My interdisciplinary teaching, research and collaboration includes themes of social work, social change and sustainable living innovations, food security and sustainable agriculture / agroforestry methods, organizational and business development and related community resilience, and local-through-international disaster preparedness and response systems and communications.
Since 1998, I have proudly served as Core Faculty within the Graduate Programs in Environment & Community (and Director / Chair from 1998-2002) and one of the original designers of the interdisciplinary Center for Creative Change (C3) at Antioch University Seattle. Founded in 2000, C3 offers unique integrated graduate studies featuring the degree programs of Environment & Community, Whole Systems Design, Management & Leadership, Communications and Organizational Development.
Our graduate students complete 1st year core courses and 2nd year “capstone” change projects together, as a learning cohort, allowing them to apply their learning from across the curriculum and from within their degree programs to community-based sustainability initiatives. To say the least, we have great students (and alumni) pursuing great work!
I presently serve (again – my 3rd two-year term) as one of four elected members of our Faculty Assembly to the Faculty Leadership Team and in past, with a 12-member university-wide Sustainability Taskforce, working closely with university administration on matters of shared governance and academic excellence.
I hold degrees in Social Work from the University of Tennessee (Ph.D.), University of Pittsburgh (M.S.W.) and West Chester University of Pennsylvania (B.A.) and an A.A.S. degree in Human Services from Montgomery County Community College of Pennsylvania – and am proud to be associated with each of these institutions.
My doctoral dissertation, Living Responsibly: A Study of Sustainable Living in East Tennessee and the Southern Appalachian Bioregion (University of Tennessee, 1997), examined sustainable homesteads, communities and businesses, and focused on the experiences of people, living in both rural and urban settings, who endeavored to live and work in ways they considered to be more socially and environmentally sustainable. Themes, theories and practices of food systems, food security and sustainable agriculture, renewable energies, natural building and construction, healthy community relations and conflict resolution, sustainable business and economic development, among others were explored.
As both a professional Social Worker and Permaculture Teacher and Designer, I have been involved in community organizing and sustainable development initiatives, business and non-profit administration and development, and have taught various social work and socio-environmental courses and field practicum programs across six universities. Within these areas, I have advanced themes of social and environmental justice and sustainability within course and research activities and collaborative community projects, workshops and events. I have also taught community workshops and participated in projects of permaculture design, renewable energy systems, rainwater harvesting, low-impact design and trans-disciplinary social work practices of social change, and have served as a guest speaker for many events, courses and panel discussions.
To date, I have traveled a bit around our world and bring such experiences to bear on my thinking and doing, including: Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China (and Hong Kong & Macau), Egypt, England, France, French Polynesia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Monaco, Switzerland, most of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), and Vietnam.
In 2006/07, I completed an externally-funded sabbatical as Visiting Foreign Faculty at Zhejiang Agriculture & Forestry University, in Linan County, China, teaching graduate courses on themes of sustainable community development, ecological design and pursuing collaborative, provincial government / grant-funded research on social, economic and environmental contexts of sustainable bamboo resource systems. Why bamboo?
Over August | September 2004, and February | March, 2006, I traveled with my wife, Michelle, to India to facilitate exciting organic agriculture and permaculture design workshops. These events occurred at the direct invitation of Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in Exile, and were collaborative projects with Lobsang Tsering, a Tibetan Fulbright / Brandeis University graduate student who studied permaculture design and other themes of sustainable community development with me.
Convened in Bylukuppe and Kollegal Settlements, Karnataka State, the workshops aimed to extend efforts underway by the Tibetan government towards organic agricultural practices within the Tibetan settlements, home to some 130,000 Tibetan refugees since 1959. The training served participants representing 12 agriculture settlements across six states in India, including farmers, settlement officers, cooperative members, project secretaries, and agriculture extension officers. I was invited by the Prime Minister to return for a third collaboration in July, 2009. Read the story about this project.
In 2004, I co-founded Pacific Bamboo Resources (PBR), a research and development institute supporting international and domestic bamboo conservation, cultivation and integrated resource systems for rural and urban sustainable community development. In May, 2005, I traveled to China to meet with government officials, academics, entrepreneurs and community leaders of Zhejiang and Guangdong Provinces, involved in and committed to sustainable bamboo projects and enterprises.
