About Us

Download Print Send a summary of this page to someone via email.
A letter from Owner, President (COO), Co-Founder, and Lead Creative Consultant Nathan Meffert...

 Jan 1, 2010

To begin with, happy New Year! Secondly, thank you for your interest! I co-founded New Leaf Regenerative Design with my wife, Katie Hellerman, in 2008, as we watched the economic system come crashing down from a unique vantage point, having just made the move from Santa Cruz, California to a rural area just outside of Detroit, Michigan to be closer to our families. At that point, I had been actively researching, applying, and developing regenerative ecological, social, and economic technologies for 9 years in various positions: as an ecological designer with several organizations and businesses in the San Francisco bay region of California, as a wildlife tracking specialist and educator working with private clients and the Shikari Tracking Guild of northern California, and as a community and organizational regenerative design specialist with the 8 Shields Group, also of northern California. My expertise is in field ecology, experiential education, deep entrepreneurship, "real" capitalism, applied anthropology, whole systems thinking, therapy, leadership, business development, marketing, and personal development/empowerment. I have been a musician, artist, and poet since well before I can remember.

I grew up in the fields and forests of southeastern Michigan, and things were good. The streams were healthy, our industries were healthy, our communities and families were happy. As the years passed, I had the unfortunate experience of seeing an industry that refused to embrace true innovation take its toll on both our economy, our natural resources, and the health and happiness of our communities - and I quickly realized, through my travels and research, that similar processes were unfolding all around the world. My childhood time in nature and, later, my experience in field ecology, anthropology, ecological landscape design, and education lead me to a deeper understanding of how the mind is truly built think in whole systems and that innovation, coupled with observation, creative design sensibility, and planning, can bring about powerful positive change at all levels, on all scales, and in all sectors. I also became powerfully aware that this change MUST BEGIN WITH THE INDIVIDUAL - hence, New Leaf's focus on the individual stakeholder(s) personal goals.

I am, and New Leaf is, completely committed to your personal success, the success of your business, family, and community, and to the long-term health of our global community. A sea change is here. Our response will determine the future of our species. Let's make it count.

There are so many powerful and productive opportunities to "make it count" in the world right now - you really can't lose - and whether you take advantage of New Leaf's services or not, I wish you all the best in your personal journey, starting at home, with yourself, your family, your business, and your home community.

Cheers!

Nathan Meffert

To visit Nathan's full profile at , click here.

The Team

Katie Hellerman-Meffert - Vice President, Co-Founder, Lead Designer, and Lead Instructor Katie Hellerman-Meffert holds a holds a B.A. in Political Science from Smith College, a MEd from Vanderbilt University, and a Permaculture consultancy certificate through the Regenerative Design Institute (RDI) of Northern California. Katie is also a master of the Spanish language, having spoken throughout her childhood and studied throughout her adulthood. Most recently, she is a graduate of RDI’s Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness residential program. She has also worked with El Instituto de los Indios, Universidad de la Calle, Costa Rica, researching indigenous uses of native plants. Katie accredits her understanding of community systems primarily to her field research of elderly populations in Havana, Cuba, a childhood spent with traditional Ukrainan grandparents, and travel throughout her childhood in all continents.

Katie and Nathan are also both active in the Local and Slow Foods movements and are founding members of the Fox Circle Regenerative Living Project ecovillage of Northern California. They share a life's question: "What are the universal cultural practices that bring people into deeper positive relationship with the earth and with each other and what can they teach us?" In many ways, THIS is New Leaf Regenerative Design's goal: to identify, assimilate, and share these things.

Mark Shepard - Consulting Master Teacher, Master Permaculturist, and Agroforestry Specialist Mark Shepard’s “New Forest Farm” in southwestern Wisconsin is one of the first and finest examples of Permaculture farming in the United States.  For 15 years, he and his wife Jen have been working to convert a depleted 100-acre dairy farm into a Permaculture-based perennial-agriculture ecosystem. In addition to being a Tagari-certified Permaculture designer and instructor, Mark is an Agroforestry consultant and educator, and one of the original ‘Organic Valley Cooperative ’ farmers in Wisconsin.

As long as Mark can remember he has been working with and studying plants.  Mark has been growing food biodynamically since childhood under the tutelage of Helen and John Philbrick (former BDA president).  As a kid growing up in New England, Mark recalls how he and his father used to kick around with ‘some grouchy old guy’ down the road.  Turns out that it was Scott Nearing of “Living the Good Life” fame.  Mark is a 1985 graduate of Unity College in Maine where he studied Ecology.  He and his wife Jennifer homesteaded in Alaska from 1986-1994 where they immersed themselves in a self-reliant, ecological lifestyle.  While there they gave birth to their first son. When the opportunity arose in 1994 they settled in SW Wisconsin to demonstrate the feasibility of permaculture farming and began to raise their family.

His knowledge and skills have been used since then in his landscape design business and now in his Permaculture & Agroforestry consulting business, Forest Agriculture Enterprises. Mark is the co-inventor of a hazelnut husker and a “Hypobaric Food and Crop dehydrator”. He recently co-authored “The Hybrid Bush Hazelnut Grower’s Handbook” with Philip Rutter.  Mark serves as vice-president of the Southwest Badger Resource Conservation and Development Council, and has served on the board for directors of the Association for Temperate Agroforestry (AFTA). He implements reforestation, conservation and sustainable agriculture projects nationwide.