I moved to Vancouver Island in the late 1980s to accept a job offer with the Mechanical Technology department at the local community college.

In the early 90’s I sought out the organic grower’s group, South Island Organic Producers Association, asked them how someone with mechanical skills could support their important work, and they pretty much all agreed that they could use help with rototillers.

I bought an old Troybilt that needed work, and it’s been bouquets ever since. Over the years I have taught market gardeners many classes on how to maintain two-wheel tractors. In 2014, I moved onto land with a workshop, in North Saanich, and soon started importing, selling, and leasing the Grillo machines, and more recently incorporated the business as Living Lots.

I see the surge of industrial wealth that fossil fuels have created as cresting and subsiding, and, in the years I have left, I am striving to develop tools and systems that can enable human communities to survive and even thrive in the very constrained circumstances the coming generation will face.

I focus on technologies that re-localize production, such as fiber flax; that support regenerative agriculture, such as biochar and soil-food-web compost; and that keep equipment working when supply chains falter, such as biofuels and proactive repair.