In 2020, Alan founded the award-winning Library of Stuff CIC in Hull, UK. What began in a residential garage has since scaled into a thriving community hub, providing residents with access to essential tools and equipment, while overseeing volunteer programs and employment schemes designed to help young people enter the workforce.

A dedicated advocate for the circular economy, he has expanded the Library’s impact through initiatives like the Repair Cafe and the Ravage Kids Club, which teaches the next generation the value of “repair first” and how to dismantle factory-made items. In addition to his leadership at the Library, he works with Unity in Community and Lend-Engine, blending social impact with software systems. He is currently developing a multi-generational gaming expo to celebrate the history of “console gaming with the family” in summer 2026.

Contact: alan at lend-engine dot com

Amanda Miller has served as Executive Director of the South King Tool Libraries (SKTL) since 2019, leading the organization through a period of remarkable growth and community impact. Under her leadership, SKTL expanded its services across South King County, culminating in the opening of a second branch in Auburn in October 2023 (relocating in 2026!). 

With a strong focus on waste reduction and environmental resiliency, Amanda has expanded SKTL’s reach through a variety of community programs, including repair cafés, skill-building workshops, recycling drives, and educational partnerships with local community leaders, many agencies, schools, and diverse partners. Her stewardship has helped SKTL become a model for circular economy initiatives in the Puget Sound region.

Amanda’s leadership has also been recognized through regional sustainability awards and grants from the King County Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Ecology, the City of Federal of Way, Federal Way Public Schools, and regional leadership groups, affirming SKTL’s role as a leader in community-based environmental action. She continues to advocate for resource sharing, equity in access, and the power of collaboration in building a more sustainable future for South King County.

Contact: director at southkingtools dot org

Anna is the CEO and Founder of the Circular Library Network (CLN) in Iceland and Chairwoman of Hringrásarsetur Íslands. Her work focuses on advancing the circular economy through community initiatives, repair culture, and resource sharing. With a background in conservation and preventive conservation, she brings expertise in sustainability, project management, and nonprofit leadership.

Contact: anna at munasafn dot is

Ariss is the Co-Founder of Awl Together Leather, Canada’s only female*-owned custom leatherwork and shoe repair shop, located in East Vancouver. Awl Together Leather is the recipient of the Canadian Queer Chamber of Commerce’s 2SLGBTQI+ Business of the Year 2025, the 2025 inaugural winner of the Christine Bergeron Woman Entrepreneur Award, and the Untapped Workplace Social Enterprise “Inclusive Culture Champion” 2025, and more.

Contact: awltogetherleather at gmail dot com

Arthur is the Fixing Factory co-lead at the Restart Project. Fixing Factories are permanent electronic repair hubs, usually on the high street, that offer weekly free community repair sessions, affordable skills workshops and a fix for a fee repair service. The hubs have a strong community focus and are supported by an awesome team of volunteers.

Contact: arthur at therestartproject dot org

Ben manages Hennepin County’s Waste Reduction & Recycling Unit. He has worked for the county since 2005 on a wide variety of programs and projects. Ben grew up in Nebraska, graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul (Minnesota), and lives in Minneapolis.

Contact: Ben.Knudson at hennepin dot us

Blake is the Waste Reduction and Reuse Coordinator at the Macalester College Sustainability Office. He implements and manages projects such as the move-out donation program, campus free store, reusable to-go container system, and a digital surplus furniture catalogue. Blake served as a Minnesota GreenCorps member at Macalester for two years prior to his current position, learning the ins and outs of campus waste streams and gaining an appreciation for all things reuse. Blake earned a BA in Environmental Studies from St. Olaf College in Minnesota with an emphasis in Environmental Humanities. His humanities background continues to motivate his work, as he uses waste and reuse as lenses to understand humanity’s relationship to the non-human world.

Contact: bolson5 at macalester dot edu

Chris serves as the Sustainability Manager for SUNY Binghamton’s University Dining Services and helps lead the Binghamton Move Out Project. He’s constantly experimenting with new ways to cut campus waste—some ideas quietly retire, but once in a while he finds a good one!

Contact: Christopher.Harasta at sodexo dot com

Claudia is a journalist, sociologist, researcher on work and learning; and since 2016 scientific support of Schüler-Reparaturwerkstatt (Student Repair Shop) in Munich, Germany as a volunteer.

Contact: claudia.munz at posteo dot de

Part of the broader Repair Café North Carolina network, Dan started WNC Repair Cafe in 2018, where he continues to organize community repair workshops throughout the western North Carolina region. Out of his small shop in Weaverville NC, Dan operates Circle Works llc, a small firm that develops appropriate technology for creating value from waste streams and improving small farm efficiency. He’s an experienced educator, gardener, occasional artist and professional fabricator. He writes music with his band for fun and is raising two children with his wife, Summer.

