Laura Ruby earned her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2002 from Crystal Waters EcoVillage in Australia. Since then, she has been implementing permaculture systems on her own urban property in downtown Boulder, CO, and for her clients in the area. She moved to Western North Carolina in 2013 and is designing and implementing a 56-acre Permaculture education center and event space. For the past 8 years, Laura has worked with 16 public schools in Colorado and Western North Carolina, working to install gardens and outdoor classrooms, as well as interweave Core Curriculum into Project Based Learning cross curricular lessons.
To complement her work in schools, Laura also started Yummy Yards, an edible landscape design and consulting company. She also co-taught and co-facilitated the first for-credit Permaculture Design Course at the University of Colorado and taught the first Permaculture Design course for 11- to 17-year-olds through Colorado University’s Science Discovery Program. She also ran the urban farming segment for the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. She is both a Certified Permaculture Teacher and a Colorado Master Gardener, and she holds an MBA in Sustainable Business Development from Green Mountain College. She co-facilitates the Wild Abundance Permaculture Design Course along with Natalie Bogwalker.
Sam Kenworthy is a water systems specialist and landscape manager with nearly a decade of experience in the tropics. He has experience designing and developing educational curriculum for students of all ages, particularly focused on conservation, practical skill building, and applied research. Originally from the east coast of the United States, Sam currently resides on the southern Pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.
Dedicated to continued learning and improving his skill sets, he is passionate about self sufficiency, water management, generating more and better yields, and well executed design for human eco-systems. Experienced in working in a wide variety of environments, he enjoys the process of designing around problematic landscapes. Sam holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Political Science and Hispanic Studies. Sam and his business partner, Scott Gallant, are the core team of Porvenir Design.
Christie Carr co-manages The Yoga Farm with her husband, Patrick McMahon. Christie has been co-running this permaculture project and yoga retreat off the grid in southern Costa Rica for eleven years. She earned her Certificate of Permaculture Design from Wild Abundance in 2015. Christie loves growing and eating fruits and vegetables, learning from the natural world, and sharing this love with others.
Patrick McMahon co-manages The Yoga Farm with Christie. Pat is learned and experienced in off-grid solar energy systems, and potable water and rain water collection systems. Pat is passionate about natural building and turning dreams into reality.
