SARK (A.K.A. Susan Kennedy)

SARK, aka Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, is the artist and author of more than ten books, including the best seller Succulent Wild Woman. She is founder of Camp SARK, and creator of numerous posters, cards, and other reminders of living a succulent life. Her books are published in over five languages. She is an acclaimed speaker, both nationally and internationally for conferences, colleges, corporate businesses, and other entities. She lives on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill in her magic cottage with her “fur” husband, Jupiter.

Susan Griffin Black (Guest Speaker)

Susan Griffin Black is a champion developer and marketer of personal care products that nurture individual well-being and are also environmentally sound. Susan first achieved career success in apparel design and marketing through her own businesses and at Esprit, the global teen fashion phenomenon. In 1991, having discovered first hand the healing and restorative properties of essential oils, she introduced England's innovative Neal's Yard Remedies to wide distribution in the U.S. In 1995, with her husband, Brad Black, she founded Small World Trading Company and EO Products, a national brand of bodycare products using plant-based natural ingredients, based in Marin County, California.

Jan Hauser (Guest Speaker)

Jan Hauser is a pioneer of developing and applying science and technology to business, social and environmental problems. As former principle (technology) architect at Sun Microsystems, he has been highly involved with Complexity Science with the Santa Fe Institute. Together with The Institute For The Future (IFTF), he is the progenitor of the workshop: Growing at the Edge: The New Corporate Structures for Innovation and the Challenge of Governance. Last year Jan addressed The Smithsonian Institute regarding how new and different scientific views and organization models may help us reframe old cause-and-effect views of ourselves and our social, economic and industrial systems toward a globally sustainable lifestyle. At Sun, he helped develop the architecture for automated markets, Electronic Trade Exchanges and principles that lead to the emergence of "communities" of trading partners. He currently spends most of his time working on problems of "Global Sustainability" and is becoming an expert in biodiversity conservation technology. He divides his time between California’s Silicon Valley and Abiquiu, New Mexico.

Charles Kosmont (Guest Speaker)

Charles Kosmont is a financial and management master who innovates agribusiness and food industries. He is the founder of two successful companies including Next Pharmaceuticals, the developer of several safe and efficacious ingredients from plants used for self-care purposes in several well-known brands, and Westbrae Natural (originally Vestro Foods) which acquired other leading natural food companies and later sold to Hain Foods, the largest owner of brands in the natural and organic industry. He has also managed and developed existing companies, including MET-Rx, one of the largest sports nutrition companies in the U.S. and Growers Transplanting, a nearly bankrupt agribusiness when he took it over and now one of the largest vegetable seedling and transplanting companies in the world. He is currently the principle in Key Kosmont LLC, an investment and advisory firm based in Irvine, California.

Hal Zina Bennet, Ph.D. (Guest Panel)

Publishing Consultant and Author
Hal Bennett for thirty years has consulted and written for both New York and West Coast publishers and has been a personal writing consultant for the self-help and spiritual development movements. He is the best selling author of more than 30 books by major “paper” publishers. One of his best-selling books on the subject of health and wellness, created a new standard for self- help books and established the wellness movement in the US. His own books are published in seven languages. He is recognized world-wide for his contribution to the personal development movement. He resides in Northern California’s Mendocino County.

Joe Brown (Guest Panel)

Director of Public Relations, The San Francisco Chronicle
Before moving West, Joe was a reporter, critic and columnist at The Washington Post, for 15 years, covering arts, entertainment, and lifestyle. In 1995, wanting a change of life, he moved to San Francisco and proceeded to experiment with various occupations, including event planner for many large non-profit fundraising programs. His path of exploration eventually led to a return to the media, and he joined the San Francisco Chronicle as a reporter. With a fresh perspective on opportunities for the communications industry, he invaded the promotions area of the newspaper, an area in which he had no previous experience but saw tremendous potential for innovation.