Following my sabbatical in 2006, I was invited back to China in November, 2007 to deliver a keynote address for the International Conference on Bamboo and related Hangzhou Bamboo Shoot Festival in Lin’an City, Zhejiang Province. Additional networks in Bangladesh, Ecuador, Hawaii, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, and mainland U.S. (and elsewhere) afford PBR with access to in-country data, perspective and collaborations.
In March 2009, the Buckminster Fuller Institute announced that PBR was among thirty-three outstanding international finalists for the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a $100k award for distinctive and timely design proposals for social, economic and environmental change and sustainability. PBR submitted A Proposal for Bamboo Resource Systems for Social, Economic and Environmental Benefits in the Pacific Northwest USA.
As a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Kingston, Jamaica (1991-93), my primary assignment within the Community Development Sector had me serve as Director of Family & Research Services for VOUCH, Limited: A Voluntary Organization for Uplifting Children. As a secondary assignment, I taught undergraduate Social Work courses and supervised field practicum projects through the Department of Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Now a Returned PCV, I am a supporter of the National Peace Corps Association. BTW, I highly recommend viewing the film Life and Debt, which vividly documents the challenges, hardship, and perseverance of Jamaicans in face of harsh economic impositions rendered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
I presently serve as Program Vice President for SERNW, the Northwest chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration International (SERI). I also serve on the Advisory Boards of Community Energy Solutions, Village Volunteers and the Foundation for Global Sustainability.
In recent years, I have served as President of the Board of Directors for both the Tahoma Food System, a group devoted to “growing sustainable land and community through gardening, gleaning, and farming;” and Sustainable Pierce County, an educational organization promoting sustainable living throughout the Puget Sound basin. I also served as a founding Board Member for Climate Solutions, formerly a project of the Earth Island Institute, which monitors global warming trends and advocates for sustainable energy and community development activities throughout the Puget Sound, the Pacific Northwest region, and beyond; and as a Board Member of the Northwest Eco-Building Guild, an association of contractors, design professionals, tradespeople, manufacturers, suppliers and homeowners interested in ecologically sustainable living and design.
Over the years, I have also fed my entrepreneurial spirit with a few innovative pursuits. First, I founded ScherchLight Designs, LLC, featuring a variety of ultra-efficient, durable, and long-life LED lighting technologies, and later co-founded Living Systems Design, LLC, providing low-impact integrated water management services — two ventures which allowed me (and others) to deliver (and learn much about) social, economic and environmental benefits of sustainable business development, management and networking via technological innovation.
Having earned Novice, General and Advanced Class amateur radio licenses in 1990 (KK7PW), I earned the top Amateur Extra Class license in March, 2010. I am also active in preparing and teaching amateur radio training courses and am an accredited Volunteer Examiner (VE) to support testing sessions for new radio hams. Over the years, I have met ham operators from all over the world (complementing my travels and professional field work) and subsequently have learned much from them about their cultures, communities, professional pursuits and shared interests in sustainability and appropriate technologies — typically explored over fantastic meals. 
BTW, IMHO (in my humble opinion), amateur radio knowledge, skills and credentials are excellent complements to a formal interdisciplinary education, afford cross-cultural awareness and relationships, and are valuable to individual sustainable living and community development efforts. And, its fun! I encourage you (yes, you!) to get your license!
I have been and/or am currently a member of the University of Pittsburgh Panther Amateur Radio Club, the University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club, the Western Washington DX Club (WWDC), the West Seattle Amateur Radio Club (WSARC) — currently a WSARC board member, the China Radio Sport Association, and the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
I now volunteer for the Disaster Communicartions Team of American Red Cross serving King & Kitsap Counties, WA, and the Auxiliary Communications Service, an affiliate program of the King County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and the Division of Emergency Management for the City of Seattle.
I monitor many of the HF, VHF, and UHF bands (all with 100% solar power!) and can be frequently found on the 20 meter band, on or around 14.280MHz and many northwest repeaters including WW7RA (both 2m & 70cm), K7PP, and W7VHY of the Puget Sound Repeater Group. And, via Echolink. Give me a call when you can! 73
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW, I presently contribute my carbon-neutral computer processor capacity to e-research projects of the World Community Grid and Climateprediction.net via use of BOINC, the open-source software of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. Please consider joining and contributing your excess computer resources as well (**Antioch University students, alumni, faculty and staff — join the Antioch University Team and lend a hand . . . or, some band-width).
I maintain this website from my home using computers and a Linksys WiFi B/G/N router all running on 100% solar power.
Cheers!
