Josh Dusci (M.S.) is the Indoor Agriculture Associate Specialist at Virginia State University. He focuses on soil-less systems and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), specializing in aquaponic and aquaculture systems.

Currently Josh oversees two programs at VSU (Innovative Indoor Ag and Soil-less Ag Systems) while also rebuilding the aquaculture/indoor ag units at VSU.

During his presentation, Josh will cover the basics of aquaponics including water quality, system design, plant and fish selection, as well as provide various resources to assist anyone looking to get started with aquaponics.

• Inventions include: Solar Track Controller, Averaging Anemometer for Wind Turbine harvest evaluation, reaction timer, atmospheric electricity corona discharge motor, cloud electrometer, VLF receiver, electric vehicle motor controls, and others. Patented “Solid State Battery Charger” and Algorithm for IEI dv/dt=0 charge curve. U.S.

• Patent Number 6,218,812, April 17, 2001. Circuit portfolio available: www.evdl.org/lib/mh/ 

• Renewable Energy Enthusiast, see: www.REEVAdiy.org and EV at www.evalbum.com/4346 , E-Cat: www.evalbum.com/2749

•  Wrote annual Electric Vehicle Reports on International EDTA conventions that set U.S. energy and electric vehicle policy for Current Events magazine www.electricauto.org .

•  Designed/built solar home and Electric Vehicles. See related article in Progressive Engineer: www.progressiveengineer.com (Spring 2000 issue)

• Member, Ute Pass Historical Society. Automated American Indian figures at the robotic “Animated Indian Diorama Project,” Pikes Peak Museum.

• Wrote two chapters in “Essays on Food and Energy”: Renewable Energy Foundation in Catonsville, Md

• Won first place awards from the Air Force for design of “The Electronic Fire Extinguisher” and “The Electronic Trash Remover.”

• REEVA-President, a DIY club for renewable energy and electric cars www.Reevadiy.org

• Taught Wind Turbines at Dabney-Lancaster CC evening classes 2011-2012, climbed Vestas Wind Turbine at www.windmills.com and class for tower climb certification.

• Habitat for Humanity Volunteer

Scott McStacy has been a registered industrial hemp grower since 2019, combining his passion for sustainable agriculture with innovation. He is the founder of Seed to Structure LLC, a pioneering hemp-lime construction company, focused on sustainability, and Sativics Agricultural, a regenerative agriculture business. Before focusing on cannabis, Scott cultivated heirloom tomatoes commercially from 2003 to 2019, laying the groundwork for his transition to cannabis legalization.  

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Scott serves on the advisory board of the Virginia Hemp Coalition, is a member of the United States Hemp Building Association (USHBA), and is the State Director of Built for the Future, a green building guild. His expertise bridges regenerative agriculture, sustainable construction, cannabis education, and advocacy for hemp’s industrial potential.

Jim "The Saltman" Bordwine, from Saltville, VA has helped people all across Appalachia find salt veins in creeks and springs, teaching them how to identify and then distill the salty water into locally sourced salt. Jim's keynote speech focuses on helping you identify salt veins around your home so that you can always keep salt on hand for curing and seasoning.

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Featured on History Chanel's "Mountain Men" - Jim is well know for not only his local salt sourcing, but his love of history and natural sciences.  For over 30 years, Jim has been doing "living history" demonstrations, sharing information from the Ice Age, to the Revolutionary War, to the Civil war, including special topics like rocket fuel and moonshine!

Sahara Hetland is the owner of Raresight Farms, a small homestead in Rocky Mount dedicated to the preservation of rare and endangered breeds of livestock and varieties of heirloom vegetables.

Originally from California, she moved here for Virginia’s temperate climate and plentiful rainfall. Sahara has been practicing heirloom seed-saving for over 10 years, selling rare vegetable starts from her in-home nursery, and using her knowledge of chicken color and pattern genetics to improve her collection of rare breed poultry - and make new ones!

Nate Miller is from Rockingham County va. He graduated from Eastern Mennonite High School. He is a lifelong gardener and naturalist. He also graduated from Bridgewater College where he majored in Art and Environmental Science.

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Later he left the Valley to obtain a master’s in landscape architecture from Clemson University. Currently, he works at Messer Landscape in Staunton and teaches horticulture at Piedmont Virginia Community College where he is the first professor of cannabis in Virginia.

He is also the owner of Simply Sustainable Landscapes through which he sells his book on sustainable land- scaping and consults. He teaches classes at James Madison University's Life Long Learning Institute related to horticulture, nature and agriculture.

Kaplan Farms is a cottage farm in Glade Hill, VA founded by Stephen and Alexandria Kaplan in 2016. They specialize in mushroom identification, production, and cuisine.  Both studied under “Mushroom Man” Skip Talifaerro and carry on that unique fun of fungi.

In 2019, Stephen created the “One-Page Field Guide” to focus on 20 specific and abundant mushrooms in our area. Instead of teaching the entirety of mushrooms from a wide field of view, the one-page creates a laser on a small list of mushrooms and wider introduction to mushroom anatomy. They are a fun family and joyful communicators not to be missed.

When your home, your possessions, your land, your community, your societal infrastructure, your connection to the outside world, and the people who you love are all gone in a matter of hours, what will you have left? What are you made of, without any of this? What is your identity and your role in this brave new world? We have run out of time for you to figure this out. Things are speeding up.

Emma Churchman, MDiv lived through Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina and wrote a book about the first 40 days following the hurricane. Her keynote offers insights into how to prepare for extreme off grid living, the human experience of living grid-free, lessons learned about preparedness and the nature of community, and next steps all of us need to take in this brave new world.

Using a manual press from Dwell Earth, and partnering with my wife Meghan Edwards, we poured our life and everything we had into establishing the first Interlocking Compressed EARTH BLOCK home in Virginia, and anywhere within about 1000 miles, for what I could deduce.

We received our certificate of occupancy in 2022, lived there for 2.5 years, and currently rent the home out. Meghan put beans and rice on the table while I readied the land and built the home.

With the help of Tyler Tappin (the CEO of Freedom Design Build) I designed and engineered the home to be passive solar, bermed, and to have a buried roof. We hope to spread the use of this technology in the future.