Lyndsey McGuire is co-founder of the Paonia Permaculture Initiative. She received a BA in Secondary Education from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. After finishing her degree, she moved to Keystone, CO and began working at the Blue Moose Restaurant. It was there she met Michael and Traci Minarski.

Fascinated by the lure of the unknown, Lyndsey began travelling extensively. Her journeys took her to four continents and over twenty countries. The world became her classroom, and the wisdom she inherited from travel made her realize that she was being called to teach something more profound than what could be expressed in a traditional public school setting.

In the course of her travels, Lyndsey received two yoga teacher training certificates from the Foundation of Pathanjala Yoga Kendra in Bangalore, India, and a Permaculture Design Certificate from Warren Brush at the Nyumbani Village in Kenya. For Lyndsey, the combination of yoga and travel engendered a deepening awareness of a planet engaged in both an individual and collective struggle. She believes that mindfulness training equipped her with the fortitude and equipoise necessary to navigate the challenges of interpersonal relationships, and climatic transition.

A gifted orator, Lyndsey has a passion for spoken word poetry. She was a member of the 2009 Denver Mercury Cafe slam poetry team, and competed at the National Poetry Slam that same year. To Lyndsey, yoga and permaculture farming are poetry in motion, as they both cultivate the deep listening skills that she believes will help us evolve toward a more community-oriented consciousness.

Joshua McGuire is co-founder of the Paonia Permaculture Initiative. He received his undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and then went on to earn his MA in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

While at Naropa, Joshua became fascinated with the study of systems, particularly self-regulating systems, and began looking for ways to practically apply what he had learned. After finishing his master's degree, Josh and his wife Lyndsey moved to Maui. They landed on Rancho Relaxzo; a five acre permaculture farm on the dry side of Haleakala. Under the tutelage of John Pollock, Josh was introduced to permaculture design.

After leaving Maui, Josh took an Americorps position at Neighborworks Umpqua in Roseburg, Oregon, where he served as a community organizer. He received his Permaculture Design Certificate from Warren Brush, at the Nyumbani village in Kenya.

For Joshua, permaculture provides a tangible expression of System Theory in practice, and it also gives a workable example of a way to live harmoniously within the environment he loves and wishes to protect. Josh's passion lies in the cultivation and the sustainability of relationships, particularly when it comes to the establishment of ecologically sound and peaceful human settlements.