Staff

Tatek Assefa, Program Coordinator

Tatek comes to the CWC from his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin where he grew up in the multicultural/international Eagle Heights neighborhood. His interest in learning about other people’s worldview began at his elementary school (which was comprised of students from over 70 nations) and followed him to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Religious Studies. After traveling, living and working abroad (including two years as a public school teacher in Daegu, South Korea); Tatek returned to Madison and enrolled in the Sustainability Leadership graduate program at Edgewood College while serving as an AmeriCorps member working with and mentoring “at-risk” youth in Dane County.

He first came across the Center for Whole Communities by way of the Whole Measures tool, while trying to design a just and holistic metric to assess community engagement for a class project. After further research he became an admirer of the mission, values, and vision that guide CWC. Social, global, and environmental justice and equality have been philosophically in line with Tatek’s personal values for as long as he can remember and he has consciously lived his life in a manner that reflects this. As the sole person of color in his graduate school cohort, he became acutely aware of the dearth of varied voices in the sustainability conversation, which led him to research, develop and work on projects specifically designed to move people towards social and environmental justice and equity. Utilizing his past experience developing, coordinating, and implementing educational programming/services to a wide range of learners, as well as his extensive work with people from a variety of nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, and ideologies, Tatek is excited by the opportunity to serve the Center for Whole Communities, its network of leaders, and their organizations and communities.

Email: tatek (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Molly Bagnato, Development and Outreach Associate

After finishing her degree at the University of Vermont, Molly moved to Jackson, WY to take an internship with The Murie Center. She fell in love with the story of the Muries, their balanced view and approach to protecting what they valued and their outrageous passion for wildness. Their legacy created the foundation for her approach to conservation. After five years as program director, Molly left to coordinate the Teton Sustainability Project. She than worked as project coordinator for an integrative healthcare nonprofit and studied the interconnectedness of our spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical health, learning how we view the earth and how we view ourselves often fall inline. Her most recent position as Farm Manager for the Jackson Whole Grocer pulled together all she felt passionate about. She ran a 1 acre farm, managed the regional farm to market initiative, and marketed local food for its cultural, nutritional, economical, community and environmental value. After eight years she moved back to Vermont to be closer to the things she loves and although the Tetons often call to her, she’s glad to be home. She lives in Waitsfield with her partner Todd and their pets Hodi and Vida Blue. When not at work you can find her exploring the outdoors by means of skis, bike, feet or boat.

Email: molly (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Alex Bauermeister, Senior Program Manager

Alex comes to CWC by way of professional experience in the nonprofit, government, and private sectors. Most recently, she spent 3.5 years working to transform American marine fisheries policy with Environmental Defense Fund’s Boston office. Through this work, she experienced and learned incessantly from the friction and inequity that can emerge between conservation advocates, governmental leaders, and fishing communities. By exploring whole communities’ strategies, she worked with a broad coalition of partners to craft a pilot program with Rhode Island charter boat captains to merge conservation objectives with community regulatory empowerment. Alex has had the privilege of diverse educational experiences in the United States, Germany and Switzerland. Her degrees include a Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Development (Brandeis University) and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Sociology (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). Her training includes systems thinking (Donella Meadows Fellowship), facilitative leadership (Interaction Institute for Social Change), management consulting (Boston Consulting Group), and yoga instruction (Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health).

Email: alex (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Peter Forbes, Co-Founder

Note: Peter is on sabbatical until May 2012. Peter Forbes is a farmer and conservationist, and an artist of imagery, written word and carved wood. He is also a public speaker and facilitator. A student of the relationship between land and people, he’s worked throughout the world to record and protect our human relationships with the land. Peter's life-long pursuit is to be a witness and storyteller of the bond between people and the land, and to translate what he has learned into a new form of leadership. Peter co-founded Center for Whole Communities after eighteen years leading conservation projects for the Trust for Public Land. Peter helped to protect threatened portions of Thoreau's Walden Woods; he launched a program to protect and revitalize urban gardens and farms across New England; he helped to add 20,000 acres of wild lands to New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest, and he created the Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, to promote the life ways of renowned land and social activists Helen and Scott Nearing. Through the success of more than one hundred conservation projects, Peter earned a national reputation as being a champion of a new brand of community-based conservation where the health of the people and the health of the land are viewed as equal.

Peter founded the Center for Whole Communities to do what he could to strengthen and connect movements for social and environmental change by looking deeply at the issues that devide us from one another and from the land. At the core of this work are tools such as inquiry, story, deep listening, transformational leadership, and relationship-building across lines of race, class and ideology.

Peter’s photography and essays have appeared in many books and journals. (Link to Peter's public talks and essays.) Others have written of Peter's thinking and storytelling that he is "a national treasure whose groundbreaking work is a stunning reminder of why land conservation is still so important." He is the editor of Our Land, Ourselves: Readings on People and Place and he is the author of The Great Remembering: Further Thoughts on Land, Soul and Society (TPL/Chelsea Green, 2001). His essays have also appeared in Coming to Land in a Troubled World (Center for Land and People/Chelsea Green) His photographs of homesteader and social activist, Bill Coperthwaite, are published in "A Handmade Life", which won first prize in 2003 from the Independent Bookseller's Association for most inspiring story.

