AEI's Resource People

AEI has developed an extensive network of professionals and specialists throughout North America who teach, inspire and share their experiences, perspectives, and wisdom with our students.

It is no small task to answer the questions of 20 excited students, yet people from all walks of life do so willingly and look forward to our visits.

Their generosity makes for the rich experience unique to AEI.

Some of the people we have visited in the past:

Ola Davis, Tohona O'Odam teacher and activist

Grassroots activists

• Cesar Chavez - Director of the United Farm Workers
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas - the "first lady of conservation"
• Eddie Williford - naturalist responsible for creating a Florida state park preserve
• Johnnie Fiske - instrumental in protecting habitat for the Least Tern
• Domingo Gonzalez - activist for Mexican border industrial pollution issues
• Mike Davis - Apache activist, working to preserve scared land in Arizona
• Ola Davis - Tohona O'Odam teacher and activist
• Radical and conservative environmental spokespeople
• Wolf reintroduction advocates

Johnnie Fiske, grassroots activist

Educators

• Larry Davis - Superintendent of Anasazi State Park
• Marvin Bram - professor of History, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Jim Griffith - Arizona State folklorist

Cultural Educators

• Phares and Annie Hurst - Old Order Mennonites
• John Jackson - blues musician
• Alfred Yazzi - Navajo chanter and cultural preservation educator, Window Rock, AZ
• Ofelia Zepeda - Tohona O'Odam Poet and Professor at the University of AZ, Tucson

Professional environmentalists

• Dave Foreman - founding member of The Wildlands Project and Earth First, and author
• Paul Hawken - businessman, environmentalist, and author of Growing a Business and The Ecology of Commerce

Industry leaders and laborers

Biologists, geologists, naturalists, hydrologists, meteorologists, and astronomers

Phares Hurst, Old Order Mennonite

• Gary Paul Nabhan - ethnobotanist at the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ, and author of many books, including Gathering The Desert
• John Stokes - tracker, naturalist and educator
• Water pollution, protection and resource management specialists

Contemporary authors and poets

• Terry Tempest Williams - naturalist and activist working to protect wilderness in UT, as well as the author of many books, including the best selling book, Refuge
• Howard Zinn - professor, social activist and author of, among other books, A People's History of the United States
• Joseph Cornell - author of Sharing Nature with Children
• Malidoma Some - social activist, educator and author of Of Water and The Spirit

Students visiting a phosphate mine in Florida.

Agribusiness and organic farmers

• Merv Wilkinson - sustainable logger, and advocate for sustainable forestry practices in Washington state
• George Whitten - leader in sustainable agriculture and ranching movement in Colorado
• Ravenwood Collective - organic farming and collective living
• MOFGA - the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA)

Government movers and shakers

• Bruce Babbitt - (former)United States Secretary of the Interior
• Hugh Kaufman - Director of Toxic Waste, EPA Superfund Sites
• Joe Hickerson - Director of the Library of Congress Folk Archives
• Kristen Berry - lobbyist, Regional Grassroots Coordinator, National Audubon Society, Washington, D.C.