Board Biographies

Diana Krystofiak (Co-Founder), works with K-12 teachers and students integrating sustainability into the curriculum at Maharishi School in Fairfield, Iowa. She incorporates hands-on learning experiences into the curriculum using the school’s 3600 sq ft greenhouse, orchard, butterfly garden, native tree walk, composting area, weather station and solar panels. She worked with students to raise money and install a rainwater catchment system and solar powered drip-line system throughout the greenhouse - teaching students about energy and water conservation. She inspired the school to use the unheated greenhouse throughout the four seasons experimenting with a wide variety of hardy vegetables and season extending techniques. She organized the first solar powered Satellite Bioneers Conference in Fairfield, been Chairman of the local Sierra Club and is a teacher of Transcendental Meditation.

Grover Stock (Co-Founder), has 35 years experience in organic farming and has been studying and teaching permaculture for the past 10 years. He maintains a 4.5 acre permaculture site that is off grid in Fairfield, Iowa.  He is a founder of the Sustainable Living Coalition a non-profit organization created to carry out goals around education and sustainability and instructor for the Big Green Summer program in Fairfield. He is also on the Board of Directors of the International Analog Forestry Network, a group dedicated to recreating climax forest through analog planting.  Finally, he teaches permaculture in Chiapas, Mexico during the winter months.

Hap Mullenneaux (Treasurer) After raising five children, Hap and his wife Lin have focused on natural building using unprocessed materials directly from nature.  They have taught classes in natural building and design at the local university and have introduced natural building to many students and residents through their cooperative building projects.  Their second home, reaching completion in the fall of 2008, uses structural walls of clay, sand and straw with earth, lime and cow dung plasters.  Hap and Lin studied with Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley at Cob Cottage in Oregon and have consulted with natural builders from California to England.

Hap is former vice-president in charge of inventory and systems for The Overland Sheepskin Company, a retail chain based in Fairfield, Iowa.  He is a former vice-president of the Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce and current board member and treasurer of the Sustainable Living Coalition.

Ken Walton is a PhD biochemist and biomedical researcher focused on natural medicine and prevention. His interest in sustainable living is long-standing. His home was the first to be built in Abundance Ecovillage where he has resided since the fall of 2002. His main interests in sustainability are in the areas of food quality and production, and alternative energy.

Lonnie Gamble (Co-Founder and Co-chair) is an engineer, educator, farmer, and community activist. He is the founder of Abundance Ecovillage and Big Green Summer. He is a founding director and co-chair of the non-profit Sustainable Living Coalition. He is a founding faculty member in the four year Sustainable Living degree program at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

Lonnie's professional qualifications include a degree in electrical engineering along with a professional engineer license. His interests include renewable energy, the efficient and wise use of energy, local organic food systems, artisan foods and the slow food movement, natural building, permaculture design and local alternatives to the global economy. He is the founder of five companies in the areas of renewable energy and telecommunications. He speaks and writes regularly on issues in his area of interest.

He lives with his wife Valerie and son Elliot in a straw bale passive solar home, where they harvest rain for water supply, get their electricity from solar and wind power, and eat something fresh every day from their extensive gardens. They haven't paid an electric bill in 15 years.

Robert Reeder is the Co-Founder and President of Art Market Tools, a Fairfield based company dedicated to serving and empowering artists world wide.

Previously Robert served as Vice President of Operations and Marketing at ArtSelect from May 1997 to January 2008 and was distinguished as a successful internet enterprise pioneer in the art industry.

In his free time, he works as Co-Founder of Singing Cedars, LLC, a developing Waldorf early childhood educational program in Fairfield and serves on board of the SLC. He is also Founder of the Fairfield Musicians Club and FMC Productions, an organization dedicated to cultural enrichment through local musical talent and the potential young budding musicians.

Hailing from a cattle ranch in Placerville, California, Robert now resides on a organic farm in Fairfield, Iowa with his wife Eniko.

Stuart Valentine (Co-Chair) is President of Iowa Progressive Asset Management (IPAM) a full service investment advisory and management firm. IPAM has deep green economy investment expertise and is dedicated to a client centered, values based approach to the portfolio planning process. In addition to active portfolio management for his clients, Stuart is intimately involved in deal structuring and placement within the Green Private Equity sector. He also is an expert in forward markets via his 20-year experience in the Commodity Futures and Options markets as co-founder of Crown Futures Corp. A graduate of the Evergreen State College’s Energy Systems program in 1982, Stuart also earned his MBA degree from the Maharishi University of Management (1986) where he currently serves as adjunct faculty in the sustainable business degree program.