Meet Our Educators
Stephanie Syson
Stephanie Syson
Stephanie Syson
Stephanie Syson, co-founder and Director of Caribbean Agroforestry Institute, spends the days with her hands in the soil and her heart with the plants. She started down her Permaculture path in 2001 with an internship at Punta Mona in Costa Rica. After visiting and living at multiple Permaculture communities in Latin America she was hooked! Stephanie lived within and managed the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute for 4 years. In that time she started the Basalt Seed Library and the Basalt Community Food Park as well as opening an herbal Product line called Dynamic Roots. After many years of farming and running her herbal product business, she decided to devote herself fully to farming medicinal herbs. Stephanie partnered with Sustainable Settings Ranch in Carbondale Colorado and opened Biodynamic Botanicals in 2015. She is a full-time farmer and educator. She has recently started 35 acre farm in Puerto Rico that combines her love of medicinal herbs, agroforestry, subsistence farming, tropical climates and ocean life with teaching and rural, large scale Permaculture Design. Stephanie is a Certified Permaculture Designer, an educator in the fields of Greenhouse Management, Seed Saving, Food Forests, Biodynamics, Herbalism and more. She has presented at conferences such as the Boulder Bioneers, the North American Permaculture Convergence, the American Herbalists Guild and the Biodynamic Association. She works with groups of all ages to further their knowledge of these topics through regular public workshops such as CRMPI, Colorado Mountain College, The Grow Network, and the Denver Permaculture Guild as well as co-hosting the Living Permaculture Show, a monthly radio show on public radio KDNK. Stephanie is committed to community service through education and demonstration of herbal self-care and sustainable farming practices.
Daniel Whitney
Stephanie Syson
Stephanie Syson
Daniel, co-founder of Caribbean Agroforestry Institute, has his foundational roots in sustainable energy design with experience in mechanical systems including water, energy, and manufacturing. An engineer by education, he enjoys a diverse amount of creative endeavors to sharpen his skillset. Through design, manufacturing, machine repair, construction, irrigation techniques, sustainable systems designs.
With a Bachelors of Science degree from Colorado State University, Daniel has been active in Engineers Without Borders, working with water distribution projects in San Salvador, El Salvador, and a water filtration project for a community of 3,000 people in rural Tanzania. Through PhD level coursework in Energy Systems Manufacturing, Daniel worked in developing a thin-filmed photovoltaic manufacturing process at the Next Generation PV Center & the High Energy Physics and Plasma Engineering Lab of the Engineering Research Laboratories in Fort Collins, Colorado. Throughout the 2000’s he moved to practical applications of these technologies as a solar electric design engineer in residential and commercial projects. Holding certifications from the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) with licenses in both Installation and Sales, worked with Ecosystems Designs and the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI) in Basalt, Colorado, as well as Third Millennium Alliance at the Jama-Coaqui research station outside of Pedernales, Ecuador. Mr. Whitney’s most recent project includes the successful design and installation of a 3,000 cubic foot crop dehydration unit for Biodynamic Botanicals, LLC, funded through a grant from the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE). Highlights from this project include renewable electrical energy systems in a mobile and replaceable design while maintaining a finished product of the highest quality and efficiency. In its first season of use, this system doubled the companies sales.
Jerome Osentowski
Jerome Osentowski
Jerome Osentowski
Jerome Osentowski Founder and Director of the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt Colorado. A forager and permaculturist with roots in rural Nebraska, Jerome lives in a passive solar home he built at 7200 feet above Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. A permaculture designer for thirty years, he has built five greenhouses for himself and scores of others for private clients and public schools in the Rockies and beyond. He makes his living from an intensively cultivated one acre of indoor and outdoor forest garden and plant nursery, which he uses as a backdrop for intensive permaculture and greenhouse design courses.
Among his accomplishments is hosting the longest-running Permaculture Design Course in the world, now at thirty four years running. Jerome has also been instrumental in identifying, conserving, and propagating heritage fruit trees that have survived and borne crops for over a century in the harsh environment of the Roaring Fork Valley. Jerome’s explorations of sustainable systems and his travels for development projects have taken him to Baja, Nicaragua, Patagonia, Finland, Australia, and the Caribbean
Kareen Erbe
Jerome Osentowski
Jerome Osentowski
Kareen Erbe is a certified permaculture designer and has been teaching permaculture and gardening workshops through her business, Broken Ground, for 9 years. She and her husband live on a suburban cold climate permaculture homestead in Bozeman, Montana. She has a BSc. in Environmental Science and completed an advanced permaculture program taught by Geoff Lawton, at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. Kareen has also trained with Rosemary Morrow, author of the Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture. Additional studies include Master Gardener and Master Composter Certifications, training in Ecology Action’s Grow Biointensive methods, and participation in a Food Forest Design Charrette with author, teacher and designer, Dave Jacke. She has also worked as a permaculture consultant for the sustainability organization, GoodtoChina, in Shanghai, China, and is currently the permaculture advisor for Bodhi Farms in Bozeman.
Kareen is currently on the faculty of the Online Women’s Permaculture Design Course and the Green Path Herb School. She has been a regular contributor to Rocky Mountain Gardening Magazine, Permaculture Women Magazine, and was featured in The New Pioneer. Learn more about Kareen at brokengroundpermaculture.com or through her youtube channel here.
