David R. Braden IV, Living Systems Insitute Executive Director
Name: David R. Braden IV
Occupation: Executive Director, Living Systems Institute
Place of Residence: Golden, Colorado
Background and Personal History: David has a BA in history and a law degree, but his primary interest has always been a better way to live with nature’s processes. David started reading Mother Earth News out of college in the early 70s, attended the first and second North American Bioregional Congresses and has been active in the permaculture and transition movements.
In 2004, David sold his law practice in order to devote full time to his passion of teaching others about a different way to understand our relationships with the living things around us. That effort has resulted in the 2013 formation of the Living Systems Institute which was granted tax exempt status in July 2014.
Current Projects: Living Systems Institute promotes what we call community sufficiency technologies. Mother Earth News readers are familiar with the concept of self-sufficiency and community sufficiency is that but on a community or neighborhood level. The Institute researches, designs, prototypes, tests and teaches about integrated closed loop production systems.
In a closed-loop production system, all of the inputs are produced as a part of the production cycle reducing your input costs to zero. The example is a flock of chickens where you produce all of their food on site and hatch your own new birds from your own fertile eggs. In an integrated production system, all byproducts of each process are used as feed stock in other processes reducing your waste to zero. The example is where you use the chicken waste to grow worms and use the worms to feed the chickens and the worm castings to grow your plants.
Other Fun Facts: David’s parents bought an acre outside of Golden, Colo., in 1954. David was 2 years old and has lived on that acre since then, except for 10 years that he was away at school. David has observed and interacted with the living systems operating in that place over that time. Here is how he feels about that.
More Places to Find David on the Web:
If you are interested in joining the discussion about how we promote this way of life, send a friend request and ask to join the Living Systems Institute Advisory Board Facebook group.
