Our Team
A dynamic mix of wisdom, compassion and practical experience world wide
Each member of our diverse intergenerational team shares a commitment to finding a new way of working together that honors our common purpose equally with our individual interest. There is a deep recognition that the sum of who we are together is greater than any one of us individually
We are a team that spans the generations who have come together with a shared commitment to finding a new way of working that honors equally our common purpose and our individual interest. We each yearn to make a difference for ourselves and for future generations, by ushering in a new way of living and bein together with each other and with the land that sustains us. There is a profound recognition that the sum of who we are together is greater than any one of us individually. We seek to forge new ways of working collegially, with practices that create more transparent communication and better access our individual talents as we embody our shared vision.
Our range of expertise is substantial. Our careers have included soil science, eco-therapy, finance, law,education, sales, technology, banking, art, health and nutrition, organizational development, ministry, coaching, catering, psychotherapy, and youth leadership development under the aegis of the United Nations. But our individual experience and training, significant as it is, is weaved together in a shared and multicolored tapestry held together by our common commitment to living a life of service, curiosity, awareness and respect.
The gratitude we feel for how the earth and our friendships have nourished us inspires us to action to help regenerate a new balance and beauty in our relationships to each other and to the planet.
John McMillin MD, PhD
is an expert in generating nutrition from both soil and water. John has a PhD and an MD from the University of Washington. He has been feeding people and helping them ReGenerate their lives and livelihoods physically, culturally and economically for over 50 years; beginning in 1945 when as a 15 year old he helped his father provide life giving nutrition to survivors of the death camps in Eastern Europe. Dr. McMillin is probably best known for his work to end the Ethiopian famine of the 1980’s. His capacity: to maintain a positive attitude in the most trying of circumstances and his post conventional interdisciplinary knowledge that allows him to solve systemic problems in a comprehensive way are unique. He has worked extensively in other parts of Africa, in the Caribbean, on the Indian subcontinent and in the Pacific.
His efforts saved the people of the Ansokia Valley, Ethiopia in the 1980’s by introducing interdependent fish farming and gardening techniques. Before he arrived, many had died of starvation and malnutrition. John started a regenerative agricultural program to restore the fertility of the valley’s soils and develop healthy farms as well as a crop distribution systems that would ensure that such a disaster never happened again.
A 250-acre pilot farm served as a testing ground for new farming methods and crops never before grown in the valley, A tree nursery raised fast-growing trees for controlling soil erosion. The nursery created hundreds of jobs by employing people to pack tree seedlings. To date, Antsokia’s farmers have planted 20 million trees.
Close to thirty years after McMillin first arrived crops thrive in the valley and the trees are laden with oranges. Children are happy and well-fed and go to school. The local market sells locally grown produce. Amazingly, the local man-made tilapia fish ponds McMillin designed to supply high quality protein to thousands of residents have proved so successful that the valley now exports fish.
John is an exemplar of a Solutionary, a master mentor and a creative problem solver. His capacity to solve some of the most daunting instances of famine around the world for over 50 years stands as a guidepost for all of us as we face the future.
His efforts saved the people of the Ansokia Valley, Ethiopia in the 1980’s by introducing interdependent fish farming and gardening techniques. Before he arrived, many had died of starvation and malnutrition. John started a regenerative agricultural program to restore the fertility of the valley’s soils and develop healthy farms as well as a crop distribution systems that would ensure that such a disaster never happened again.
A 250-acre pilot farm served as a testing ground for new farming methods and crops never before grown in the valley, A tree nursery raised fast-growing trees for controlling soil erosion. The nursery created hundreds of jobs by employing people to pack tree seedlings. To date, Antsokia’s farmers have planted 20 million trees.
Close to thirty years after McMillin first arrived crops thrive in the valley and the trees are laden with oranges. Children are happy and well-fed and go to school. The local market sells locally grown produce. Amazingly, the local man-made tilapia fish ponds McMillin designed to supply high quality protein to thousands of residents have proved so successful that the valley now exports fish.
John is an exemplar of a Solutionary, a master mentor and a creative problem solver. His capacity to solve some of the most daunting instances of famine around the world for over 50 years stands as a guidepost for all of us as we face the future.
