Green Sedona Board of Directors

Matthew G. Turner, Founder, Vibrant Sedona and Green Sedona

Matthew grew up Illinois, and New Hampshire, went to the University of NH for 3 years and studied Environmental Science, transferred to the University of NM, Albuquerque and finished his degree in Environmental Science.  During this time he did an internship as a tour guide in the jungles of Monteverde, Costa Rica.  Upon graduation, he decided he wanted to not only help the environment but people as well.  He went into Social Work as a full time career working as a Case Manager for dual diagnosed adults.  He worked with Psychiatrists and Psychologists on rehabilitation plans and community and environmental services and programs for the disabled population.  After 7 years of Social Work, Matthew decided he wanted to get solely involved in the environment as he felt the time was ripe for sustainability practices to actually be accepted by the mainstream.  Matthew has renovated 2 houses to be 'green' one in Asheville, NC and one in Austin, TX and built a small cabin in the woods of North Carolina that was built with completely green materials.  He has consulted privately for 8 years on green building practices and environmental issues, including 'sick buildings'.  He moved to Sedona in June of 2006, started Vibrant Sedona, and was instrumental in helping the city to switch to non-toxic herbicide use.  He is continuing his environmental work as founder of  Green Sedona to make Sedona a Model of Environmental Sustainability for the World.  

Suzy 'Chapstick' Chaffee, Native Voices Foundation

Michael Waters is a founder of the Global Alliance. The focus is finding solutions to global humanitarian and ecological problems and researching sustainable technologies. He is working with advanced solutions in the areas of advanced sustainable energy, propulsion, building systems, housing and community design, materials, organic food growth, water extraction and programming, bioremediation, health and longevity. A primary focus is in enabling significant assets to fund humanitarian and ecological projects. These assets are produced from new developments in ecological mining and high profit sustainable technology transition.  Michael developed an automated book preservation system now used worldwide at institutions such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives. This invention was instrumental in recovery efforts of the worst library fire of the last century in Petersburg, Russia.  He has owned several businesses, designed and built custom homes, aircraft, custom manufacturing systems and multi-axis robotics. He is also a bush pilot, competition sailplane pilot and owns an aviation Ecotourism business in Costa Rica.

Debra May, Educator

Debra May has a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and a Master's degree in Education.   She has an Arizona Gifted Endorsement and is certified as a Waldorf teacher.  Debra currently works as a teacher/consultant for approximately 170 families across the United States and around the world through a Waldorf based homeschool company.  She was an elementary teacher in the public school system, and she taught the school's Gifted program.  She led the school’s Earth Day activities each year.   While working for her certification as a Waldorf teacher, she worked at a Waldorf school for three years.  Debra has written and received two educational grants, one for a special gifted program and another for a gardening project.  Debra’s passion is her educational nonprofit, Foresight Leadership Institute. Her organization is dedicated to providing dynamic, experiential and service-oriented curriculum designed to empower our young generation of future leaders, build their social consciousness, and prepare them to effectively impact our planet’s future.  Teacher workshops are also being developed.  Debra’s hobby is teaching West Coast Swing and choreographing the first dance for couple’s weddings.  Debra intends to add her educational and communication skills to Green Sedona’s goal of creating a model of environmental sustainability and becoming an inspiration for other cities.

Gary Ehlenberger, Retired Staff Scientist, Member of the Technical Staff, Motorola

Jimmy Allen, Educator and Founder of

Inspirational Learning Academy

Founder of the Inspirational Learning Academy, Jimmy Allen has established an educational model for children that prepares students for the accelerated rate of personal and global change through a philosophy that emerges from life itself – energy.  Allen’s international training and experience in the fields of alternative education, Potential Education, Life Technology (quantum reality), martial arts, qigong, energy medicine and life coaching motivates him to contribute towards creating a peaceful, cooperative and sustainable future. Allen, a forth generation native to Arizona was an irrigation design engineer for the Norton Corporation specializing in golf courses, commercial and residential projects. He also owned and operated a landscape construction and maintenance company in Paradise Valley for 12 years.

Shayna Tovah DeArmon, Ecopsychologist

Shayna Tovah DeArmon, M.A. Ecopsychologist, specializes in Ecopsychological Sustainability Education. Her work spans three decades as an educator, trainer, and facilitator for individual youth and adults as well as for business, behavioral health, and traditional and non-traditional educational venues. Her life’s passion includes programs that cross cultural boundaries and aim to unite and balance the human and non-human worlds. Shayna Tovah is the founder of Ecopsychology Leadership Foundation and is an Advisory Board member of Institute of Cultural Awareness, 501C3 non-profit organization

