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Faculty

Geoff Hall

Geoff Hall is a licensed Landscape Contractor, and has been a major contributor in the design and operation of two primary Permaculture centers in California. He is a committed and effective educator in the fields of Permaculture and ecological design. He has extensive professional experience in the design and construction of both residential and commercial landscape designs that reflect his deep commitment to ecological principles. Geoff has been a consultant for the Alameda County Waste Management Agency for three years and has made numerous contributions to the widely-recognized "Bay-Friendly Landscape Guidelines". He has extensive teaching experience, and his resume includes lectures and workshops for the Permaculture Institute of Northern California, the U.S. Green Building Council Redwood Empire Chapter, and the Sonoma State University Green Building Professional Certificate Program.

Frédérique Lavoipierre

Frédérique Lavoipierre is a sustainable landscape educator and freelance writer with extensive professional experience in sustainable landscaping for Mediterranean climates and edible and school gardens. She has been published in Pacific Horticulture, Bay Nature, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She holds an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree in Garden Ecology and Communication from SSU, where she is completing a master's degree in Biology. Her work encompasses ecological principles of sustainable landscaping, soil food webs, water resources, and plant communities. Her special focus is on landscaping to attract beneficial insects. In addition to teaching, Frédérique is the director of the SSU Sustainable Landscape Program.

Kate Frey

Kate Frey's extensive expertise in sustainable landscaping began with her work at Fetzer Vineyards in Hopland, California, a nationally recognized laboratory and demonstration site for many leading-edge sustainability practices. She worked at Fetzer for 18 years, starting in 1986, where she managed and designed the six acre, profuse and colorful organic gardens, as well as seven acres of sustainable landscaping, combining plants appropriate to a hot inland climate with plants that encouraged biodiversity around the facilities. In 2003, her garden design at the Chelsea Flower Show in London won a silver medal, and in 2005 and 2007 her gardens--illustrating many elements of biodiversity and sustainability--won gold medals and were visited by Queen Elizabeth. She currently works as a consultant, designer, and teacher of sustainable landscaping and gardening and speaks and writes extensively about the subject.

Rick Taylor

Rick Taylor is a licensed landscape contractor with over ten years of experience in leading-edge sustainable land management practices and technologies, including alternative energy systems, organic maintenance programs, and grey/black water systems. He completed a 5 year apprenticeship in sustainable landscape design and construction and has received a Teacher Training Certificate from Ecological Design Training in California. Rick has led numerous workshops and lectures focused on sustainable landscape principles for both residential consumers and professionals, and he is a member of the City of Sebastopol's Design Review Board. In 2007, he received a 1st Place award in Sustainable Landscape Management from the Northern California Chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association.

Sean McNeil, M.A.

Sean McNeil is an instructor in the Sustainable Landscape Certificate Program at Sonoma State University, the owner of a small fruit tree nursery, and a water conservation practitioner for the City of Santa Rosa. He received his undergraduate degree in Botany from the University of California at Davis and a Masters in Biology from Sonoma State University. Sean's passion for positive stewardship of the environment originated during his childhood in Lake Tahoe, where concerns about the Lake's declining water quality were directly related to land use activities throughout the basin. Over the past 15 years he has deepened his expertise in environmental issues related to water by teaching Biology and Environmental Studies courses at the college level, managing large watershed-wide riparian restoration projects, and developing and implementing water conservation programs for the City of Santa Rosa.