Staff
Peter Forbes, Co-Founder and C0-Director
Peter Forbes is a writer, photographer, farmer and conservationist. A student of the relationship between land and people, he’s worked throughout the world to record and protect our human relationships with the land. Peter's life-long pursuit is to be a witness and storyteller of the bond between people and the land, and to translate what he has learned into a new form of leadership. Peter is recognized across North America for building bridges between sectors, coalitions and organizations and for nurturing a new land movement integrating land health, social justice, and human spirit.
Peter co-founded Center for Whole Communities after eighteen years leading conservation projects for the Trust for Public Land. Peter helped to protect threatened portions of Thoreau's Walden Woods; he launched a program to protect and revitalize urban gardens and farms across New England; he helped to add 20,000 acres of wild lands to New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest, and he created the Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, to promote the life ways of renowned land and social activists Helen and Scott Nearing. Through the success of more than one hundred conservation projects, Peter earned a national reputation as being a champion of a new brand of community-based conservation where the health of the people and the health of the land are viewed as equal.
In 1998, Peter became TPL's first national fellow and devoted himself to researching and writing about how individual and community relationships with the land can become the seeds for broader social change. In 2003, Peter founded the Center for Whole Communities, a learning and leadership center that strengthens the movements for social and environmental change by looking deeply at the issues that divide us from one another and from the land. At the core of this work are tools such as inquiry, story, deep listening, transformational leadership, and relationship-building across lines of race, class, and ideology.
Peter’s photography and essays have appeared in many books and journals. Others have written of Peter's thinking and storytelling that he is "a national treasure whose groundbreaking work is a stunning reminder of why land conservation is still so important." He is the editor of Our Land, Ourselves: Readings on People and Place and he is the author of The Great Remembering: Further Thoughts on Land, Soul and Society (TPL/Chelsea Green, 2001). His essays have also appeared in Coming to Land in a Troubled World (Center for Land and People/Chelsea Green) His photographs of homesteader and social activist, Bill Coperthwaite, are published in "A Handmade Life", which won first prize in 2003 from the Independent Bookseller's Association for most inspiring story.
Peter was honored in 1998 as the "Environmental Friend of New England," the highest award given to an individual by the Environmental Federation of New England, a coalition of 38 environmental groups. Peter has served on the board of directors of many organizations, including the Center for New American Dream, Vallecitos Mountain Refuge, and the Good Life Center. When he is not teaching around the country, he lives and farms with his wife and two daughters in the Mad River Valley of Vermont.
Email: peter (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Steven Glazer, Advanced Leadership Program
Steve is the acting director of our Advanced Leadership Program, which supports our alumni with peer councils, advanced level workshops, our social networking site, alumni gatherings, and organization-wide trainings. Steve is helping over the next six months to implement several integral portions of the Advanced Leadership Program. Steve is also a member of our faculty. He lives in Thetford Center with his wife and two daughters.
Ginny McGinn , C0-Director
Ginny is a mother, wife and passionate social change leader. Through her career she has been an advocate for education, the environment, and transformational change in the areas of diversity, power and privilege. She brought her strong communication skills, strategic thinking and management to the nonprofit environmental education organization Bioneers for more than eight years, first as Managing Director, then Deputy Director and finally President. Her organizational leadership helped Bioneers grow into a cutting-edge cultural phenomenon that communicates a timely message of sustainability and social change.
Ginny was previously a marketing director at Odwalla Inc., and most recently has served as Director of Advancement at Santa Fe Preparatory School, serving the mission of the school through fundraising, communications, strategic planning, and helping to create access to world-class education for students from diverse backgrounds. She brings her heart felt caring to building, maintaining and improving organizations through authentic relationships and a commitment to creating a sustainable future.
Ginny is on the advisory board of Breakthrough Santa Fe, part of the national Breakthrough Collaborative, a tuition free program supporting under-served public school students on a path to college. Ginny serves on the advisory board for Alliance for Earth.
Email: ginny (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Kevin McMillion, Office Manager
As our office manager, Kevin keeps entire administrative world, including our book keeping, on track. He’s passionate about learning new “old” skills and the relationship between land and people. He’s an avid outdoorsman, bowl and spoon carver, telemark skier, cyclist and soccer player. Kevin loves to cook and fosters a close connection to his food source; he can often be found foraging for wild foods in the Mad River Valley. He also loves music and is always searching for new recordings to listen to and share. Kevin lives in Waitsfield with his wife Jessie, their two daughters, Eliza and Annibel, a dog named Blue, and Turtle, the cat.