Contact: wncrepaircafe at gmail dot com

Diane is chief executive officer of Finger Lakes ReUse, Inc., an award-winning nonprofit social enterprise operating two Community ReUse Centers in Ithaca, NY. Incorporated in 2007 to help transform the costs of waste into community value, Finger Lakes ReUse has received numerous awards, including Nonprofit of the Year Award from the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce and Environmental Champion Award from the USEPA. Diane has been working in waste reduction through reuse since 2001, and enjoys taking a collaborative approach to help design and activate a more comprehensive, sustainable and just materials management system. The ultimate goal is for all reusable and repairable materials to remain circulating in local economies, providing opportunities for skill-building, empowerment and community connection in the process.

Contact: diane at fingerlakesreuse dot org

Elaine is the CEO of the Edinburgh Remakery an award-winning social enterprise focussing on the circular economy. She joined the Edinburgh Remakery in 2019 bringing over 25 years’ experience of working in various roles within Local Authorities and not-for-profit organisations.
At the Edinburgh Remakery, she is driving forward the concept of Re-use and Repair and bringing it to the mainstream at their fabulous shop in a large shopping centre in Leith. Regularly giving talks to businesses and organisations across Scotland about the concept of reuse, circular economy, and social value. She is passionate about creating stronger collaborations between the third sector and public/private sectors. She is also creating routeways to create Green jobs and apprenticeship opportunities within her social enterprise.

Elaine believes that this is not a climate emergency but rather a climate opportunity! By adopting circular economy practices businesses can help People and Planet.

Contact: elaine at edinburghremakery dot org dot uk

Liz is the founder of Start Consulting Group LLC. Her career has spanned work in the circular economy for over 20 years, with a focus on materials management, especially reuse. This work has spanned local government, private industry, nonprofit, and consulting. Elizabeth founded Start Consulting Group to ensure inclusion, equity, and justice are ingrained in the circular economy. She builds relationships through trust, communication, and empowerment to develop and create strong organizational cultures. Elizabeth is also a reuse artist and magpie who uses any shiny discarded object she can find.  

Contact: elizabeth at startsustainability dot com

Emily Barker (she/her) has served as the Executive Director of Reuse Minnesota since August 2021. Her role is to lead the organization, build partnerships, and support the reuse sector throughout Minnesota. Previously, she was a solid waste specialist for the City of St. Louis Park where she championed and implemented reuse-based programs from swaps to deconstruction of city-owned buildings. Emily also worked two and a half years at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency where she focused on commercial and state agency recycling and composting. Emily is originally from Montana and has a biology degree from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.

ContactL emilybarker at reusemn dot org

Estee Segal is a Principal Solid Waste Planner at Oregon Metro, where she leads the planning and development of new reuse, recycling and garbage infrastructure that are grounded in equity, community engagement, and to achieve regional sustainability goals. With over two decades of experience spanning public-sector project management, community development finance, and neighborhood-based sustainability initiatives, she brings a systems-thinking approach to advancing infrastructure planning and resilient materials management.

Contact: Estee.Segal at oregonmetro dot gov

Ginko is a community organizer, grassroots advocate, and one of the founding members of Repair Café Pasadena. She began as a graphic design volunteer in 2012, a role that quietly evolved into long term stewardship, systems building, and community leadership. In 2018, she co founded Repair Café Tainan, helping to further the repair movement in Taiwan and strengthening cross cultural civic exchange.

Ginko is known for shining light on fellow volunteers. She nurtures people, builds thoughtful administrative structures, and creates the conditions for others to step forward with confidence. For her, success is measured not only in repaired items, but in volunteers who feel valued and return again.

She is a certified Community Designer through the Urban Development Bureau of the Tainan City Government , reflecting her commitment to participatory, citizen led design.

In her private time, Ginko bakes Neapolitan pizza in her backyard and continues a 15 year love affair with handbuilt ceramics, practicing patience, craft, and care in every part of her life.

Contact: ginko.garfield at gmail dot com

Hailey, founder of King’s Imagination, is a Baltimore-based design strategist and visual artist creating irresistible invitations to necessary work. With a background in neuroscience and social design, she transforms complex information into accessible tools that equip communities to shape their own futures. She collaborates with community-rooted leaders to design experiences and tools that help people navigate systems, access opportunities, and take collective action. Her practice centers Black queer joy, collective imagination, and the belief that everyone is a designer capable of shaping liberatory futures.

Contact: hailey.kico at gmail dot com

Holly Shader is a retired Middle School Science teacher who has been involved in the environmental movement for over 30 years, working to educate community members about climate change, how to live more sustainably, and create more resilient communities. She has been involved with Repair Cafe since they were introduced in the Hudson Valley by John Wackman in 2012. She now volunteers with several local organizations and organizes the Repair Cafes for New Paltz and Gardiner.

Contact: hshader at gmail dot com

Jason Naumann (he/him) has been lending tools since 2015, when he left the Midwest for Portland, OR. He coordinates with Portland’s 7 sister tool libraries as an advocate, graphic designer, and coordinator of the Portland Library of Things Network as well as the national Tool Library Alliance. His latest venture is Rockwood Commons’ mobile tool library and the Rockwood Repair & Reuse Center.