Dr. Elaine Valdov
is the Executive Director of The World Water Organization and the President and Founder of the International Institute for a Culture of Peace and Development. As a peace and human rights activist, conflict resolution specialist, and environmentalist, she lectures internationally and is best known for her work in championing and building initiatives worldwide, in support of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the UN “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.” Over the past six years, she has been the Secretary General of the Youth Assembly at the UN, bringing youth from around the world to work together on the MDGs, working on issues of eradicating poverty, promoting world health and environmental sustainability, as well as other issues related to the MDG,s.
Elaine has held many NGO positions at UN Headquarters, including: Chair - Executive Committee of NGOs Affiliated with UN DPI; Secretary General - Medical Assembly at the UN; and Vice President - Millennium NGO Forum. She also led the Task Force on Women Empowerment and Gender Equality, Chaired the UN NGO Committee on the University for Peace, was Acting Executive Director of the World Energy Forum and a Member of the Millennium NGO Forum Advisory Committee the UN Secretary General.
Elaine has been a director of mental health facilities and a trauma counselor in the US and countries around the world. Following September 11, she was co-founder of “Kids Corner” - helping people who have been caught in the midst of terrorism and helped to establish programs in the US and abroad, to help families deal with man-made and natural crisis. She is also the recipient of several humanitarian awards, including: “Woman of the Year” and Martin Luther King Hall of Fame Award.
Rev Michael Pergola MA, MBA, JD
is an ordained interfaith minister and a long time student of behavioral science, organizational dynamics and the world’s wisdom traditions, Michael has pursued personal mastery and an understanding of consciousness in individuals and collectives for over 30 years. In the midst of experiencing his own shadow and the difficulties that arise when we come together on teams, Michael has learned valuable lessons on “being in the world but not of the world.” By opening in curiosity to what arises in the collective shadow, he takes hold of the evolutionary opportunities that arise from both the joys and sorrows of human life.
He grew up in Brooklyn, New York and spent the summers in a small house his father built with his own hands after World War II. The house was in the Hudson River Valley, in what was a rural area. As a young boy he helped tend the garden and later helped construct the second story. In Brooklyn he lived in a small building with twelve apartments surrounding a common courtyard. People in the 12 units where true neighbors, and they were in and out of each others’ homes regularly. The neighborhood was much like a European village, There were 3 greengrocers, a fruit vendor who came through the neighborhood with his truck, a butcher, pharmacist and two chicken markets within walking distance. Michael never had a chicken that he had not seen alive or an egg that had not been warm before it came into his home until he was 13. He remembers his mother cleaning the feathers on the gas burner. The backyards to all the houses had gardens and the street was lined with majestic old trees. There was a natural and human ecology and a rich culture that connected people to each other and to the larger environment.
The teachers in the progressive Catholic Schools Michael attended were excellent, and he learned from an early age that we human beings are a part of nature and that nature is a part of Spirit. He was lucky to win scholarships to first rate universities, and spent much of his work like trying to find a way to bring the spiritual ecology he was raised with into various career opportunities. Michael's work experience began as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago and he has had the good fortune to work with and learn from many outstanding individuals, ranging from Thomas Hubl to Will Allen to Dr.John McMillin. Dr. McMillin played a key role in ending the Ethiopian famines in the 1980's, and is a source of inspiration for founding the IRL.
That motivation was structured by Michael's awareness of how much more he might have contributed the social good and how much simpler his life would have been had he received one additional educational gift as he made the transition from (what today we would call) an emerging adult into the various roles and identities he took on as he entered the work force, got married, bought a house and raised children. While Michael was fortunate to work at a high level in a variety of professions, he sensed that something was amiss, but could not name that inchoate felt sense.
Michael served six years as Chief Knowledge Officer for Risk at one of the five largest banks in the United States, and practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering in Washington D.C. for nine years. Michael has provided consulting and coaching in leadership, systems thinking, communication, organizational development, and knowledge management in a wide variety of industries. He taught high school, founded two software companies, served as a community organizer, ran a petroleum products distributor and was a member of the Society for Organizational Learning, and the National Commission to End Domestic Violence. Michael has a JD and MBA from Cornell University and a Masters in Organizational Dynamics and Individual Development from the University of Pennsylvania.
Well versed in integral theory, the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics, Michael is skilled at synthesizing different areas of knowledge and expressing that understanding in a clear and useful manner. As a teacher, facilitator, mediator, coach, spiritual counselor, consultant and executive Michael applies his understanding to support teams and individuals in developing personal mastery and the capacity for skillful action.
Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn PhD
focuses on sustainability, design and innovation in his professional work and the classes he teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy New York. He has explored the use of new forms of media to address the challenges of communicating complex environmental, scientific and political issues to encourage greater public participation and a higher level of civic literacy. He also served as video editor of the Journal of Cultural Anthropology and the Capital District Community Gardens and as a critical media literacy educator at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Brandon has been inspired by Natalie Jeremijenko's work using art and technology as a vehicle for social justice and was an inaugural member of the Ecological Literacy Emersion Program at the Omega Institute. He is an avid outdoorsman and grew up tending the forest garden that provided natural healthy food for his family. As a young child he participated in a community organization initiative led by his mother that stopped the development of a coal fired generating facility from being built in Rensselaer.
Judith Hyde MA, MAT
is a CT resident for 50 years, is worried about the job prospects for young people. Her professional chapters include founding The Children's Law Center of Connecticut, clinical treatment of children as a family therapist, developmental evaluation of young children, teaching French and English at thecollege level, and research on child slavery in West Africa, Haiti and India.She helped to found the Women & Girls Fund of the Eastern Connecticut Community Foundation and served as board president of Concordia in Hartford Connecticut. She is an elder mentor in the Art of Mentoring program for culture repair through deep nature connection, a Quaker, a competitive bridge player, a participant in the transition town movement and an avid bird watcher.
Sarah Kerstin Gross
is a visionary bridge builder, change agent, seasoned entrepreneur,evolutionary painter, sacred activist, transformational coach, yoga teacher, mesa-carrying Shaman practitioner in the Q’ero tradition and a viscerally based energy healer, incorporating a synthesis of modalities. For 35 years she owned and operated a flourishing prepared foods, catering and events planning business, serving CT and NY. Her clients included Presidents Obama and Clinton, numerous fortune 500 companies as well as a multitude of businesses, non profits and members of the private sector She presented a cutting edge look into “The Evolution of Grab & Go Food” to hundreds at the Natural Foods Convention and a lively hands on interactive workshop, “The Art of Passionate Presentation” at the National Catering Symposium. Fifty-six of her transformative paintings hung at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, in Lenox Mass, for five years and are in numerous private collections. Peru is also part of her lineage, where she co-facilitates yearly pilgrimages. Sarah is passionate about building spirit-based evolutionaryrelationships that creatively foster collaboration, co-creation, community, and sponsor mentorship, supporting social justice in birthing our new world. As a sacred space holder, a student and a teacher, she is inclusive by nature, clear that the authenticity of the whole is paramount in the congruency of the details. Obedient to the depth of her knowing, it is for these reasons Sarah has been drawn to the mutuality and high integrity of the Re Generative Learning Project, where her passions and talents are mirrored, honored and tapped to the fullest. |
Mentors make a differenceBeing seen and mirrored for who we truly are can help us understand and express our soul's true purpose in a way that almost nothing else can.
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Lynnea Brinkerhoff MSOD
is a Board Certified Coach and ordained Interfaith Minister, is a leader of theCenter for ReGenerative Learning, the creator of the first Eco-therapy program in the eastern United States and a founder of The Five Questions International Coaching Network.
She is an applied behavioral scientist, social action researcher and former river guide, small business owner and hospitality manager. Lynnea is currently working with Equine-based Coaching and Community Supported Agriculture and is Vice President of Flath & Associates, a human resource and organization development firm, in New Haven, CT. Lynnea authored a chapter on The Role of Individual Development within an Organizational Context in a seminal OD text and her latest article on managing polarities was published in the Field Guide for Change Leaders. She has published a variety of articles on Equine Assisted Coaching in conjunction with her hands on work in this emerging field, on Eco-therapy and on the impact of neuroscience on leadership and management theory.
Her work focuses on using Large Scale Change Methodologies to create sustainable ecosystems. In the process she encourages a healthy relationship between nature and culture in a way that nurtures individual well-being, increases long term health and builds community resilience. Lynnea has a unique personal touch and employs a range of energy enhancement and stress management tools to build autonomy, emotional maturity and alignment among varied stakeholders in business, non-profit and social venture projects. With over 20 year’s experience as an individual coach to executives and emerging leaders, Lynnea has worked in Fortune 100 companies, with fledgling entrepreneurs and in a variety of non-profit educational organizations with a particular focus on those in personal and organizational transition.
