Penny has sat on the board of the Permaculture Institute of North America as well as the Building Appeals Board for the County of Marin, after being unanimously approved by the Marin County Supervisors. She was also a founding board member for the Redwood Empire Chapter of the US Green Building Council.

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She has studied, taught with, hosted and learned directly with Bill Mollison, and David Holmgren the co-founders of Permaculture and the developers of the Permaculture Design Certification Course curriculum.

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Penny has been teaching internationally and working professionally in the land management, regenerative design, and permaculture development field for 25 years and has extensive experience in all phases of ecologically sound design and construction as well as the use of natural non-toxic building materials. She specializes in site planning and the design of resource-rich landscapes integrating, rainwater collection, edible and medicinal planting, spring development, pond and water systems, habitat development and watershed restoration for homes, co-housing communities, businesses, and diverse yield perennial farms. She as taught Herbal Medicine Making, Natural Building and Permaculture around the US as well as Bali, Indonesia, Peru, Germany, Mexico, France, Turkey, Portugal, Australia, Belize, Brazil, England and Costa Rica.

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With her husband James Stark, and in collaboration with www.Commonweal.Org — a cancer health research and retreat center — Penny co-manages Commonweal Garden, a 17-acre organic and certified salmon-safe farm in Bolinas, California.

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Penny co-created the Ecological Design Program and its curriculum at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, co-created the Permaculture Program at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center with Brock Dolman, co-created the Earth Activist Training with Starhawk and she co-founded the West Marin Grower’s Group, the West Marin Farmer’s Market, and the Community Land Trust Association of Marin. Penny has also worked with the Marin County Community Development Agency and Planning Department to develop recommendations on sustainability for updating the Community Plan.

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Penny is a founding member of the Natural Building Colloquium, a national consortium of professional natural builders, creating innovations in straw bale, cob, timberframe, light clay, natural non-toxic interior finishes and other methods using natural and bio-regionally appropriate materials for construction.

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She has been featured in the following films:

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Symphony of the Soil by Lily Films and Deborah Koons Garcia,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1506940/ 

https://symphonyofthesoil.com/ 

 

2012 Time for a Change

by Joao Amorim and Daniel Pinchbeck and

http://www.belili.org/permaculture/Permaculture_GrowingEdge.html 

 

Permaculture The Growing Edge

by  Belili Films and Starhawk.

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She has been apprenticing in Germany and Italy at the Arven School for Medicinal Plants, Aromatherapy and Wilderness Wisdom with her teacher, a master alchemist, Susanne Fischer-Rizzi in Germany since 2011. Penny is holding this lineage here in the United States and is embarking on sharing what she has learned over the years.

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Learn a bit about Penny's story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS3FOuEtERk