Email: kevin (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Danyelle O'Hara, Evaluation Consultant
Since 1990, Danyelle O’Hara has worked with organizations abroad and in the United States to build community capacity in issues related to community organizing, development, and conservation. In particular, Danyelle seeks to help strengthen organizational infrastructure that supports communities to develop visions for their aspirations and practical plans for achieving those visions in the most inclusive ways possible. As a consultant, Danyelle provides assistance in program planning, design, monitoring, and evaluation to a range of foundation and nonprofit partners. Danyelle lives in Norman, Oklahoma with her partner Marc and their children, Jonah and Marjanne.
Lauren Oleet , Program Manager
A devoted skier and hiker, Lauren feels most at home while playing in the woods. While not plotting her next adventure, she spends time knitting and practicing yoga, honing her backgammon skills over bottomless cups of coffee, and exploring and dancing through life with her partner Michael and their dog Koda.
Email: lauren(at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Meghan Moroni , Development Associate
Meghan helps to manage our business development, outreach, and fundraising efforts. She comes to us after serving as a community organizer and voter protection coordinator on President Obama’s 2008 campaign staff. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont with a degree in Political Science and Community and International Development. Meghan is passionate about environmental and social justice, and is determined to create positive social change in whatever ways she can. She is also an avid traveler, a soccer player and a lover of the outdoors.
Email: meghan (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Taz Squire, Land Steward and General Contractor
Taz Squire is a...carpenter, carver, car and bike mechanic, welder, photographer, advocate for social and racial justice, race car aficionado, cyclist, skier, climber...a good old-fashioned Renaissance Man. And did we mention he has a soft spot for classic Austin Mini wagons and dingo dogs? He's one of those rare people who can fix most anything, build most anything, bike or ski most anything, and is simultaneously always on the lookout for new interests and challenges.
Taz loves working with his hands, close to the land and community. As a child growing up in Maine, he worked with is father and formed the foundation for the building and machinery skills he possesses today. He spent many years off the grid in Downeast Maine with a mentor, Bill Coperthwaite (above-mentioned social activist, educator, and author of “A Handmade Life”).
Bill forged his own path on his own land, creating a life and lifestyle based on simplicity and self-reliance, always grounded in the majesty and utility of that which is made by one’s own hands. With Bill, Taz acquired skills in experiential education, yurt building, hand tool use, carving, trail building, and an understanding of and reverence for the land. Taz has also been a student in more traditional educational settings at the University of Maine, Machias and Naropa University, Boulder, where he focused on Peace Studies.
Over time, Taz has worked as a carpenter, snow maker, cook, goldsmith, timber framer, park ranger, and bike mechanic. For many years, he spent falls and springs at the Mountain Institute, and summers at Farm & Wilderness, doing carpentry, maintenance, and program delivered experientially. He eventually committed full-time to Farm & Wilderness as Physical Plant Manager and one of the five COOs. He remained there for 15 years.
Taz has been involved with Center for Whole Communities since its inception, by taking part in the initial visioning process for its future direction. He is excited to be an active and present participant in the work of Knoll Farm and Whole Communities.
Email: taz (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Helen Whybrow, Co-Founder and Director of Publications
Helen Whybrow germinated the idea for Center for Whole Communities with Peter back in 2000 and has helped nurture its growth ever since. With her background in book publishing, editing and design, she directs the Center’s publishing program and communications. Before moving to Knoll Farm, Helen worked as a developmental editor for W. W. Norton and was for six years the publisher of an imprint of books on natural history, travel and New England called Countryman Press. Over the years she has edited hundreds of books related to land and people, including titles by Eric Freyfogle, Tom Wessels, Helen Nearing, Eliot Coleman, and many others.
Helen's passion, outside of words and ideas, is growing things. She has started three gardens at the farm and supplies all the vegetables, berries and herbs she can grow to our retreat kitchen and to a CSA. She has decided that sheep are not as dumb as their reputation and in fact make great companions, and can dramatically improve tired hillside pastures. Starting with 8 Icelandic sheep in 2002, she now manages a flock of 70 at Knoll Farm.
A student of permaculture, organic agriculture, and holistic management, Helen works to bring these disciplines into the way we farm and live on the land at Knoll Farm and the way we teach and model for those who come here. Her interest is in continually exploring how our intersection with the land can be more profound, meaningful and healthy; and how our practices of living on the land can provide nourishment while building biodiversity and fertility. Helen is on the board of NOFA-VT (Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont) and is a co-founder of the Vermont localvore project which promotes local, sustainable food production.
Email: helen (at) wholecommunities (dot) org
Interns! Come join us.
Our internships are full for 2010, but we hire a group of interns each retreat season (May through October). To read a full description of the intership click here. Interested in applying? Download here.