Alumni Profiles
Aaron Betesh | Oakland, CA/Haiti
Aaron is a permaculturalist and natural/green builder. He recently completed a green remodel of a hip neighborhood bar in Oakland, CA. When he is not working as a green builder, Aaron in Haiti with the non-profit called SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) http://www.oursoil.org/ whose mission is to build composting toilets in rural and slum communities throughout Haiti in order to return much needed organic matter back into Haiti’s depleted soils while limiting the amount of human waste that enters the rivers and spreads disease. During his last trip to Haiti, Aaron helped SOIL complete their 45th toilet - this one at a school. In the future, Aaron would like to live in Haiti and work with SOIL for the majority of each year on composting, rain harvesting, rocket stoves, and more.
Alessa Zaias | Puerto Rico/Florida
With her experience as a permaculturalist and organic farmers, Alessa founded a permaculture center in Puerto Rico. The center will offer permaculture design courses as well as a variety of hands-on short course that meet identified community needs and interests. In addition, she is starting a CSA for local residents and restaurants, as well as developing a number of value-added products that she and her partner will sell at the local farmer’s market. Contact Kendall Dunnigan, the Sustainable Communities faculty, if you would like to visit Alessa’s center in Puerto Rico.
Andy Toomajian | Boston, MA
Andy Toomajian is a Designer, Natural Builder, Gardener, Handy-Person and a heckuva cook currently living in Boston, MA. After graduating from the BA program in 2004, he moved to New Mexico, where worked as a Construction Trainer with a local YouthBuild program on a LEED certified supported living facility for a local teen shelter. He recently moved to New England, where he is pursuing a Masters degree in Architecture. Andy is passionate about the potential of thorough and collaborative design processes to ameliorate many of our societal ills and injustices. He is joyously engaged to a practicing Midwife and Herbalist, Jessie Groneman, and enjoys the heck out of reading, people watching, talking and laughing, and playing banjo for his beautiful baby boy.
Bryan Kwee | Oakland, CA
Since graduating from the BA in Sustainable Communities, Bryan has contributed his infections enthusiasm for creative re-use, the arts, and community service by working in the following projects:
- a construction site director for Habitat For Humanity East Bay
- a volunteer in HFH's National Build-a-thon in Gulf Port, MS & New Orleans, LA
- a wilderness therapy field instructor for Second Nature Entrada out of Saint George, Utah in which he lead backpacking expeditions in the backcountry of southern Utah with youth with substance abuse problems & psychological disorders
- the founder of Skinwalker Creative Reuse Crafts utilizing only appropriate technologies crafting discarded materials into unconventional everyday items. See:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66599563@N00/sets/72157594496906986/
skinwalker.etsy.com - a mosquito abatement bicycle courier for Pestec Integrated Pest Management Providers
in San Francisco, California which has locate, inspect, treated over 22,000 catchment basins in the San Francisco city with an ecologically sound & reduced risk microbial larvacide
Elliot Bouthillier | San Francisco, CA
Elliot has been working for the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley since graduating from the Sustainable Communities BA in 2004. He is currently applying to the UCB Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning graduate program. He plans to pursue urban ecological/social justice design. His particular interest lies with addressing regional water issues (which was the focus of his thesis). He lives in the Mission District of San Francisco, where his friends and burritos are within arms reach.
Janet Barocco | Santa Rosa, CA
Janet Barocco is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. She is a gardener, home herbalist, visual artist, and certified massage practitioner. She lives in a suburban home that she recently upgraded for energy efficiency and surrounded by an edible landscape. For Janet, cultivating their home orchard and gardens provides daily sustenance, artistic inspiration, and interaction with natural cycles. Her thesis project, “A Taste of Self-Reliance: Food and Medicine from the Home Garden,” promotes kitchen and herb gardening as a practical pleasure and a positive, personal response to the challenges of energy scarcity, climate change, and the stresses of modern life.
Kassandra Olsen | Sebastopol, CA
After graduating from the BA program, Kassandra was certified in Permaculture and Ecovillage Design through Lost Valley Educational Center's two month training program. She traveled to the gulf coast where the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina lay. Armed with oyster mushroom spawn and a big heart, she taught classes that installed mycoremediation systems to address toxins in the soil spread by flooding. In the summer of 2006 she returned to Lost Valley to assist with the Permaculture and Ecovillage design program through an internship. She is currently residing in Sebastopol and continuing her journey as a permaculturalist and community activist.
Leslie Jackson | Oakland, CA
Since graduating, Leslie has worked on several straw bale and earthen buildings in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern California, and published (that is typeset, designed, edited, copyedited, managed the printing and marketing of, etc.) two editions of Rocket Mass Heaters (www.rocketstoves.com); and spread a lot of mud on walls.
She recently managed the remodel of a cob house in the shape of a sea turtle in the back yard of a home in Oakland's Lake Merritt neighborhood; spread the word about Rocket Mass Heaters by presenting at workshops and festivals, worked on a few websites. She is currently engaged in several natural building projects, practicing Tai Chi, and playing with a few publishing ideas. See details at her website (www.mudfest.net). She also plays in a North African Classical band, Azidan, and is gearing up for a season of performances.
Lisa Mekis | Oakland, CA
After graduating, Lisa Mekis became the Director of the Green Living Center in San Francisco. Lisa has a background in community building and ecology in the U.S. and abroad. She is a permaculture teacher and has taught community workshops as well as college level certification courses. Lisa also works as a facilitator and project manger. She focuses on the re-design of the governance structures and services, and facilitates governance groups. Recently, Lisa has expanded her keen permaculture and facilitation skills to project manage green re-modeling housing projects. Personally, Lisa is committed to wise personal development and ecologically sound social evolution.
Sasha Rose (aka Benedetti) | Forestville, CA
After graduating from the BA program in 2001, Sasha was inspired to support young people in becoming more aware of themselves and their world, and to take action to create positive change. She worked with high school students in West County to start the Youth Action Council, a group that teaches others and engages in service projects to improve their campus, community and wilderness areas. She also worked as a trainer for Community Matters and traveled throughout California to facilitate two day leadership trainings to teach middle and high school students tools to stop violence and create a more tolerant campus environment. While working for Coastwalk, she created a summer youth program that convenes high school leaders for an intensive week camping on the coast with a focus on building leadership skills, hiking, doing restoration and trail building projects and creating a supportive community for the next generation of environmental leaders. She was married to Adam Schaible in a grove of redwoods in the summer of 2003 and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Sophia, in spring of 2005. She is currently working on earning her teaching credential and will be teaching elementary school next year.