She has been a visiting faculty at St. Claret's College, Bangalore, India and is an adjunct professor in Organizational Development and Public Health at the University of New Haven. Lynnea has a BA in International Business/French from Simmons College Boston, MA; an MS in Organization Development from Pepperdine University Malibu, CA; and studied Regenerative Sciences and Eco-psychology at the University of Lancaster Cumbria, England.
Michael Stern
is an emerging leader in the New York City integral evolutionary community, and as co-founder of Integral Alignment he has organized, produced and hosted several workshops and retreats with leading edge contemporary spiritual teachers such as Thomas Hübl, Terry Patten, and Saniel Bonder. Michael is a Hatha Yoga instructor and a Certified Holacracy™ Practitioner. He is fascinated by collective wisdom, and thrives on the discovery of what becomes possible when a group of committed individuals focus their energy on a shared intention.
Michael is passionate about traveling, and his experiences of being immersed in other cultures have been instrumental in developing his attitude that the Millennial generation has an extraordinary opportunity and responsibility to participate in the most significant transition that humanity has ever faced. His vision is of a more conscious culture that supports each and every individual to awaken to our Divinely Human nature and to offer his or her unique gift to society in a way that is financially sustainable and spiritually fulfilling.
Clare Rosenfield
Since childhood, Clare Rosenfield has remained dedicated to finding the true north of her being, centered in expressing pure-heartedness in art, poetry, essays, and self-illustrated verse narratives (the most recent is called Ninsun: Wise Mother of Gilgamesh)(www.outskirtspress.com/ninsunwisemother). After taking deep dives into a number of different wisdom paths as well as hands-on and spiritual healing techniques, and receiving an M.S. in Social Work, she created Contact Healing (www.contacthealing.com), a holistic psychotherapeutic tool for self-healing. She also plays the harp for people in need of solace or sleep, as well as for meditation circles she facilitates as President of Global Healing Foundation (www.globalhealingfoundation.org).
She believes we are all in transition, moving as a collective towards the Good, the True and the Beautiful in practical as well as spiritual dimensions. Recently she has become more aware of how we can awaken together as opposed to pursuing a solo spiritual journey, and indeed, must join to impact consciousness worldwide in an intention to co create a mutually respectful, loving, cooperative, transparent, and beautiful world. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren require this of us. We need to be pro-active in saving the planet and in guiding the youth of today toward a meaningful, productive, and loving lifestyle.
Sean Brawley
has extensive experience globally as a facilitator, corporate coach, and mental fitness expert. He has worked extensively with some of the world’s most well-known organizations including GE, ITT, Union Bank, the New York Yankees, USC football team and the U.S. Tennis Association.
For over 20 years, Brawley has coached athletes, executives, sports and business coaches, and leaders a combination of interpersonal skills, relaxed concentration” techniques, and personal mastery practices that help his clients release the desire for authenticity, integrity, real human connection, and high performance. The training process helps clients shift individual perception from a state of fear and blame (Victim) to one of Trust and Responsibility for life choices, action and high-level performance.
Sean is fast becoming a leader in the field of Regenerative Learning. Deep learning, performing consistently at high levels, and personal transformation is only possible when we move beyond tips, techniques, and formulas and engage in deep, reflective practice. ReGenerative Learning helps us to rediscover our natural ability to learn so that we may cultivate both our higher potentials and dissolve at the roots the negative attitudes, habits, and repeating patterns that sabotage our learning, performance and enjoyment of all that we do. Simply put, ReGenerative Learning is where all life becomes practice.
Kathy Perrego MD
Rev. Dr. Kathy Perrego’s primary interest is supporting people living fully in alignment with themselves so that they may manifest their unique gifts in their community and their world. She believes as we evolve and live into our full potential, so does our Universe evolve into its highest form. To this end, Rev. Dr. Perrego has spent her adult life studying the mind, body and spirit. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from Cornell University and with a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. Rev. Dr. Perrego was ordained an Interfaith Minister at The New Seminary and has studied different forms of energetic healing. Most recently, she has done advanced leadership training in persona transformation and building intentional loving community. Over the past two decades, Rev. Dr. Perrego has worked with individuals, couples and their families on living authentically with an open heart on their journey towards wholeness using an integrative, developmentally-informed approach.