Jesse Tack
Program Services Manager
Michigan
Jesse Tack took his first PDC in 2011 with Larry Santoyo and Keith Johnson. Since that time he has went on to start a local permaculture group in his town of Ypsilanti, Abundant Michigan, Permaculture Ypsilanti (AMPY). AMPY was focused on local community education and workdays. A land use cooperative, The Cooperative at Dawn Farm, grew out naturally from the work of AMPY and afforded us the opportunity to plant an 8-acre food forest using Mark Shepard’s ‘Restoration Agriculture’ as the model. A small group planted over 1500 trees of an Oak Savanna ecosystem.
Over the years, the land connection Jesse had to Dawn Farm, by way of The Cooperative at Dawn Farm, as provided further earth-based, hands-on education in managing or helping to manage: chicken tractors on Alleyways; rotational pasture sheep management; a fence-post woodlot; a no-dig vegetable ‘Market Garden’; rabbit butchery; small pond creation; seeding ~30 acres to perennial pasture for on-site hay production; hoop house repair and maintenance; scythe skills; and more.
Jesse has made income with permaculture inspired design in consultancy, education events, growing and selling microgreens, fungi, plants, and organic vegetables. Working as a board-certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) since 2008, Jesse has taught a wide variety of coping skills, expression groups, and psychoeducational groups at a Partial Hospitalization Program working in Behavioral and Mental Health. This work provided a rich tapestry of knowledge and direct client interactions in small group settings. Jesse sees a rich interaction between the work of permaculture designers and the design of Self Care landscapes and environments.
The areas within permaculture that are most interesting to Jesse include: perennial plants; food forests; community design; regenerative agriculture; the biorefinery/cradle-to-cradle materials economy; economic systems; and all things water.
Other areas of interest include songwriting, marketing psychology, coaching, biofield anatomy, attachment styles, the microbiome, mitochondrial health, habit formation, Detroit Lions football, astrotheology, and more.
Jesse is a husband, father of 1 cat and 1 dog, and farmer living in east Michigan, where he stewards 1/3rd of an acre in the urban city-center of Ypsilanti with his beautiful and talented partner Jessica Smith.
You can reach out to Jesse at: programs@pina.in.