Email: peter (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Jenny Helm, Administrative Fellow

Jenny has leaped into life in Vermont after recently graduating from Colby College with a degree in Environmental Science.  While working toward her degree, some of her greatest learning and personal growth came from a semester spent in Namibia. There, she worked with a team of local people and researchers to help residents gain rights over their traditional wild foods and medicines in an area where harvesting had recently been banned under a new designation as a national park. This experience led to an ever-increasing interest in the complex relationships between people, society, and the natural world.

Before arriving at Knoll Farm, Jenny worked for the Farm and Wilderness Foundation, where she taught outdoor living skills, gardening, and woodworking, led backpacking and canoeing trips, and developed a great love of building community. Jenny is particularly interested in small-scale agriculture, self-sufficiency, local food systems, and empowerment through the development of useful hand skills.  She is most frequently found gallivanting up and down mountains, building things, and practicing for lumberjacking competitions that focus on traditional logging skills. Jenny joins us at Knoll Farm in a year-round capacity after working as an intern for the past two summer retreat seasons.

Email: jenny (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Mary Lake, Farm Manager

For the past three years Mary has started an educational journey to become a shepherd that will likely last her entire life. Along with apprenticing with shepherd Helen Whybrow, Mary has worked with masters in processing wool and meat. Her definition of shepherd has taken on additional titles such as shearer, butcher, spinner and knitter. Her degree in journalism keeps her writing about her experiences and other sheep and goat topics for the Vermont Sheep and Goat Association, where she is the editor of their newsletter and their membership maven. At Knoll Farm, Mary will be tending to animals and plants and testing some of the skills she's developed in the past few years under the guidance of Helen and other great mentors.

Email: mary.m.lake (at) gmail (dot) com

Ginny McGinn, Executive Director

Ginny is a mother, wife and passionate social change leader. Through her career she has been an advocate for education, the environment, and transformational change in the areas of diversity, power and privilege. She brought her strong communication skills, strategic thinking and management to the nonprofit environmental education organization Bioneers for more than eight years, first as Managing Director, then Deputy Director and finally President. Her organizational leadership helped Bioneers grow into a cutting-edge cultural phenomenon that communicates a timely message of sustainability and social change.

Ginny was previously a marketing director at Odwalla Inc., and most recently has served as Director of Advancement at Santa Fe Preparatory School, serving the mission of the school through fundraising, communications, strategic planning, and helping to create access to world-class education for students from diverse backgrounds. She brings her heart felt caring to building, maintaining and improving organizations through authentic relationships and a commitment to creating a sustainable future.

Ginny is on the advisory board of Breakthrough Santa Fe, part of the national Breakthrough Collaborative, a tuition free program supporting under-served public school students on a path to college. Ginny serves on the advisory board for Alliance for Earth.

Email: ginny (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Kevin McMillion, Office Manager

As our office manager, Kevin keeps entire administrative world, including our book keeping, on track.  He’s passionate about learning new “old” skills and the relationship between land and people.  He’s an avid outdoorsman, bowl and spoon carver, telemark skier, cyclist and soccer player.  Kevin loves to cook and fosters a close connection to his food source; he can often be found foraging for wild foods in the Mad River Valley.  He also loves music and is always searching for new recordings to listen to and share.  Kevin lives in Waitsfield with his wife Jessie, their two daughters, Eliza and Annibel, a dog named Blue, and Turtle, the cat.

Email: kevin (at) wholecommunities (dot) org

Taz Squire, Land Steward and General Contractor

Taz Squire is a...carpenter, carver, car and bike mechanic, welder, photographer, advocate for social and racial justice, race car aficionado, cyclist, skier, climber...a good old-fashioned Renaissance Man. And did we mention he has a soft spot for classic Austin Mini wagons and dingo dogs? He's one of those rare people who can fix most anything, build most anything, bike or ski most anything, and is simultaneously always on the lookout for new interests and challenges.

Taz loves working with his hands, close to the land and community. As a child growing up in Maine, he worked with is father and formed the foundation for the building and machinery skills he possesses today. He spent many years off the grid in Downeast Maine with a mentor, Bill Coperthwaite (above-mentioned social activist, educator, and author of “A Handmade Life”).

Bill forged his own path on his own land, creating a life and lifestyle based on simplicity and self-reliance, always grounded in the majesty and utility of that which is made by one’s own hands. With Bill, Taz acquired skills in experiential education, yurt building, hand tool use, carving, trail building, and an understanding of and reverence for the land. Taz has also been a student in more traditional educational settings at the University of Maine, Machias and Naropa University, Boulder, where he focused on Peace Studies.

Over time, Taz has worked as a carpenter, snow maker, cook, goldsmith, timber framer, park ranger, and bike mechanic. For many years, he spent falls and springs at the Mountain Institute, and summers at Farm & Wilderness, doing carpentry, maintenance, and program delivered experientially. He eventually committed full-time to Farm & Wilderness as Physical Plant Manager and one of the five COOs. He remained there for 15 years.

Taz has been involved with Center for Whole Communities since its inception, by taking part in the initial visioning process for its future direction. He is excited to be an active and present participant in the work of Knoll Farm and Whole Communities.

Email: taz (at) wholecommunities (dot) org