Our Teachers
Cincinnati Permaculture Institute’s Permaculture Design Course, Summer PDC at Antioch, and Winter Weekend PDC, all give students exposure to a diverse network of teachers, teaching site hosts, guest speakers and specialists. Alongside our lead teachers, the combined wisdom of these presenters and practitioners is a vital contribution to our unique regionally-focused program.
Our curriculum has been chiefly shaped by the lead teachers of the course and that torch has been passed through a few successional generations since our founding. This page aims to pay homage to both those who created and developed the courses and those who are now actively part of our network of teachers, guests, and site hosts.
Braden Trauth
A student of the originators of Permaculture, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, Braden has gone on to study with many other leaders in the field. He has been teaching and consulting with this knowledge since 2007 and has taught at places as varied as Universities, the Earthship Academy, Haitian Farmers and the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture on behalf of USAID.
Doug Crouch
Trained as both a Permaculture Designer and Fish and Wildlife Manager, Doug has extensive knowledge surrounding landscape planning and food production systems. This regenerative design and implementation work spans the globe ranging in contexts and climates including tropical agro-forestry, Mediterranean organic gardening, and temperate suburban edible landscaping. To facilitate this work he founded TreeYo Permaculture thus building off his other formal training in small business management. Incorporating this knowledge and experience into sustainability educational programming has now become Doug’s main focus as he continues his ecological design and holistic development in various ecosystems.
Ande Schewe
Certified in 2001 at Lost Valley Education Center in Oregon by Toby Hemenway, Judd Hobbs and Rick Valley Ande went on to study with many of the leaders in the field. He has taught with us since 2008 and continues to consult with farms, homes, businesses communities, schools and more, as well as hosting his podcast, Wake the Farm up: https://wakethefarmup.com/. He has been published in numerous publications as well.
Susan VonderHaar
Heavily under the influence of the first Earth Day Susan has been studying and teaching Life Sciences for more than 40 years. With degrees in Biology (BS) and Environmental Science (MS) she worked 20 years as a Project Scientist at the U.S. EPA. She was introduced to Permaculture in 1999, completed the PDC in 2011, and her teacher certification in 2014. When her own children entered school, she began volunteering and created the Dater Montessori Nature Center http://dmnaturecenter.wix.com/dater-nature
Felix Marisa Head
Felix joined the PDC teaching team in 2024 and leans into her background as a creative writing teacher, storyteller and multimedia artist to inform her holistic “fusion” style of teaching.
Based in: Amelia, OH
Year PDC Completed: 2022
Area of Specialty: A lifelong birdwatcher, Felix is focused on creating bird habitat at her half-acre mini homestead in West Clermont County. She also has a background working in the recycling industry and enjoys making arts & crafts out of upcycled or homegrown materials.
Howie Zuefle
Howie is the Growing Value Nursery Manager and has been leading specialty workshops and project implementations at CPI and around Cincinnati for the past several years. He joined the PDC teaching team in 2024.
Based in: Cincinnati, OH
Year of PDC Completion: 2016
Areas of Specialty: Howie’s interests include foraging, wildcrafting, yoga and meditation.
Adam Neu
Adam is currently semi-retired but has done many different types of work, including home remodeling, as a soldier in the National Guard, as an arborist, renovating and selling homes, managing real estate, as a realtor, and as a registered nurse.
Based in: Springdale, OH
Year of PDC completion: 2021
Adam has been working on developing a two-acre suburban property into an urban homestead. The property has a large vegetable garden and an orchard with about 50 fruit trees, including apples, peaches, plums, pawpaws, seedless che, figs, pawpaws, persimmons, June berries, sweet cherries, sour cherries, medlar, elderberry, and jujube. He also has raspberries, blackberries, bush cherries, passion fruit, walnuts, hazelnuts, elderberries, currants, goumi berries, grapes, food forest circles, bamboo, a 3000-gallon rain collection system, and many edible or ornamental plants scattered throughout. Although a vegetarian for the past couple of years, he has been an avid hunter for most of his life and has experience processing wild game and livestock animals from field to table.
