Rick has been practicing Permaculture, Forest Gardening and Sustainable Forestry in the foothills of the Cascades for more than 17 years and carries the expertise of a master nurseryman form one of his previous incarnations as the owner of a nursery business. From an interest in new crops and ethnobotany, Rick began his study in Permaculture starting at a bamboo nursery in 1981. He took his first Permaculture Design Certification course with Bill Mollison in 1986 and began teaching with the first Permaculture Design Certification courses in Canada offered at Linnea Farm, Cortes Island, BC. Rick taught regularly with the Linnea Farm Community for 10 years, co-taught the first permaculture design courses in Canada, Oregon and Belize, and introduced Permaculture to the Lost Valley Ecovillage & Educational Center in Dexter Oregon, where he began teaching in 1990. Rick moved from Portland, OR to the S. Willamette Valley in 1997, and has been the primary land steward and lead permaculture instructor at Lost Valley since 2004. His special interests in Permaculture include hands-on education, tree crops, earthwork for water harvesting, and broadscale design for farms and communities. Rick holds a BA in anthropology from Antioch College, an MA in teaching from Reed College, and a diploma in Permaculture Design in teaching and site implementation from the Permaculture Institute of Australia. 

Marisha Auerbach has been practicing, studying, and teaching permaculture in the Pacific Northwest for the past decade. She is involved with many communities around Cascadia including Lost Valley, Tryon Life Community Farm, and City Repair. As an itinerant permaculture designer, Marisha calls the greater Olympia area home, especially the Wild Thyme Farm, a 150 acre permaculture demonstration farm and FSC certified forest in the northern Willapa Hills. Marisha encourages sustainable futures through sharing knowledge with others on a variety of topics including: permaculture, polyculture gardening, seed saving, flower and gem essences, local economics, community building, ethnobotany, herbalism, edible landscape design, and organic gardening among others. She is enthusiastic about creating perennial forage systems and building local community. Marisha’s interest in local economics and creating useful items using her resources has manifested as several projects: past work on local community marketplaces in Olympia, Queen Bee Flower and Gem Essences, Herb’n Wisdom for permaculture consulting and herbal products, and Growing Greetings which produces plantable greeting cards and other products. Marisha has a small plant nursery which focuses on edible flowers and other gourmet specialty food items. Marisha graduated from the Evergreen State College in 1998 where she focused on ethnobotany, ecological agriculture, and sustainability studies. She continues to interact with students from the Evergreen State College by offering internships.

Jay Ma is a permaculture designer, facilitator, and community organizer committed to cultural healing through Peacemaker Principles. He received his first permaculture design certification through Naropa University in 2001, a B.A. through New College of California in Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community with a concentration in Eco-Dwelling/Natural Building, and is a graduate of the pioneering two-year training intensive in Regenerative Design & Nature Awareness. Jay has developed educational programs, retreats, workshops, and events as well as community land development projects with organizations including the Regenerative Design Institute, the Institute of Noetic Sciences,  Earth Circle, Gaia University and others. He is currently an associate with Gaia University in Organized Learning for Eco-Social Regeneration, working on organizing educational courses in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Jay is also a certified Permaculture Teacher, a Fire Walk Instructor through Sundoor International, and is passionate about renewing Rites of Passage experiential programs for people of all ages.

Jon Young grew up in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and was mentored from from the age of 10 as a naturalist, tracker, survivalist, and mentor in a Native American tradition by the tracker and author Tom Brown, Jr. He received his BS in Environmental Science in 1983 from Cook College, Rutgers University, with particular emphasis on natural history and anthropology and a focus on how native cultures helped their children understand and connect with the natural world. From 1984 to 1994, Jon was mentored as naturalist, tracker, cultural specialist and mentor by the African Akamba elder Ingwe. Inspired by his mentoring with Tom Brown, Jr., fueled by his studies in natural history and anthropology, and guided by the elder Ingwe, Jon has pioneered blending Native mentoring and cultural techniques from around the world with a broad array of tools for connecting with nature, and developing refined and holistic tracking skills. Jon co-founded theWilderness Awareness School with the support of the honored elder Ingwe in 1983, and has created several popular training tape series, including being the principal author of both The Kamana Naturalist Training Program and The North American Master Shikari Sequence forCyberTracker. Out of the Wilderness Awareness School, Jon developed a system that is now called “8 Shields Cultural Mentoring”. This system tracks processes and mentoring techniques that are built into the design of one-on-one mentoring programs, family mentoring practices, community-based mentoring, and more traditional modes of education. The 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring model has now influenced well over 100 nature and eco-community programs in the United States, Canada and Europe, and is also used in his consulting for organizations, government agencies and communities worldwide. Jon has utilized the 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring model to develop and enhance community development for communities interested in working with peace-making as it relates to nature connection. This has evolved into a world-wide network of practicing communities. Jon has given over 1000 public presentations and has helped many PhD and Masters students as well as undergraduates with the completion of their degrees on topics ranging from native education to wildlife tracking. Jon is married and has six children, and truly wants his children and future grandchildren to experience the joy and benefits of living in a whole and healthy world and as part of a remarkable community of mentors! For more information on Jon Young visit www.jonyoung.org

Corinne McLaughlin is co-author of The Practical Visionary, Spiritual Politics, and Builders of the Dawn and is co-founder of The Center for Visionary Leadership in California and North Carolina.  She coordinated a national task force for President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development and is a Fellow of The World Business Academy and the Findhorn Foundation.  She is also a co-founder of Sirius Community, a spiritual/environmental center in Massachusetts, and she taught politics at American University.

Gordon Davidson, Guest Instructor

Gordon Davidson is President and co-founder of The Center for Visionary Leadership and co-author of  Spiritual Politics (Foreword by the Dalai Lama) and Builders of the Dawn. Gordon served as the Executive Director of the Social Investment Forum and The Center for Environmentally Responsible Economies, and he is a Fellow of the World Business Academy and the Findhorn Foundation. He consults with many organizations, and offers personal coaching for leaders.