Conway to me?
It’s a fast and intense design and planning immersion graduate program; focused on ecological design and planning, communication, and connecting people to place.
What advice do you have for someone just starting out in the field?
Visit places doing what you want to do, meet people, put yourself out there, go to workshops and conferences, study on your own- not just you-tube videos, but read books and study the work of others.
What are you doing right now, and what do you love about it?
I get to do design and planning, mostly with farms and food and farm organizations. I work within a team at Regenerative Design Group (now a worker-owned firm) and get to be involved or have peripheral connections to a lot of great work happening around the region and country. I also farm chestnuts and operate a multi-field farm project with numerous crops and an emerging processing hub within a network of growers trying to highlight and practice the most ecological agriculture there has ever been on the planet.
What book changed your life?
Mansanobu Fukuoka- The One Straw Revolution
What is your favorite tool? E.g., a type of gardening tool, digital tool, etc.
Stihl multi-tool. Hand pruners- since its pruning season now!