Primary Instructors

Rick Valley, holds the Land Steward position at Lost Valley as well as managing his own landscaping business and teaching Permaculture Design Courses. He is a landscape contractor.

Rick has a diploma in Permaculture Design in teaching and site implementation from the Pc Inst. (Australia). The first Pc workshop he attended led to his nursery business growing bamboo.

Rick co-taught the first permaculture design courses in Canada, Oregon and Belize.

Rick holds a BA in anthropology from Reed College and an MA in teaching from Antioch.

Jude Hobbs is a horticulturist, Permaculture designer, and activist.
Since 1982, she has provided whole system environmental design solutions in urban and rural settings. As an associate with Agro-Ecology Northwest, she works with small-scale farmers and two eco-labeling organizations, Salmon Safe and LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology).

Jude has presented Permaculture workshops and courses throughout the West and Hawaii for 17 years, developing curricula that encompass diverse learning styles. She has co-facilitated the Advance Pc Certification Course in Teaching for 5 years. Jude is a co-founder of Cascadia Permaculture Institute.

As a way to support local organizations, Jude is on the board of the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition, Eugene Permaculture Guild and the University of Oregon's CASL (Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living).

She has written the Oregon State University Bulletin (EM: 8721) A Guide to Multi-Functional Hedgerows and soon to be published: On-Farm Biodiversity Resource Guide: For Dry lands, Uplands, & the Maritime Northwest

www.cascadiapermaculture.com

Marc Tobin co-founded and now coordinates the Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program at Lost Valley. He has also worked in Organizational Coordination for Lost Valley. Previously, Marc has worked in outdoor education, environmental advocacy, appropriate technology, and renewable energy. Marc holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Naropa University, and a Masters of Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon.

He took his first Permaculture Design Course from the High Altitude Permaculture Institute in Ward Colorado in 1997 and was a Permaculture apprentice at Lost Valley in 2000. Within the field of Permaculture, Marc's main focus has been in how the Permaculture principles can inform community planning.

His research includes ecological accounting, ecovillage site design and zoning for sustainable communities.

Marc has done extensive self-study in the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber and has used this model as an organizing tool in much of his work.

Visiting Instructors

Visiting Instructors teach for 1-4 days during the course.

Joshua Smith is one of the co-originators of Lost Valley's Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program. Joshua has studied natural farming with Masanobu Fukuoka, co-taught Permaculture courses with Bill Mollison (the co-originator of Permaculture). A pioneer in the field, Joshua operates an ecological and landscape design business with clients throughout the Western U.S. He has been designing interactive ecological landscapes for almost 30 years. His designs have covered everything from custom landscapes to large farms, permaculture programs to sustainable forestry operations. He is also the author of Botanical Treasures of the West.

Melanie Rios has been teaching communication skills for a couple of decades, while practicing these skills living in community and parenting three teens. She's a fiddler, violin teacher, urban farmer, and community activist, and resides at Maitreya EcoVillage in Eugene.

Tree Bressen is a professional group facilitator for intentional communities, nonprofits, and other groups around the country. She gives workshops in consensus decision-making, effective meeting facilitation, conflict resolution, and related subjects. She has been involved with intentional communities since 1990 and is a founding member of Walnut St. Co-op in Eugene.

Tammy Davis, is a certified permaculture instructor and has taught organic gardening and permaculture in New Mexico and Lost Valley for 6 years. Tammy is trained in Consensus, Non-Violent Communication by Dr. Marshall Rosenburg, and Naka-Ima (now Heart of Now). She has trained with local experts in beekeeping, weaving baskets, and hunting and growing edible and medicinal mushrooms and herbs. Her past experience includes earning a Bachelor’s degree in Russian with a minor in Physics and many years of environmental political organizing.

Marisha Auerbach has a small plant nursery which focuses on edible flowers and other gourmet specialty food items. She is involved in the creation of perennial forage systems using perennial vegetables. Marisha creates useful items using her resources: 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.

Guest Instructors and Presenters

Guest instructors and presenters teach one or more sessions, up to a day. Guest instructors vary from course to course. Below are just a few of the guest instructors who teach in many of our courses. Each year, we may have some are all of the below instructors and a number of special guest instructors who aren't listed here.

Mark Lakeman founded the City Repair Project (www.cityrepair.org) in 1996, which now operates with over 100 largely volunteer full-time and part-time staff, coordinators, and assistants. As both an organization and a larger movement, City Repair inspires and guides the transformation of the grid infrastructure of the typical American city into a vital social commons. By re-asserting localized village patterns in the city grid, City Repair establishes both the physical and social foundation for sustainable culture. Mark is now the principal of Communitecture, a private design firm specializing in ecological building and planning projects at many scales.

Toby Hemenway is the author of the first major North American book on permaculture, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, and associate editor of Permaculture Activist, a journal of ecological design and sustainable culture. After obtaining a degree in biology from Tufts University, Toby worked for many years as a researcher in genetics and immunology, first in academic laboratories. Toby now lives with his wife in Portland. He teaches permaculture and consults and lectures on ecological design throughout the country.

Rob Bolman is a natural builder and is the founder of Maitreya Ecovillage in Eugene. His interest in natural building materials is combined with a dedication to create a better world.

Resident Guest Instructors

Finally, a number of our sessions are taught be Lost Valley community members who have particular skills and knowledge in certain areas. This list is subject to change. A sample of some of these resident guest instructors includes:

Dianne Brause is a Co-Founder of Lost Valley and the only human resident who has been here the entire 17 years. Dianne enjoys telling the story of Lost Valley's history and thinks it could be made into a great "reality TV" show! She is planning a book about the community. Dianne's current job titles at LVEC are that of "Elder" and "Membership Coordinator".

Keli Lindelien is a LV board member and a licensed attorney. She practiced for over ten years in civil law and as both a prosecutor and defense counsel. She has also served as assistant executive director of a non-profit library foundation. She is currently working on the development of our land trust and doing registration for our conference center events.

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