E. F. Schumacher Society Advisory Board
 

Tanya and Wendell Berry The Berrys are deeply entwined with the Kentucky community, human and natural, surrounding their hillside farm.  Through his essays, stories, and poems, Wendell Berry is the consummate contemporary American spokesperson for small communities and an agrarian ethic.

Thomas Berry A cultural historian and Passionist Priest, Thomas Berry is the spiritual heir of Teilhard de Chardin.  His writings on a vision of an Ecozoic Era have had a profound influence on members of many cloistered religious communities, leading them to rethink how they conduct their lives on their land.

Lisa Byers Lisa has been the Director of OPAL Community Land Trust in Eastsound, WA since January 1996. She has supervised the design, development and financing of multiple new permanently affordable single family homes and a mixed use project with offices and rental apartments on Orcas Island. Prior to OPAL, Byers was the Land Steward for the San Juan County Land Bank, and worked for ten years as a manager of historic properties for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

Olivia Dreier Olivia Stokes Dreier is the Associate Director of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and has facilitated intercommunal dialogues and peacebuilding seminars in many troubled regions of the world including, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, India, Macedonia, the Republic of Georgia, Rwanda, Senegal, and Sri Lanka. She is the Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Transformation Across Cultures at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. A clinical social worker with many years of experience in community mental health, Ms. Dreier also worked for two years with the Gandhian movement in rural India and served as President of the Board of the Hartsbrook Waldorf School in Hadley, Massachusetts and of the E.F. Schumacher Society.

Jane Jacobs A planner and author by profession, Jane Jacobs was one of the most powerful spokespersons for regional economies. She is remembered as a valued and much loved advisor to the Schumacher Society.

Hazel Henderson An economist and futurist, Hazel Henderson has done more than any other one person to spread the ideas of E. F. Schumacher around the world.

Wes Jackson Wes Jackson is a geneticist by training but by nature a radical with the courage to follow through on his dreams.  His commitment to achieving a perennial agriculture for the prairies is a bold initiative for the future of the landscape he loves.

Amory Lovins One of today's most brilliant thinkers on the subject of energy, Amory Lovins persuasively argues that energy security can be achieved only with decentralized production and conversion to renewable fuel sources.

John McKnight Ever committed to the welfare of the poorest in our midst, John McKnight has helped design tools and systems that empower marginalized communities.

David Orr Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, David Orr demands that we live the principles we teach.  That determination has involved him in spearheading the construction of university buildings that are ecological models and in developing curriculum that involves students directly in the environment of their community.

Michael Shuman With a background in policy issues and an understanding of organizational structures, Michael Shuman turned his attention to what makes local economies work and in the process has become the Johnny Appleseed for the renewal of local economies.

Cathrine Sneed Her fellow law-enforcement officers thought she was crazy, but Cathrine Sneed believed in the prisoners under her care and in the healing power of growing vegetables.  That belief started a garden and a movement.

Lewis Solomon A Professor of Law at George Washington University, Lewis Solomon wrote the handbook on legal issues regarding community issued scrip, a handbook that every local currency activist needs.

John Todd One of the original "New Alchemists," biologist and Professor of Environmental Design at the University of Vermont, John Todd continues to amaze us by showing what well designed communities of plants can achieve in repairing the consequences of human intervention on the earth.

Greg Watson Greg Watson's peers thought he had sold out when he became an advocate for environmental issues, but Greg knew that the consequences of ecological degradation would most directly affect poor communities.  He is a charismatic speaker, compellingly making the link between social and ecological issues.

Barbara Wood Barbara Wood is E. F. Schumacher’s eldest daughter and also his biographer (see E. F. Schumacher: His Life and Thought.) She has degrees in History, Economics, and Theology. She also has an MA in Interreligious Dialogue. She worked for the Intermediate Technology Development Group in its early years and then for Voluntary Overseas Association. After marriage and six children she became convinced that education for sustainable living had to be rooted in the experience of daily life, practiced within the context of the family and that the role and presence of the mother was fundamental. She therefore worked at home and from home. She has a particular interest in Christian theology and the Christian response to the environmental crisis on which she has written and lectured.

Arthur Zajonc Professor of Physics at Amherst College, Arthur Zajonc leads us from a careful study of the physical world into what is traditionally called the ìother world.î  Goethean in his approach, he makes the connection between these two worlds step by step, clearly, confidently, as if the transition were a common natural phenomenon.

 

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