PEOPLE

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Meet The Instructors

David
David Shaw
Director & Senior Designer

David Shaw is a whole systems designer, naturalist, farmer, and educator. His focus is building connections – with ourselves, with each other, and with nature. He directs Santa Cruz Permaculture, a company dedicated to amplifying regenerative solutions through action-learning, intentional community development, and land stewardship. He also coordinates the Right Livelihood College at UCSC, a network for scaling up courageous solutions to the root causes of global problems. David completed the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, and holds a MS in Integrative Eco Social Design from Gaia University. He is a PhD student in the UCSC Environmental Studies program researching successful transnational alternative policy groups and large-scale ecosystem regeneration solutions. David is active in the global World Cafe Community, a group dedicated to hosting inter-generational dialogue on questions that matter. In order to meet the challenges of today, he is creating an urban farm and inter-generational learning center that fosters hands-on farm and wilderness skills, cultural competence, social entrepreneurship, and collective action.

Leah Stern
Marketing & Communications Consultant

Leah grew up in the Midwest, spending time in the summer at her grandparents’ farm, shucking sweet corn and making applesauce. An interest in growing food has stayed with her through stints in finance, accounting, photography, marketing, non-profits, and mothering. After moving to the Santa Cruz Mountains, she has eagerly sought out new ways to grow more delicious varieties of all this region can sustain, while building community and learning about indigenous traditions and perspectives.

John Valenzuela
Lead Permaculture Instructor & Senior Designer

John Valenzuela is a horticulturist, consultant, and permaculture educator. Living in Hawai’i for 15 years, he studied and practiced tropical permaculture while teaching throughout the Islands to a wide range of people — children, students, professionals, farmers, displaced sugar workers, owners and renters. He has been a lead permaculture design course teacher at the Bullock Family Homestead in Orcas Island, Washington, for 10 years, also having taught in Costa Rica and throughout urban and rural California. His special interests are home gardens, plant propagation, rare fruit, food forests, agroforestry, ethnobotany, and native ecosystems. He is now based in his original home state of California, where he maintains ornamental and edible landscapes and a small nursery, while sharing his passion for plants. John has served as the chairperson for the Golden Gate Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers Association.

Julia Herring
Permaculture Consultant

Julia Herring is a landscape designer, project manager, natural builder and climate justice organizer. After working at a corporate healthcare company for 3 years after college, she transitioned into a career in permaculture in 2018 and hasn’t looked back since. She received her B.S. in Wildlife Conservation in 2014 from UC Davis, where she co-founded a student organization dedicated to preserving habitat and monitoring wildlife populations in the Davis area. Julia received her Permaculture Design Certificate from Santa Cruz Permaculture in March 2018, then went on to study community design at Arcosanti, Arizona where she co-led a natural building workshop in 2019. Julia posts about her varied permaculture experiences on her Instagram page @perma.girl. She currently lives in the Berkeley hills and splits her time between earning her degree in Landscape Design from the Landscape Horticulture program at Merritt College, converting her grandfather’s former home into a permaculture paradise, providing workshop support and landscape design services for Santa Cruz Permaculture, and volunteering with a youth-led climate justice organization called the Sunrise Movement.

Janine Björnson
Guide & Learning Partner

Janine Björnson is a natural builder, educator, and consultant who has a specialty in natural paints and plasters. She began her career in natural building in 1996 when she studied with Cob Cottage. Since then, she has taught over 100 workshops in Canada and the United States. Her passion for building with natural materials bloomed out of her love for the earth, in conjunction with her concern for diminishing ecological resources and toxic buildings. Since then, she has devoted the last 2+ decades to immersing herself in the world of natural materials and the knowledge of how we can shape dwellings that are healthy, healing, inspiring, and beautiful. She loves teaching and particularly loves to inspire and teach women how to build, and this is evident in her enthusiastic teaching style. Janine has presented at various Natural Building Colloquia. She has taught the natural building component of Dominican University EcoDwelling program and is the “natural materials” cyber panellist at www.greenhomebuilding.com. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (janinebjornson.com) and artist. She lives and builds in Sebastopol, California.

Dave Boehnlein
Guide & Learning Partner

Dave Boehnlein is principal at Terra Phoenix Design, and co-author of Practical Permaculture, an excellent entry-level permaculture design text. He is also the education director at the Bullock’s Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island where he lived for seven years. He offers Permaculture Design Courses through Bastyr University’s Holistic Landscape Design Certificate Program and Alderleaf Wilderness College’s Wilderness Certification Program. Dave is a member of both the Cascadia Permaculture Institute and the Permaculture Institute of North America. He holds a diploma in Permaculture Education and seeks to mainstream permaculture design with integrity. Dave is passionate about plants, especially weird but useful ones. Ultimately, Dave just wants to make the world a better place and eat really good fruit while doing it.

