WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO COLORADO SPRINGS? For the past year and a half, I’ve been working at Emerge Aquaponics (in Black Forest) doing system design and farming. I grew up in Ohio and have a mechanical engineering background. I’ve lived all over the world doing different things.
FAVORITE CITY? In 1998, I lived for a year in Indonesia, working with a community development center, teaching people how to grow rice straw mushrooms as a business. It had an influence on my food tastes and preferences. Still today Thai green curry is one of my favorite dishes.
WHAT DRAWS YOU TO AGRICULTURE? You’re watching your plants and seeing how they’re growing, watching the fish and seeing what they need, and you have to be sensitive to both with aquaponics to keep a healthy, balanced system. There’s an organization called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) – I’d love to welcome people into that and also go out and be a part of it. Agriculture will always be needed. To care for the land, I think it’s who God made us to be. To steward the earth, to care for it, it’s who we are. Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve been involved with the local community, and food production is something I care deeply about.”
You can find Emerge lettuce in the produce cooler at Ranch Foods Direct.
