I love operating in/at intersections, and think climate change bring a tremendous amount of differing fields/viewpoints together to try and achieve a common goal. Additionally, I’m an avid reader and love stumbling across new, interesting things to read so please share resources/influential reads.
Keren Reichler
Keren was born in Israel, grew up in Chicago, and resides in Berkeley, California. She currently works at Certified Employee-Owned as the Director of Membership, working to increase visibility and support for employee-owned businesses.
Prior to her current role, Keren spent several years working at the intersection of sustainable agriculture and social and economic justice. She helped to found a community garden and a garden-based education program while studying at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and more recently, Keren served as Program Manager at the Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz, CA.
Among other interests and curiosities, Keren loves all things food, farming, feminism, and fermentation.
Find Keren on LinkedIn.
Joseph Rousu
Joseph Rousu is the founder and Chief Operations Officer of Ogema Organics. He is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and resident of the White Earth Reservation. He is the youngest of six siblings and was raised off of the land. From an early age, values of sustainable resource management have been instilled through seasons of traditional harvests: maple sugar production, wild rice harvests, fishing and trapping.
Christina Jean-Louis
M.A. International Affairs, B.A Advertising/PR & Business Administration
Christina Jean-Louis is an entrepreneur, artist and expert in international development with over a decade of experience. She holds degrees in Advertising & PR, Business and International Development. She co-founded Eucalyptus Village, a real estate development venture which is also home to an award-winning auberge– Eucalyptus Guesthouse and community of homes located minutes from the international airport. She recently moved back to Haiti to do what she loves most: create jobs, channel creativity, and partner with those around her as they seek to maximize their potential. She currently serves an International Development, Communications & Business Consultant to a number of organizations across the country and oversees the operations of Eucalyptus Village. At her core, she works to ensure that all peoples have the freedoms to lead fulfilling lives with dignity.
Bridget Guiza
Bridget Guiza is the co-manager of Ogema Organics. She is from California and is of Mexican heritage. She was raised on the principle that food is medicine and strives to understand the intricate relationships between food, agriculture, sovereignty, and climate and environmental justice. Bridget Guiza is a scientist and planner by training. Her academic and personal interests are at the intersection of regenerative agriculture, public health, traditional ecological knowledge, and the adaptation of science and policy for tribal, local and regional planning. Her research interests include microbiology, geochemistry, agricultural restoration and plant biology, and climate change science & impacts. Bridget also served as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Northfield, Minnesota where she worked on a local food systems model in 2014.
Amy Short
Alchemical Entrepreneur and Baltimore native, Amy Short expresses her highest good and feels her happiest when working to create, shape, shepherd, and sustain participatory communities that engender personal and societal transformation. Amy’s vision of collective social impact includes her work through 2015 founding and growing NYC Social: a friend factory for young professionals in New York City that worked to eradicate loneliness and touched over 20,000 lives annually. Amy also spent several years as volunteer facilitator of the life-affirming Opening the Heart workshop and has established the Drug War Memorial, an online memorial for the casualties of the War on Drugs. Amy also serves on the board of the O+ Festival. You can find Amy walking the cobblestone streets of Lisbon, Portugal, playing in the dust of Black Rock City, tending to her backyard garden, and zooming around the Catskill mountains on her vintage Honda motorcycle.
Lauren Magrisso
I live in Stinson Beach, California. I enjoy dancing, spending time in nature, and hanging with family and friends. I live with my partner, Will and our four-legged friend, Obi. Will owns and operates a small scale organic vegetable farm and farmstand in Freestone, CA: Worker Bee Farm. Obi likes to chase birds on the beach and hunt for gophers on the farm.
For my vocational practice, I am founding Generativ Labs, a life-centered design studio. My background is in human-centered design, innovation, permaculture and transition design. My intention in participating in this class is to 1) build out the offering 2) run prototypes to test messaging and services 3) cultivate community with other people committed to creating a future that works for all life 4) transition more and more of my life force and financial energy to the next economy.
