- About Your Instructors
Lindsay Dailey
Course Facilitator
Lindsay Dailey is an ecological designer and educator with over 15 years of experience working to reconnect people to land. A deep student of the wild, she is dedicated to restoring our reciprocal relationship with nature, and is a wildlands firefighter passionate about the use of fire as a tool of regenerative disturbance to heal our landscape.
She is the lead land steward and program manager at the Oak Granary and works as an ecological design consultant with organizations throughout Northern California. Recent clients range from retreat centers and intentional communities, to schools and museums.Lindsay has also spent over a decade working as an educator with leading organizations, in her role as the Wildlands Program Director at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, Executive Director of the Solar Living Institute, and co-founder of suburban permaculture project Villa Sobrante. She has co-created ecoliteracy education programs for a number of schools, indigenous tribes, and non-profits in California, Mexico, and Australia.
Lindsay received her PDC in 2007 and has studied with permaculture leaders Brock Dolman, Geoff Lawton, Darren Doherty, and David Holmgren. She has also taught permaculture with leading organizations such as the Permaculture Research Institute, Merritt College, the North Bay Permaculture Convergence, The Esalen Institute, and Quail Springs Permaculture.
- Instructors
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Brock Dolman
Co-Founder; Program Director - Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
Brock Dolman co-directs the WATER Institute, Permaculture Design Program and Wildlands Program. He has taught Permaculture and consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally in Costa Rica, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba and widely in the U.S. He has been the keynote presenter at numerous conferences and was featured in the award-winning films The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Call of Life by Species Alliance, and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz. In October of 2012, he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. Brock completed his BA in the Biology and Environmental Studies departments at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1992, graduating with honors. For over a decade, he has served as an appointed commissioner on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission.
Christina Bertea
Co-Founder; Program Director - Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
Christina studied social psychology and has worked to shift the culture toward more just and sustainable practices ever since. In 1974 she tested affirmative action and was the first woman apprentice admitted to a CA plumbing union. Later as a plumbing contractor, she plumbed many straw bale and rammed earth residences. In 1990 she designed and built a passive solar rammed-earth cottage in downtown Oakland demonstrating the feasibility of alternative materials for inner city infill.
In 2007 she joined the Greywater Guerrillas in creating a groundswell of support for greywater re-use and in 2009 helped craft a more reasonable state greywater code at stakeholder meetings in Sacramento. She is a guest instructor at OAEC, Merrit College, and other Permaculture courses and directly installs rainwater and greywater systems.
Pandora Thomas
"My Employer is Earth"
Pandora Thomas is a passionate global citizen who works as a caregiver for her mother and globally as a teacher, writer, designer, and speaker with over 25 years of experience. Pandora's work emphasizes the benefits of applying ecological principles to social design. She is currently a designer, teacher, and facilitator at several permaculture and ecological design schools and programs. Thomas' achievements include being featured in the films The Future of Energy and Inhabit, presenting at Tedx Denver and SF, and being awarded internships and fellowships to the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, Green For All, and the Applied Research Center. Her writing includes a children’s book, various curricula and a manual entitled "Shades of Green" for individuals wanting to teach green building to youth. Pandora studied at Columbia and Tufts University and with several permaculture and ecological design programs.
Denise Rushing
Co-Founder - New Paradigm College
Denise Rushing is a certified Permaculture designer and has been applying permaculture to garden, farm, ecological and community projects for almost two decades. An entrepreneur and pioneer in the energy industry, she has led and advised some of the world's most innovative energy technology companies, accelerating the market adoption of clean, efficient energy. She launched award-winning energy efficiency initiatives and renewable energy initiatives adopted by companies around the world. While serving two terms on the Lake County Board of Supervisors, Denise championed two of the largest public solar energy installations in the western United States. She is perhaps best known locally for her environmental advocacy and community revitalization.
Seth Wachtel
University of San Francisco
Co-Founder - New Paradigm College
Seth Wachtel is the Director and Associate Professor of Architecture and Community Design in the Department of Art and Architecture at the University of San Francisco, and Co-Directs the USF Garden Project. He completed his professional degree at UC Berkeley in 1987 and has worked in architecture and construction in India, Colombia, Haiti, Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nepal, and Zambia as well as the San Francisco Bay Area. His focus is low-cost building and urban landscapes in underserved communities, and the development of innovative construction techniques and community building approaches that produce sustainable and culturally appropriate buildings for human environments.
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