I planted my first garden after I graduated high school and had a bumper crop feeding myself, family and friends. It made me totally stoked on the growing plants. An interest in health food and gardening, and awakening, inspired me to organize a series of educational programs for youth in San Diego teaching, organic nutrition and urban gardening. I then met my partner Erika Shickle and went on to apprenticing on a local farm, coordinating a farm field trip program and practicing diversified agriculture; row cropping vegetables, orchard development, small scale dairy and poultry, and mushroom cultivation and foraging.
I then moved to Hawaii with my partner and son to expand growing opportunities and began managing a 17-acre permaculture farm. I studied permaculture design, orchard management using nitrogen fixing trees, small scale dairy, polyculture planting styles for three years, and coordinated a permaculture after-school program, and other programs and festivals offering workshops to the public.
Recently, we have founded the Hawaii Institute of PAcific Agriculture, www.hipagriculture.org, an institute which conducts permaculture design courses, and offers a series of agriculture programs for youth and teachers. In addition, I am working on several large scale design projects, a 120 acre farm and sustainable development project, a 2000 acre land project dedicated to community education, and smaller designs for local school gardens, and home projects.