Della Duncan
Guide & Learning Partner

Della Z Duncan is a Work that Reconnects Facilitator and Renegade Economist who supports individuals working to better align their values with their work as a Right Livelihood Coach and hosts the Upstream Podcast, challenging mainstream economic thinking through documentaries and conversations including: Our Struggles are Your Struggles: Stories of Indigenous Resistance and Regeneration and A World without Profit: In Conversation with Jennifer Hinton. Della is also a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a Gross National Happiness Master Trainer, a founding member of the Doughnut Economics California Coalition (DECC), and a Senior Lecturer at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Santa Cruz Permaculture, Vital Cycles Permaculture, and Gaia Education. Della has facilitated dozens of Work that Reconnects retreats in over 10 countries over the past decade and enjoys weaving invitations for regenerative livelihoods and finances into her WTR offerings.

Maya Elson
Guide & Learning Partner

Maya Elson weaves together the wildness of our ecosystems with the wildness of our human selves, cultivating belonging and resilience. Raised in the forest, Maya brings their skills as a Mycologist, organizer, naturalist and teacher as an offering for addressing the root causes of our social, psychological and ecological crises. Maya coined the term “Mycopsychology”, and has developed this as a modality for facilitating deeper connection with Fungi personal and planetary transformation. Since 2009, Maya has been teaching Mycopermaculture, Fungal Biology, Mycorenewal and Mushroom Identification to all ages and currently offers classes in the Santa Cruz area. As the Executive Director of CoRenewal from 2016-2021, they worked to mitigate toxins from wildfires, petroleum contamination and other environmental disasters by working in collaboration with Fungi. Maya is the co-founder and Program Coordinator of the CoRenewal’s Post Fire Biofiltration Initiative, an effort and experiment using Fungi to prevent toxins from burned homes from entering sensitive waterways. Maya is one of the founding members of the Radical Mycology network, and has started applied Mycology groups in Olympia, WA and the San Francisco Bay area. Maya has worked as a campaign organizer with a number of climate justice and wilderness defense struggles over many years. Since 2006, Maya has been supporting youth in finding their place in their ecological and human communities by working with Wild Child Santa Cruz, Gaia Passages, and other programs. Maya holds a Graduate Certificate in Ecopsychology, and BA in Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College.

Ken Foster
Guide & Learning Partner

Ken is a native of Santa Cruz, Ca. In 1970 at the age of thirteen he met Alan Chadwick, the founder of the UCSC Farm and Garden. In 1985, he was an apprentice at that program and has a certificate in Ecological Horticulture from there. He also has an A.S. degree from Cabrillo College in landscape horticulture.

In 1988 after completing the Farm and Garden apprenticeship program he co-founded Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping with a fellow apprentice. He is the owner of Terra Nova (terranovalandscaping.com) and has been a landscape contractor since 1991.

Ken earned his first certificate in Permaculture Design in 1996 and has also earned certificates in Advanced Permaculture design and Permaculture teacher training. He also holds certificates in the Green Gardener and Advanced Green Gardener programs. Ken has a Permaculture demonstration garden with his partner/fiancé Jillian Steinberger, has been teaching Permaculture Design Courses since 2008 and has taught the Permaculture class at Cabrillo College since 2012. In 2018 Ken was awarded a diploma in Permaculture Education from the Permaculture Institute.

Paula Grainger
Guide & Learning Partner

Paula Grainger graduated as an herbalist from The University of Westminster in London, England in 2004. She works with clients on both sides of the Atlantic as an herbal wellness practitioner, and delights in sharing her love of plant medicines through teaching and writing about herbs. She is the creator of The English Herbalist range of herbal skincare products and has authored two books: ADAPTOGENS and INFUSE: Herbal Teas to Cleanse Nourish and Heal, which has been translated into more than ten languages. Paula brings her deep knowledge of the ancestral British herbal tradition to the California herb garden.

Darren Huckle
Guide & Learning Partner

Darren is passionate about the study, practice, and teaching of holistic health. He has spent over 20 years cultivating a deep knowledge of holistic life skills including western and Chinese herbal medicines, organic farming, nutrition, meditation, and Qi Gong. He is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, and teaches at Five Branches University, Esalen Institute, and University of California, Santa Cruz. A dynamic teacher and clinician, Darren loves his work and constantly expands his understanding of the human condition in wellness and sickness.

Lee Klinger, MA, PhD
Guide & Learning Partner

Dr. Lee Klinger is an independent scientist living in Big Sur, California. Since 2005 he has served as director of Sudden Oak Life, a movement aimed at using ecologically-based techniques to address the problem of oak mortality in California and elsewhere. Dr. Klinger has over 30 years of academic experience in the environmental sciences and has held scholarly appointments at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the University of Oxford, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Klinger also serves Chairman of the Board of Teleosis Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to developing effective, sustainable health care provided by professionals who serve as environmental health stewards. He is also a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

Mark Lakeman
Guide & Learning Partner

Mark is a national leader in the development of sustainable public places. In the last decade he has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone. Through his leadership in Communitecture, Inc., and it’s various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.

