Mark Krawczyk

My life took a major turn when I left my suburban home outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin for my first year of college at the University of Vermont in Burlington.  Previously oblivious to the ecological and economic realities plaguing our modern world, I soon encountered a new world with an uncertain and tenuous future.  This new reality served as a call to action, and it’s the turning point that has ever since guided my personal and professional development.

With little understanding of how to meet my own fundamental needs, I set off to start building skills, learning from talented mentors so I might become a more effective member of my own community while taking responsibility for my needs.  This self-designed education spanned nearly four years, bringing me into contact with leaders in the fields of agroforestry and forest gardening, natural building, coppice forestry, and traditional woodworking and has served as my inspiration to embody the ecological future I hope to participate in.   

Today, I operate Keyline Vermont LLC, a permaculture and keyline design, consultation, education, and installation business; teach workshops on natural building with Seven Generations Natural Builders and the Yestermorrow Design/Build School; make chairs and other wooden products using traditional tools and techniques with my small business RivenWoodCrafts, and maintain the grassroots community non-profit Burlington Permaculture that I helped co-found in 2006.  I’m currently in the process of co-authoring Coppice Agroforestry - Perennial Silviculture for 21st Century with Dave Jacke - primary author of Edible Forest Gardens Volume 1 and 2.

Throughout this journey, my personal vision has been to find a piece of land that might benefit from my energy and stewardship, that offers me a home base from which to apply my ideas and vision, learn, and share.  I’m delighted to have finally found that place after 8 years of searching!  During the spring of 2012, I purchased 52 acres in New Haven, Vermont - located in Vermont’s beautiful Champlain Valley, where I intend to incrementally implement working agroforestry systems, ecological buildings, future-minded forest management, and an interactive educational and community center.  As a mentor for Gaia University’s Permaculture Diploma, I also intend to continue to share my thoughts and vision with others who’ve been similarly moved to act while learning from the passions, direction, and skills of these friends I meet along the way.