Guest Instructors
MARIA BENEDETTI
María Benedetti is an ethnobotanical researcher and educator raised in New York City. A student of anthropology, linguistics, literature and the art of writing, she has worked as an educational journalist (culture, ecology, environment, botanical medicine) since the 1980s. Her maternal family left their native city of Mayagüez during the 1920s in order to start anew in Manhattan.
Deeply identified with Puerto Rican music, food and family celebrations, María studied Spanish in New York and Sevilla. She also studied Puerto Rican literature, history, culture and folklore at Hunter College. She combined these interests with her love for nature, cultivated by her father’s Hungarian/Irish family. After ten years of ethnobotanical studies in New York with Susun S. Weed, "Wildman" Steve Brill and with Hudsonia – an environmental education NGO associated with Bard College – she travelled to Puerto Rico for the first time in 1987, eager to learn about and write about the Puerto Rican tradition of botanical medicine. This experience is documented in her first book, Earth and Spirit: Medicinal plants, remedies and spiritual healing from Puerto Rico (¡Hasta los baños te curan!)
ABEL DEL RIOS
Abel is hard to keep up with whether descending into an underground cave or following his humor. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? This 85 year old Boricua would say mid-30s. A generational Puerto Rican, collector of strange plants, distiller of spirits, and man of the forests, the wisdom and warmth Abel provides is unforgettable.
DAVID PEREZ
To call David, all you need to do is cup your hands around your mouth and yell 'Daaaavvveeeeeeeed!' A true Machetero of the land, David has extensive experience with natural building utilizing native hardwoods. A multi generational Puerto Rican thriving throughout the cuevas (caves) and forests around the teaching site for over 50 years. A trip behind David with his Machete through Permaculture Zone 5 forests reveals an emotionally moving learning experience, leaving you breathless and imprinted for a lifetime.
MICHAEL JUDD
Michael Judd has worked with agro-ecological and whole-system designs throughout the Americas for over two decades, focusing on applying permaculture and ecological design. His projects increase local food security and community health in both tropical and temperate growing regions. He is the founder of Ecologia Edible & Ecological Landscape Design, Project Bona Fide, an international nonprofit supporting agro-ecology research, and SilvoCulture, a Maryland based nonprofit which is helping plant 1 million nut trees in the Mid-Atlantic region. He is also the author of Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist, and For the Love of PawPaws.
Michael lives with his family on a permaculture homestead nestled along the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Frederick, Maryland. The Judds’ homestead consists of 25 acres of mixed woodlands, food forests, gardens, and a nursery designed for experimentation and education.
ADRIÁN FIELDER, PH.D.
Assistant Dean of Instruction, Colorado Mountain College
As a scholar and practitioner, Adrián’s work addresses two related inquiries at the nexus of philosophy, culture and sustainability: 1) how the modern history of Western thought catalyzed the emergence of imperialism and its radical disruptions/exploitations/enslavements of people, stories, ideas, matter and energy (i.e. the “Anthropocene”); and 2) how culture bears witness to that revolution, and most importantly, how it gives us tools to recreate regenerative relationships with each other and with Pacha Mama. During his decade as a button-down academic, he published widely on his fieldwork with Sustainable Development projects in a variety of places urban and rural, including France, India, Morocco, Senegal, Mexico and multiple regions of the U.S. Leaving behind the scholarly life, for ten years he directed an outreach literacy program to thousands of families from every point on the socio-economic spectrum, from every ethnic/cultural background and from every kind of neighborhood in the greater Chicago, Detroit and New York City areas. He then returned to higher education in 2009 to help Colorado Mountain College (CMC) launch its first bachelor program, a B.A. in Sustainability Studies that has since graduated dozens of highly motivated systems thinkers who now fill a variety of niches in their communities’ ongoing Transitions to post-carbon economies. After three decades of repeatedly getting his mind blown wide open by studying and working at Permaculture and Agroecology Restoration sites on five continents, he finally got his Permaculture Design Certificate with Geoff Lawton in 2017 and has been teaching PDC courses at CMC ever since. An avid aficionado of story and cuisine, he learns at least one local dish and one folk tale in every place he visits.EDUCATIONPh.D. in Comparative Literacy/Cultural Studies, Northwestern University, 2002Fulbright Fellow, Morocco, 1999-2000Expert Certification, Global Environmental Education, Cornell University, 2016National Certification in Community Organizing, Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, 2015Wildcrafting Certification, Roaring Foragers, 2015M.A. in Francophone Postcolonial Studies, University of Utah, 1997B.A. in Comparative Area Studies, Duke University, 1995
Juan Echevarria
Juan Echevarria
Juan Echevarria
Recognizing the tremendous potential of cacao, Juan was driven to share his inspiration with the entire island of Puerto Rico. Their focus shifted from solely developing his own farm to creating an industry for the cultivation of Fine and Aroma Cacao across the region. He named this vision Proyecto Pais, meaning "Island-wide project". His project garnered media attention in Puerto Rico, generating growing public interest. This prompted him to offer workshops on cacao farming, uniting individuals and creating an industry by developing farms throughout the island. Today, the crop continues to thrive across the country. Their legacy to Puerto Rico is the development of an industry that provides opportunities for its people.
Juan Miranda
Juan Echevarria
Juan Echevarria
Rare fruit collector, master plant nursery man and physicist! Juan’s site is a botanical fruit wonderland. Juan is a grafting master and we are thrilled to include a private farm tour for our PDC and Agroforestry Students.