Penny Livingston Stark
Penny Livingston-Stark
Guide & Learning Partner

Penny Livingston-Stark is internationally recognized as a prominent permaculture teacher, designer, and speaker. She holds a MS in Eco-Social Regeneration and a Diploma in Permaculture Design. Penny has been studying the Hermetic Tradition of alchemy and herbal medicine making in Europe and the United States for 4 years. Penny sits on the board of the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) and holds 2 Diplomas in Permaculture  Education and Permaculture Design. She has studied, taught with, hosted and learned directly Bill Mollison, and David Holmgren the co-founders of Permaculture and the developers of the PDC curriculum. Penny has been teaching internationally and working professionally in the land management, regenerative design, and permaculture development field for 25 years and has extensive experience in all phases of ecologically sound design and construction as well as the use of natural non-toxic building materials. With her husband James Stark, and in collaboration with Commonweal — a cancer health research and retreat center — Penny co-manages Commonweal Garden, a 17-acre organic and certified salmon-safe farm in Bolinas, California.

Rita Manna
Guide & Learning Partner

Rita Manna is a designer who specializes in both the Landscape Architecture and Graphic Design professions.  She has 17 years of experience in the design, landscape and construction industries. She has achieved a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from Colorado State University with a concentration in Ecological Restoration and Community & Urban Development, a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in Communication Design from the University of Connecticut, and has won numerous design, gardening and community service-related awards. With such a diverse design background that focuses in on not only restoration, permaculture and place-making but also visual communication, she is able to effectively communicate through a variety of mediums.

Doniga Markegard
Guide & Learning Partner

Doniga comes to ranching with a background in nature and permaculture. This has given her a perspective on the real risks that we are facing as a species. In her youth she was mentored by some of the leading wildlife trackers, naturalists and Native spiritual elders. She spent years alone and with a small group of passionate youth in the Western Washington Wilderness learning the ways of the ancestors, immersing in nature, bird language, survival skills and wildlife tracking. Along with her husband and four children, Doniga owns and operates Markegard Family Grass-Fed LLC raising grass-fed beef, lamb, pastured pork and dairy supplying the Bay Area with local, nutrient dense foods. The family ranch leases land through out the Bay Area spanning over 8000 acres.

Lydia Neilsen
Guide & Learning Partner

Lydia Neilsen is a permaculture landscape educator, designer and consultant specializing in passive water harvesting, as well as gardening, soil building, and loving up the earth. Lydia and her partner Anne Freiwald MPH, co-facilitate a year-long Permaculture and Personal Ecology course called Vital Cycles where they integrate patterns and principles of the landscape ecosystem with patterns and principles in the individual human being. Lydia is dedicated to sharing her knowledge and passion for the development and implementation of beautiful regenerative designs and practices on a do-it-yourself scale. She believes that animals and animal husbandry are a critical element in landscape, human, and planetary health. Lydia specializes in water harvesting earthworks for landscape hydration and restoration, soil building, greywater, productive water-conserving landscapes, tree planting, polyculture and efficient uses of limited space.

Greg Richardson
Greg Richardson
Guide & Learning Partner

Greg Richardson is the Director of Research and Monitoring at Paicines Ranch – a 7,500 acre property integrating crops and livestock – where he supports the farm operations in a role that blends the services of an agronomist, scientist and compost producer. Greg recently completed a joint masters degree in agroecology and soil science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with an emphasis in soil health measurements and soil carbon cycling. Greg is passionate about enhancing the role of soil biology in agriculture as a means to improve the agronomic and ecological functioning of a landscape. He has 5 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector supporting conservation on agricultural lands and spent a summer as a farmhand at a no-till, organic fruit and vegetable farm in Sonoma County.

Kanyon Sayers-Roods
Guide & Learning Partner

Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman.” She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community. She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reindigenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art. Kanyon is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kanyon Konsulting LLC, a consultation firm that specializes in Indigenous pedagogies.

Miles Taylor
Guide & Learning Partner

Miles is a student, farmer and natural builder. He and Katrina Rozelle founded Muddbums in 2014 with the intention of maintaining a presence of natural building in the Santa Cruz area when their mentor Claudine Desiree began her global cob experience. Offering workshops, work parties and consultation, Muddbums has helped facilitate projects including: ovens, benches, natural finish work, outdoor kitchens, and small structures. Education of appropriate material choices, design and building techniques, along with hands on opportunities for learning, are integral parts of natural building that Muddbums provides.

Devalina Waring
Guide & Learning Partner

Devalina is a clinical herbalist, whole-food chef, animist, beekeeper & educator. Originally from the West Coast of British Columbia, she has spent the last decade diving deep into herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, functional nutrition and the natural world. Deva has been teaching herbalism classes at various schools in the Pacific Northwest and held herb camps throughout Northern California. She has a strong background in ethical harvesting, medicine making & herbal first aid. She is passionate about reconnecting people to land and getting people excited about plants. She is currently seeing clients through her private practice www.wellrootedherbs.com. In her spare time she enjoys bee-centric bee keeping, exploring wild places and weaving.

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