2026 Weekend PDC

Make a $1200 full tuition payment now for you or as a sponsorship

Lead Instructor

Matt Bibeau is the resident lead instructor for this course. Matt holds a Master's degree in Sustainability Education from Portland State University and holds a Diploma in Permaculture Education from the Permaculture Institute of North America. Having a background that spans work with the National Park Service to being a core organizer and PDC instructor with the City Repair Project, Matt brings a unique breadth and depth of training and experience to this PDC. His teaching mentors include Toby Hemenway, Marisha Auerbach, Jude Hobbs, Hazel Ward,  and more!

Apprentice Instructor &  Course Supporter

Drake James (she/her) is the founder of Urban Village Designs LLC, a permaculture design, stewardship, and organizational resilience practice rooted in living systems thinking. She works with people in their gardens, shared landscapes and organizations, supporting long-term stewardship and holistic design that fosters resilient, abundant, and regenerative places to live and work. Drake holds an M.S. in Sustainability Education (2020), a B.A. in Social Sciences with a minor in Civic Leadership, and a Permaculture Design Certificate from Portland State University (2014). [She also holds a Permaculture Teaching Certificate through the Permaculture Institute of North America (2026)]*. Her work is informed by nearly two decades of combined study and hands-on practice across permaculture design, environmental restoration, organic and biodynamic farming, nonprofit and project management, and group facilitation.

In-person Guest Instructors

Henry Soto is an organic farmer and seed saver based out of Milwaukie, just a mile upstream from Jean's Farm. He and his daughters run an organic farm, Sotoi Farms (Lovina Farm site) where they grow produce for a CSA program, restaurant-direct fulfillment and for the Feed'em Freedom Black Community Food Center. Henry grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and graduated from Prescott College earning a degree in Sustainable Community Development. In the 1990s he studied permaculture and has been an instructor with various organizations including The Traditional Native American Farmers Association which worked on permaculture projects within native communities. Henry loves being in the outdoors, living in tune with nature, and always striving to lessen our impact on the environment. He currently serves as a faculty member of Portland Community College's Landscape Technology department. The course will include a field trip to Henry's farm.

Dan Sloan works with Portland Placemaking Coalition and founded Portland Food Forest Initiative in 2022 with the mission of developing public-facing community-stewarded food forests in underserved areas of urban Portland and providing access to land-tending opportunities for people who don’t own land. He owns Oregon Food Forest LLC and is a permaculture designer and consultant (empowering homeowners to transition their lawns into abundant food-producing perennial ecosystems), fruit tree pruner, fruit and nut tree propagator, food forest educator, and advocate of urban foraging. Dan has spent the last 4 years visiting large-scale rural and urban agroforestry sites around the world researching applicable techniques that can be applied and adapted to the Pacific Northwest to reshape our urban food systems. 

Kelly Brown is the owner and director of Nurture by Nature, the LLC that designs and manages the youth programming at Jean’s Farm. She currently runs an outdoor immersion middle school at Jean's Farm and is a Personal Support Worker, sharing her homesteading lifestyle and time in nature with those in need of life skills support. Her former roles include: Co-founder, Director and Outdoor Preschool Teacher at Mother Earth School, and Director of Portland Waldorf School’s LivingLAB program. Her passion for nature-based education has been her career focus for almost two decades, and since receiving her PDC in 2009,  this focus has included weaving permaculture into all these offerings. Kelly is passionate about nature mentorship, survival & homesteading skills, local disaster preparedness, rites of passage, global indigenous history and anti-oppression theory.

Nick Canino is an intergenerational garden educator and regenerative land-tender based in Portland, OR. He is the founder and executive director of Rhythm Seed Farm, a 501c3 nonprofit urban farm dedicated to growing + saving seeds and educating youth and adults about seed sovereignty. For every seed packet sold, Rhythm donates a packet to low-income and BIPOC communities. Nick works closely with Black, Brown, and Indigenous farmers in the Portland area, along with food banks and farms that grow exclusively for the houseless community. He brings 10 years of land-tending experience, specializing in urban edible landscaping and lawn-garden conversion. He has access to millions of locally adapted seeds through his nonprofit and the knowledge of how to convert abandoned lots into lush food gardens in a single season. Nick is also a core member of the Portland Placemaking Coalition, and his understanding of deep mulch dry farming is foundational for many of the community food forests PPC is visioning on parcels with no on-site water.

Additional Guest Instructors and Virtual Live Guest Instructors TBA.

Register today to save your space in the 2026 course!

Make a $1200 full tuition payment now for you or as a sponsorship