Staff & Boards

Staff

Carrie Campbell

Carrie is the co-founder and Director of Operations of the Natural Building Network. She is a designer and artist passionate about creating a world in which people feel a sacred connection to place as well as to each other. She assists people and communities in their reintegration back into the balance and abundance of thriving natural systems. She loves to design, build, and empower others through using cob, bamboo, round wood, reclaimed materials and natural plasters and paints. Carrie is a graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She lives in the sticks of Kentucky,  and spends part of the next building season at PermaLot Centre of Natural Building.

Jack Stephens

Jack Stephens, co-founder and Director of Communications, has been playing or living in wilderness since his days as a Boy Scout where he began honing his skills in wildcrafting, shelter and applied ecology. Lessons drawn from nature kindled an early passion for leadership development and spirituality and Jack has taught or coached throughout North America and Europe for the past 20 years. He has worked with individuals, businesses, organizations, and governments. He is a former office manager of the Cob Cottage Company, a permaculture designer, and an occasional cob-building teacher. Jack lives in Eugene, Oregon and Ojai, California.

Michael Blaha

Michael Blaha is an artist, web designer, natural builder and cob enthusiast. He keeps a blog about cob, natural building and related topics at I Love Cob!. Michael also runs Cob Workshops, a free listing for cob related events. Mic lives in Taos, New Mexico.

Action Board

Chris McClellan

Chris McClellan, specializes in information access and synthesis, connecting people and businesses around the world with the resources that support their livelihoods and further their passions for over 15 years. Chris’ micro-publishing company, IndustrialRustic, produces print-on-demand books, cd and dvds on natural building topics including strawbale curriculum and the work of SunRay Kelley. As an enthusiastic owner-builder, he sees here a unique opportunity to reintroduce expediency and sustainability as core elements in the increasingly complex social dance that building has become.

Linda Lloyd

NBN is a much needed organization that can help take the Natural Building movement into its needed position as we move forward questioning huge outlays for houses and buildings that are neither healthy, nor affordable, nor suited to our lives, and costly in terms of first cost for materials and ongoing costs for energy. I have had extensive experience in non-profit administration and related governmental and for profit businesses to include:
9 years on the Board of the Yestermorrow Design/Build School
2 years on Board of the Historic Harrisburg Association
Executive Director neighborhood non-profit housing development corp
Executive Director Mad River Valley Planning District
Owner/director Real Estate Institute of Pennsylvania
CEO Natural Systems Developers and Mariposa Project Director
Manager – The Quarries LLC, green development company
I shall look forward to working with such a dedicated group of builders and craftspeople.

Sasha Rabin

Sasha Rabin has a degree in Ecological Design from Evergreen State College. She has been involved in natural building since her apprenticeship with Cob Cottage Company in 2002. Following her apprenticeship she co-founded Seven Generations Natural Builders, a collective that is dedicated to teaching people how to house themselves using earth and straw construction techniques including cob, adobe, wattle and daub, light-clay straw, straw bale, natural plasters, and earthen floors. Since then she has been teaching and building throughout the US, including at the Yestermorrow Design-build School in Warren, VT, and currently teaches classes for the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA. She built herself a hybrid cob and straw bale cabin in eastern AZ where she lived until she recently relocated to the bay area, where she is working on an urban retrofit and permaculture project. She can be found infiltrating cob and bamboo into a suburban east bay neighborhood, and learning about how much food and housing can be created on 1/3rd of an acre by implement different living systems.

Goals for NBN board membership
One of the greatest strengths of the Natural Building Network is its drive and ability to unite natural builders and to remind us that the power of the movement is greater than any of us individually. This is the primary reason for my interest in NBN.
Throughout the last 6 years of teaching natural building workshops I have continually observed the positive effects that natural building has on people and communities.
How do we use the skills, knowledge and momentum we have gained as a movement to positively affect more people, landscapes, and environments, both urban and rural? I imagine my involvement with NBN to be a compelling way to explore answers to this question. One avenue that specifically interests me is the integration of Natural Building as a form of housing into urban ecosystems. I see the urban venue as an opportunity to share the natural building experience with a wider group of people who are not currently exposed to natural building. I see this being accomplished through a variety of creative educational experiences, and discovering new ways of teaching.
As a community of natural builders we have the strength to make profound changes in the ways that we relate to our built environment. I feel that because the Natural Building Network is a fundamentally uniting rather than divisive organization, it adds to the reality of making these changes happen.