Happy Oasis, Founder, Raw Food Festival

Happy Oasis is the Founder, President and Chief Visionary Officer of Raw Spirit Festival, www.rawspiritfest.com, a non-profit corporation.  Happy feels inexpressibly grateful to you for co-creating this dream of a healthier humanity and home planet, as well as an opportunity to live at least one weekend annually in heaven on Earth as an example of what is possible for us all every day!  Founder of Arizona's most cozy and spectacular raw vegan retreat, www.happyoasis.com. Happy lives by her dreams, which have led her to explore, serve and abide in dozens of countries ever since accepting a scholarship to study for a year at Hobart College of Tasmania  when she was 16.  Slowly backpacking and entrepreneuring her way around the globe for more than a decade, Happy abided with numerous now-deceased tribes who adopted her as family as she sought wisdom as an adventure anthropologist, guiding hikers through the Himalayas, Thailand, Australia, Alaska, India, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, etc. See:  http://www.WildVegetarianAdventures.com.  Happy served as a raw vegan health consultant and meditation guide, etc, in the Orient as well an intuitive wild edible plants teacher of her class called “Let’s Get Wild!” in more than a dozen ecosystems around the planet.  Author of the world’s only wild raw vegan travelers' poetry book, Uncivilized Ecstasies, a New Zealand best-seller, as well as the interactive conversational playbook, Bliss Conscious Communication, Happy Oasis has been a lifelong gentle-but-persistent international environmental, peace, and social activist; an orator and poet at symposiums, festivals, temples, retreats, churches, tv shows, radio shows, environmentally-educative cruise ships, colleges, universities and schools around the world. These days Happy most loves to offer others the stage in enthusiastic support of the many raw food speakers, authors, chefs and entertainers who inspire us.  Founder of the Inspiring Times News, Happy's articles and poetry have featured in many magazines including Get Fresh! (England),  In Touch (New Zealand), Four Corners (Sedona, Arizona) and Living Nutrition (California) as well as numerous newspapers.  Happy has opted to postpone her treasured (6 months annually) lifestyle for the past 12 years as a relative hermit on forgotten, pine-clad, waterfall mountaintops in forest fire lookout towers in order to expand the Raw Spirit Festival to serve thousands

Joshua  Frank, Technology and Inventions

Joshua has over 12 years experience in Technical Mechanics with interests in developing sustainable renewable energy resources and has recently received patents and funding for development of alternative sustainable technologies.

Patrick Hickey, Actively pursuing and promoting an organic, sustainable quality of life.

1960s – Deeply influenced by A. S. Neill, author of “Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing”, Graduate work in Asian Studies at Colorado University, Honorably served in the U.S. Navy making two Western Pacific tours, Inspired by “Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis” by DT Suzuki, Erich Fromm, Richard DeMartino, To this very day I continue to review “The Greening of America” by Charles Reich.  1970s & 1980s,  Co-founder of “The Paragon Co-operative Gallery” in Crested Butte, Colorado, Sold photographic prints in Crested Butte and Aspen. Published work state-wide and internationally, Taught organic gardening, sustainable living and photography in Crested Butte, Wrote the “Horticulture with Hickey” column for 8 years emphasizing nature appreciation, organic gardening, sustainability and conservation for the C.B. Chronicle, 1989 – 2007 – Moved to Sedona – became active in promoting sustainability, conservation, and quality of life – Worked on writing of the original Community Plan and the Forest Service’s Amendment 12. Consistently opposed a by-pass/bridge at Red Rock Crossing.  Served on the “Admin Committee” of the Responsible Residents of the Red Rocks (4Rs) for over ten years.  Currently, most inspiring movie, Michael Moore’s “Sicko, Inspired by Richard Branson of “Virgin” fame.  “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida continues at the top of my new millennium non-fiction book list.  I believe in the power of repetition, inspiration, and collaboration in bringing about change!  Now is the time to gain knowledge and take action!

Aaron Thomen, Organic Gardener

Aaron Thomen has been a passionate gardener since he was a young kid.  He is a believer in freedom through self-sufficiency and community cooperation.  Aaron has an intuitive and knowledgeable connection with the natural world.  He feels that Permaculture is the answer to many of the problems that people face on a personal and societal level.  Mother Nature has been through it all, and along the was, she has beautifully come up with the best possible design.  Aaron assists Sedona residents in creating and vitalizing organic vegetable gardens.  He wants to organize a backyard growers trade program whereby all of the organic gardeners in the area can easily trade produce with each other.  Aaron is dedicated to educating and helping people realize the benefits of gardening the way nature intended.

 

Scott McMahan, Sustainability and Organic Foods

Chocolatier Scott McMahan received a Cordon Bleu degree from Scottsdale Culinary Institute in 2001. His culinary work experience includes the 5-star, 5-diamond Marie Elaine's at the Phoenician Resort in Phoenix. Around the time of his daughter's birth in August of 2003, Scott stopped cooking altogether because it stopped feeling good to work with all the processed sugar, starches and saturated animal fats. In 2004, he discovered raw vegan foods and he went from eating steak and ice cream one day to only raw, organic fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts the next day. In three and a half months, he lost 75 pounds, 8 inches on his waistline, and completely revolutionized his health. He developed a highly intuitive connection with – and rediscovered his passion for – food. In 2005, he began experimenting with cacao for consumption by his friends and family.

2006 was a time of major transition and growth for Scott. He left his real estate business in Florida and traveled with his family around the country on a bus powered by recycled restaurant grease. The adventures aboard the bus – named Nayra's Moving Castle of the Endless Summer for Scott's daughter, Nayra Shea – changed the lives of everyone involved. When the trip came to an unexpected halt, Scott's family returned to Sedona to start a new life. He returned to preparing food professionally for the first time in five years, enjoying an uncompromising connection with the very best and most healthsome organic ingredients.. He found the most joy in creating highly inspired chocolates with ingredients that are supercharged with life and love. He formed Cosmic Cacao with partner Andrea Paxton and their daughter Nayra in December, 2006. Every day he continues to find new inspiration and instruction in the product and his clients.

 

Photos

Matthew G. Turner and Suzy 'Chapstick' Chafee at the council meeting on June 26th, 2007

Mayor Pud Colquitt of Sedona, Matthew G. Turner, and Suzy 'Chapstick' Chaffee at the council meeting on June 26th, 2007

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