Recognizing his great potential contribution, The Chronicle appointed him the directorship of Public Relations. During a time of considerable change in the newspaper industry, and with the post-merger transition to a Hearst publication, he represents The Chronicle to outside communities, as well as consults and advises The Chronicle management and employees on cross-company internal issues.

Joe is also the author of three books: “San Francisco by Night,”, “Travel and Leisure Washington, D.C.” and “A Promise to Remember: The NAMES Project Book of Letters”, as well as an ongoing contributor to many magazines, guidebooks and newspapers issues.

Mary Harper, Ph.D. (Guest Panel)

Founder & Executive Director, Center for Changing Systems
Mary Harper, Ph.D. founded the Center for Changing Systems, a non-profit educational organization in the San Francisco Bay Area, chartered to teach a non-linear human decision-making model. Dr. Harper has spent more than 25 years in the field of organizational development and consulting psychology. Present and former clients range from: Fortune 500 companies; law, architectural, advertising firms; software companies; a myriad of medical, dental, and health care systems, as well as individuals, corporate executives and entrepreneurs. Additionally, she has taught courses in Educational Psychology, Conflict Resolution, Participatory Management, and Complexity of Non-linear Decision-Making at several leading universities. She is based in Marin County, California.

A development for our Time: enCourage at Center for Changing Systems:
We live in an era where intellect and technology are highly revered, where abundance and access to conveniences have never been so high, yet our culture contains a scarcity for human kindness and cooperation. Day by day, we seem to be growing into a ‘heartless’ society. At Center for Changing Systems, we recognize that the range of human need requires communication which connects to our truth and comes from the heart. The core principle of the enCourage team is to restore avenues for accurate and complete information so that balance, trust and integration can be understood and realized. From an attitude of courage from the Heart, enCourage is specifically designed to meet today’s issues and is ready to address challenges many believe are beyond the realm of resolution.

The roots of enCourage:
EnCourage began from a seed idea of Center for Changing Systems and was launched in September 2000 at Raymond Davi’s 1st Collaborative Event in Big Sur, California. Many participants from this event showed interest to carry the work and philosophy of enCourage forward. At Center for Changing Systems, we support the timely development of enCourage as a vehicle to explore a new generation of possible solutions that meet today’s cultural and economic demand. From this original group, a Development Team has been in place that includes Christine Hildebrand and Lisa McClean Steere in addition to Raymond Davi and Center for Changing Systems Founder, Mary R. Harper, Ph.D.

Joe Long (Guest Panel)

Vice-President of Marketing, The Shand Group
Using his undergraduate degrees in psychology, Joe Long has made a career of searching for the understanding of human nature through his 27 year career odyssey. Throughout various consumer markets (Neiman Marcus and Giorgio Armani to AIDS charities and dot-coms) he has been a consultant manager, strategist and creative merchandiser. He has undertaken as both a personal and professional project the analysis of business and societal macro-trends. This work resulted in several well-received white-papers and seminars and has evolved to a book-in-progress. Currently Joe is V.P. of Marketing for The Shand Group, a Santa Barbara based full-service marketing firm.

David Whitman (Guest Panel)

Co-Founder, Nature & Culture, Inc.
In March 2000, David Whitman co-founded Nature & Culture, Inc. with a focus to assist organizations and businesses in the development of their missions that further the intangible connection between human culture and the natural realm. His early marketing and merchandising career in Dallas, New York, and Santa Fe, was lifestyle-based and included Grey Advertising, design retailer Sointu, Xochi Textiles, Rippelsteins Clothiers, and Carapan Spa.

From the Berkshires, David, together with Co-Founder & partner Peter Stiglin, works mostly with non-profit environmental, community, and cultural organizations, helping them to raise their profile and realize their potential. Among current clients are Orion Magazine, Berkshire Botanical Garden, Barrington Stage Co., and the Sheffield Land Trust. By supporting a localized “human ecology”, Nature & Culture hopes to nurture an emerging cultural impulse in the Berkshires and beyond. David is based in Sheffield, Massachusetts.