Amy Stross
Amy is the author of The Suburban Micro-Farm and is working on a second book about edible shade gardening. She spends her time tinkering around her 4-acre woodland homesite, walking her dogs, hiking and biking, and visiting national parks.
Based in: Milford, Ohio
Year of PDC completion: 2009
Areas of specialty: Amy looks for ways to apply permaculture to suburban/residential yards to make these spaces more functional, useful, biodiverse, and aesthetically in line with the surrounding neighborhood. She writes about these topics on her website, TenthAcreFarm.com.
Mary Dudley
Mary Dudley is a trained botanist, Montessori educator and the Director of Education at the Civic Garden Center. Mary is passionate about connecting people and nature at every stage in life.
Based in: Cincinnati, Ohio
Year of PDC completion: 2023
Areas of specialty: Mary is always excited to chat about compost, herbs, backyard chickens, rainwater harvesting, working with youth and closing the loop in our daily routines. Her nonprofit, Westwood Grows, seeks to cultivate collaboration through education that inspires and celebrates success. Website: www.westwoodgrows.org
Erik Lutz
Erik Lutz and his wife, Patty, have been gardening and homesteading since 2013. Their family seeks to live simply, slowly, and quietly while stewarding the land at Harmony Hillside Farm. Erik is an educational writer, permaculture designer, an active member of his local church, a happy husband, and father of three.
Based in: Demossville, KY
Year of PDC completion: 2018
Areas of specialty: Harmony Hillside Farm is a working homestead designed around permaculture principles—with earthworks like swales, terraces, diversion drains, and a rain garden. The Lutz family lives close to the land, harvesting rainwater, heating with firewood, composting extensively, and growing or foraging lots of food and herbs. They keep chickens, a herd of goats, and a beloved Shetland pony. Erik particularly enjoys creating wildcrafted homebrews and unique wines from the bounty of the land.
April Pandora
April Pandora is a farmer with Eden Urban Gardens, LLC, a half acre working urban farm business who's mission is to enrich lives through Organic Produce. Eden Urban Gardens, LLC is USDA Certified Organic and Real Organic Food Project Certified and operates within the Cincinnati city limits in Ohio.
Areas of specialty: Urban Soils, Urban Farm Business Annual/Perennial crop integration, Urban Permaculture, Small animal husbandry
Website: www.edenurbangardens.com
To order: https://app.barn2door.com/edenurbangardens/all
Dan May
Dan is a project manager and reserve military officer who escaped from Washington DC to Kentucky.
Based in: Morning View, KY
Year of PDC completion: 2023
Dan has a background in finance and has become a building science nerd as he works to complete a Passive House certified home and carve a sustainable farm out of an abused horse pasture.
DONNA PELLEGRIN
Donna draws on her studies in engineering, Permaculture, rain gardening and community gardening to inform her passion for healing the Earth. She is part of the leadership team in the Creation Care Ministries at Christ the King Lutheran Church, where she leads the volunteers who manage the native food forest, rain garden and prairie garden.
Based in: Cincinnati-Dayton area
Year of PDC completion: 2021
Areas of specialty/Claim to fame: Donna is exploring and sharing the ways that native plants are useful in Permaculture. Her presentations center on the great abundance of good that can come from Earthkeeping. She also teaches winter sowing workshops, where multitudes of plants can be grown with little skill and very little money.
You can find complete plant lists and detailed layouts of some of Donna’s designs here and here (click on graphic).
ADDITIONAL TEACHERS AND GUESTS - BIOS & PICS COMING SOON!
Chris Smyth (Common Orchard Project)
Israel Hensley
Mary Hutten
Suellyn Shupe
Vicki Mansoor (Homeadow Song Farm)
Mary Lu Lageman
Patti Walker
Patrick Sherwin
Bruce Linebaugh
Daniel Dynan
Jessica Schultz
Max McCormick (Into the Trees)
Partners