Jared Wood
I am a freelance writer and web designer in career shift. In 2012 I co-founded Villagecraft, a decentralized community education network that failed just as it was starting to appear sustainable. After that painful experience I’m here to better understand businesses, and how next economy principles can help create more opportunity for justice and right livelihood. As someone from a mixed-class family with a lot of institutional privilege, a musician and global citizen who walks in many different communities, I am starting to see how I might be bridge, signal boost, and entrepreneur, and I’m thinking and learning a lot about how to best be of service.
Jake Ifshin
Jake Ifshin is a community organizer, green entrepreneur and educator based in Silver Spring, Maryland. After being deeply inspired through leading his first garden program at Temple Emanuel Early Childhood Center, Jake decided to make a full-time commitment to sharing the joy of growing food and exploring nature. One of his specialties is making horticulture accessible to the youngest and oldest members of our society through innovative techniques and adaptive intergenerational programs. He brings his passions for nature, music and creativity to each of his projects.
Jake is the executive director of Everybody Grows, a non-profit that equips and inspires people in the Washington, DC area to grow their own food. He is also the proprietor of Ifshin Gardens, a business with the mission of connecting communities to nature through gardening, wilderness and regenerative programs that has partnered with companies such as Discovery Communications and Senior Lifestyle Corporation. Jake has a BA and MA from St. John’s College, where he studied philosophy, ancient languages and the history of science. As a musician, he has performed and directed ensembles in Washington, DC and New Mexico.
He has pursued many learning opportunities in his field, including a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) at the Center for Creative Ecology at Kibbutz Lotan and a certification as a DC Urban Master Composter.
Dann Moreno Alcala
A social entrepreneur that promotes impact investment and social business as means to transit to a juster and more sustainable paradigms. I work in the autonomous/state owned company that manages the power grid in Mexico. I am creating a social crowdfunding startup which aims to promote exclusively impact projects. I am also working with some fintech and blockchain related projects. I am very active in the social entrepreneurship, fintech, energy, environmental and blockchain technology.
I am passionate about the democratization of everything/ democratization of opportunities. I want to help to create systems that make easier for people to take ethical/responsible/sustainable/holistic/bioregional decisions.
Susan Fairchild
As the Director of Investor Relations & Impact at Green Canopy, Susan works to improve and bolster Green Canopy’s impact capital raising efforts, align impact investors capital to their values, manages and measures Green Canopy's impact metrics and theory of change. She has worked in the non-profit, philanthropic and business sectors – always with an eye towards impact. Susan holds an MPA from the University of Washington. Susan is an ultrarunner and her happiest of moments are when she, her husband and their two children are skiing or running in the mountains.
Monica Park
I’ve worked in apparel retail as a brand marketer for over 12 years gaining valuable experience and exposure to all aspects of the global industry and was grateful to discover the Next Economy Podcast and MBA as my values no longer aligned with the business as usual economy. I recently transitioned into a role at a recommerce startup called Yerdle, as a Strategic Partnerships Manager, joining a group of committed people tackling the enormous problem of apparel waste. I live in San Francisco and welcome any conversations about career transition to the Next Economy, the apparel industry, meaningful brand marketing and my sweet spot, bridging the worlds of old and new and nurturing change.
Misty Mulhall
Living in Berkeley, CA. Raising kids. Still figuring IT all out.
Grateful to be here! <3 Interested in gift econ/barter/timebanking principals, intentional living communities, and how these ideas can be used to help people in need. Just started taking permaculture classes and have some space with the hope to create a community garden. Lots of dreams. Hoping to bring them into physical reality soon.
Meg Erskine
The Multicultural Refugee Coalition is an innovative Austin non-profit creating livelihood opportunities for refugees through a unique blending of skills-based education and social entrepreneurship. We operate a textile manufacturing social enterprise- Open Arms Studio, an interpreter training business- Shared Voices Language Services, community gardens and a burgeoning commercial farm- New Leaf Agriculture as well as offering free and low-cost job-training and specific livelihood-focused community support of refugees’ journeys toward self-sufficiency.