One thing I learned working here
that surprised me: I wanted to support
sustainable agriculture. I didn’t know I
would end up becoming a farmer.
The weirdest thing in my office: A
plastic statue of Buddha on a cell phone.
Totem animal, vegetable, or mineral:
I was a crow in another life. My husband
says I was a boss cow.
Most influential book: The Way:
An Ecological World-View, by Edward
Goldsmith.
One event that would make a big
difference for my organization: If we
were able to legally separate business
and state.
KATE STEPHENSON runs Yestermorrow
Design/Build School in the Mad River watershed of Vermont ( www.yestermorrow.org).
With ten staff and a budget of $825,000, the
organization hosts more than twelve hundred students to learn “the integrated design
and building process, with a focus on sustainability and quality craftsmanship.”
They’ve been at it for twenty-eight years.
The worst thing I have to do:
Troubleshoot our online registration
system.
What delights me in my daily work:
Seeing people accomplish things they
never thought they could do.
One tool or resource that makes my
job easier: The digital camera.
I like to reward my co-workers with:
Little chocolates in their mailboxes.
How our organization “walks its
talk”: Through the adaptive reuse of our
main building—taking an old hotel and
turning it into a super-insulated, low-energy-consuming building. Feeding our
students, sta=, and instructors locally
grown, organic, homemade food. Buying
local lumber for our building projects.
Recycling everything. Giving back to the
local community by building projects for
local schools and nonpro>t groups.
How our organization expresses its
creativity: Put thirty-plus architects and
builders in a room together to design a
building. That’s creative!
The view out my office window: Our
edible forest garden and beehive.
The best season where I live:
Winter—this is a perfect place for skiing,
snowshoeing, and sledding.
The weirdest thing in my office: My
wooden sword.
One event that would make a big
difference for my organization: Federal
and state incentives for green building.
The Orion Grassroots Network provides
services to grassroots organizations
engaged in ecological, social, and
cultural change. For more information
visit www.orionsociety.org/ogn.
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