2024 Permaculture Technology Jamboree

Chris McClellan

Instructor

Uncle Mud (aka Chris McClellan) raises free-range, organic children in the wilds of northeast Ohio. Between building things out of mud and junk he writes for Mother Earth News Magazine and teaches simple DIY skills at workshops and fairs.

Paul Wheaton

Host/Instructor

Paul Wheaton, The Duke of Permaculture, is an author, producer, and certified advanced master gardener. He has created hundreds of youtube videos, hundreds of podcasts, multiple DVDs, and written dozens of articles and a book. As the lead mad scientist at Wheaton Labs, he's conducted experiments resulting in rocket stoves and wood ovens, massive earthworks, solar dehydrators and much more. 

James Juczak
Instructor

James is an author/lecturer on topics such as self-reliance, true sustainability, building off-grid energy systems and mortgage-free housing. He has had numerous articles published; his book "The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging, 2nd ed." is currently available and he is presently writing several other books. He has been dubbed "The King of Scrounge". Jim has taught energy, solar certification and electronics as an adjunct professor at three colleges. He has also worked as a Community Energy Educator in 10 northern New York counties. He also brought skills to Kandahar, Afghanistan where he worked as a civilian contractor with the US Army's 10th Mountain Brigade teaching appropriate technologies to the US and Afghan armies as well as the local civilian population. Jim lives with his wife, Krista, in their round, cordwood and papercrete home on the property where they have established an off-grid intentional community. He is an EMT and an adjunct professor at SUNY Jefferson where he teaches the NABCEP Solar Installers course.

Austin Durant

Instructor

Austin Durant has been playing with his food his whole life, and fermenting it for over ten years. In 2011, he created Fermenters Club with a mission: To improve people’s lives by teaching them why and how to make and enjoy fermented foods; and to create communities that are connected through their guts. He teaches classes (online courses and hands-on workshops) on many fermented food traditions such as sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kombucha, miso, as well as seasonal specialties. He writes and shares recipes, videos and other fermentation adventures on his blog, fermentersclub.com. An otherwise permie newbie, Austin tends to his small garden in zone 10a, urban/coastal San Diego, California.

Opalyn Rose

Instructor

Opalyn Rose has been exploring a truly raw-material life while stewarding land and community in south-central Washington. Opalyn tends the sheep and the forest, transforming a fleece or a tree into not only yarn and lumber but clothing and snowmen too.  She brings her love of that transformation to the classroom sharing her skills while helping you develop yours.

Beau Davidson

Instructor

Beau is an audio engineer and music producer, and natural building contractor and consultant. Currently Beau resides on his multi-generational family farm in South Central Kansas, where he makes innovative, ecologically-contextualized structures, landscapes, and spaces out of the physical materials at hand. Currently they have an ecological research initiative to tend the borderland between philosophy and practice of resource-stewardship, creativity, and whole-living.

Mike Haasl

Instructor

Mike Haasl is a mechanical engineer, woodworker, blacksmith, and permaculture homesteader in northern Wisconsin.  He constructed a sweet greenhouse, builds with pallets and upcycled material, and experiments with compost heat.  He is developing a demonstration site for permaculture homesteading, and is collaborating to create the SKIP program.

Justin Popa

Instructor

Justin is a metal worker from Michigan with crunchy tendencies.  After spending all his money on a welding engineering degree, he pursued his true passion of historic technology as a museum blacksmith.  For the last 7 years he has shared his love of hot metal with the public while building and repairing items with 18th century hand tools. Always looking to learn more traditional skills, he has worked on cob, strawbale, and thatching projects at the Strawbale Studio in Michigan.

Michael Otten

Instructor

Michael Otten (Stoic the Dirt Hippy) is a traveling earth builder, sustainable developer and appropriate technologies enthusiast based out of New Mexico. Michael likes to share his work and educate through his Youtube channel "Building With Stoic".

Eliot Mason

Instructor

Eliot likes tacos

Clint Holmes

Instructor

Clint likes to watch clouds.

JR Megee

Instructor

JR has had a successful handyman business for 15 years. He's currently working on a chemical-free remodel project, is a permaculture enthusiast, and a certified Garden Master.  JR is a graduate of Geoff Lawton's online permaculture design course, a frequent visitor to Wheaton Labs, a Boot Camp ringer, and a lifelong learner with a growing desire to teach.

Tim Owen

Instructor

Tim kills it at the macarena.