Max Vittrup Jensen

Max Vittrup Jensen grew up building with Lego’s in his native Denmark, but dismissed them in favor of wooden poles and rope during his years as Boy Scout, activist and at a nature/wilderness school. After traveling the world he settled in the Pacific N.W, got involved in ‘Green Construction’ before retreating to a semi-solitude life in the woods for 2,5 years, gaining his own private Walden experience. Eventually he returned to Europe and settled in the rural hinterlands of Moravia, Czech Republic, with an aim of starting an Ecovillage based on permaculture principles. Max is the founder of the PermaLot Centre for Natural Building, has arranged 2 European Natural Building Colloqia and taught 100’s of youth to ‘Just Do It’, using mud, straw, willow and wood. Simultaneously with this he took a degree in Human Ecology, and topped it off with a M.Sc. in Environmental Management (as well as being busy building his straw bale house), and hope to use his permaculture and building knowledge to join various organisations “without Borders”.

I find we need to help to keep the terminology defined/clean. I started with ‘Green Construction’ as a ‘Green Builder’, then that expression got green-washed out, and I became an ‘Eco-builder’. Now I’m a ‘Natural Builder’, and I’m running out of imagination what to call myself, once this term starts including heat pumps, ‘eco-concrete’ and ‘Eco-styrofoam’…!!

Greg Wellman

Background
I was first introduced to natural building about ten years ago and have attended a variety of workshops and events over the years. In 2005, I started a new business venture to facilitate the development of small scale retreats that feature a variety of natural building methods and materials. The prototype site in Makanda, Illinois is opening this spring and will provide opportunities for natural builders and others with an interest to become potential owner/builders.

My consulting career spans over 25 years provides strategy and project management consulting services, primarily focused on addressing large complex challenges facing airports. Some of my key strength and capabilities include:
• Problem solving, communications and leadership. My focus has been integrating complex technical issues and translating them into meaningful terms for decision-making.
• Experienced facilitator working with a variety of groups including managers, boards, technical teams, public policy and citizen groups.
• Expertise includes strategic planning, process design, facilities planning, environmental analysis and financial analysis.
• Engaging leadership style, which often motivates teams to think creatively and find out-of-the-box solutions.

Education
• Bachelors of Science from Southern Illinois University in management and communications
• Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago (additional course work on New Venture Strategy, Negotiations & Decision Making, and Corporate Strategy)

NBN Board Contribution
I intend to use my business and entrepreneurial skills to help the Board navigate the many challenges that it will face over the next two years. One of the greatest assets of the NBN is the passion of its Board and members about natural building. The long-term success of this organization and the natural building movement will require this passion along with strong skills in a variety of disciplines, including management, finance, communication, and education.

Tim Owen Kennedy

Vital Systems Natural Building & Design is headed by original founders Tim Owen-Kennedy and Bill Camp. Tim is our resident designer, instructor and contractor. He has worked with ecological materials and designs for over 10 years and is a vital member of the natural building community in Northern California.

Vision Council

Laura Bartels,
GreenWeaver, Inc. Carbondale, Colorado

Michael Blaha,
I Love Cob!, Cob Workshops and Organic Arts, Taos, New Mexico

Warren Brush,
Quail Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm, New Cuyama, California

Alex Cicelsky,
The Center for Creative Ecology, Kibbutz Lotan, Israel

David Eisenberg,
Development Center for Appropriate Technology, Tucson, Arizona

Ianto Evans,
Cob Cottage Company, Coquille, Oregon

Joe Jenkins,
Joseph Jenkins, Inc., Grove City, Pennsylvania

Janell Kapoor,
Kleiwerks International, Asheville, North Carolina

Carolyn Marie,
Wild Earth Village Builders, Ojai, California

Carolyn Riege,
Earthen Touch Natural Builders, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Candy Vanderhoff,
poetrybench.com, San Diego, California

Catherine Wanek,
Straw Bale Central, Kingston, New Mexico