Contact: jason at rockwoodcommon dot org

Jim Carlisle is a native Oregonian, born in Oregon City. As a boy, he first started repairing bicycles, moving to electric motors and table appliances, and eventually major appliances. While working for his father’s Electric Service business in Oregon City, he was teaching major appliance repair in the Portland Apprenticeship School at Benson Polytechnic.

When he moved to Illinois in 1966, he began teaching table appliance repair to senior citizens for five years through the school district’s Lifelong Learning Program. He spent his entire career working in appliance repair and parts distribution, mostly working for Montgomery Ward and freelancing for independent repair companies. He has repaired microwave ovens for more than 60 years.

Since moving back to Oregon in 2018, he has returned to servicing and repairing table appliances, and you can find him at Repair Cafes and Repair Fairs across four NW Oregon counties where he has been volunteering for the past six years.

Contact: jcarlisle001 at gmail dot com

Josh was born in upstate New York, grew up in Boulder, CO, went to college outside of LA, and has called Seattle home since 2008. He first became an official member of the Repair Economy by joining the NE Seattle Tool Library 7 years ago while converting his garage into a living space. He is now the director of the nonprofit Seattle REconomy which is contributing to an economy of reuse through tool sharing, reuse material sales, and DIY classes. He loves eating food, playing music, talking with people, and using tools. Josh also raises vegetables, chickens, a dog named Ellie, and a boy named Cedar. He loves sharing and wants to collaborate with you!

Contact: josh at seattlereconomy dot org

Julie has been teaching computer science and media electives at South Portland High School in South Portland, Maine since she was hired in 2002 and currently leads the Riot Refurb program. Hired to teach Video Production, she has gone on to develop and maintain many new classes for the school community that include Animation & Game Design, Digital Graphics, Advanced Technology, and Introduction to Computer Science. Community and joy are two main focuses in her life and teaching: with representation, inclusion, involvement, creating, passion, empathy, and diversity at the forefront of her planning and development. She is married with two children and has two businesses she founded and continues to run for fans of anime and gaming in Maine: Weekend Anime & Games and PortConMaine.

Contact: yorkju at spsdme dot org

Kami is the schemer-behind-the-scenes of Repair x Reuse WA and leads the Repair Economy efforts: connecting, convening, and elevating the work of fixers, tool librarians, remakers, and small repair/reuse businesses. Born and raised in Nashville, Kami found her jam in community organizing – and had the honor of working with incredible people and organizations across the city and state. She then spent the 2010’s in New Orleans and Los Angeles before arriving in Washington in January 2020. Kami earned a BA in Religious Studies from The University of the South (Sewanee); an MS from Tulane University – focusing on sustainable organizational development and community disaster resilience; and completed an Urban Permaculture Design Certificate in Detroit in 2012. Besides her interests in systems thinking and organizational capacity-building, she loves serving as connective tissue between great people and great ideas.

Contact: kami at repairreuse dot org
LI: linkedin.com/in/kamibruner

Laura is a systems-thinking, research designer with over 15 years experience in materials reuse. Laura uses research methodologies in order to understand, quantify, and measure the impact of consumerism. Trained in environmental science with a masters in sustainable interior design, Laura worked as a materials researcher at Material ConneXion and a project manager at the NYC Center for Materials Reuse prior to joining Hyloh.

Contact: laura at hyloh dot com

Leanna Frick (she/her) is a lifelong organizer with a career in nonprofit fundraising and management. She began volunteering with her local tool library, the Station North TL in Baltimore, in 2015 and never looked back.

She co-founded and currently serves on the steering committee for the Tool Library Alliance.

Contact: hello at toollibraryalliance dot org

Liliana is a creative operations strategist focused on the intentional connections between people and process. She works with folks to turn their possibility into practice by building back-end infrastructure. Current ongoing clients include champions in the circular economy: The Culture of Repair Project and Blue Daisi Consulting. Previously she was the Co-Director of The Maintainers. Learn more: takecaretakeaction.com.

Contact: hi at takecaretakeaction dot com

Lisa Smith is the Executive Director of the Washington State Microenterprise Association (WSMA) which provides grants, capacity building, technical assistance, and networking support for 150+ nonprofit Entrepreneurial Support Organizations (ESOs) in Washington state. Lisa has over 30 years of experience supporting entrepreneurs. She is a strong advocate for business ownership and believes that strengthening marginalized and rural communities, growing regenerative enterprises, and developing sound policy boosts Washington’s economy and helps close the wealth gap. Her research and writings have been published in Consumer Reports, Scholastic Magazine, and the American Journal of Public Health.

Contact: lisa at wamicrobiz dot org

Luke leads Eastside Rebuild, a reuse, repair, and sharing hub in Cashmere, Washington. The program was founded in 2023 and serves the semi-rural community of North Central Washington. The program began with a tool library and reuse store and has grown to support local needs where they pop up; including repair cafe’s, farm tool rentals, and storm recovery when disaster struck. He comes from a nonprofit administration background and has worked in reuse since 2020, and is often focused on fine tuning operations for easy replication and adaptability.

Contact: luke at wasteloop dot org

Marek is a physics teacher and repair educator based in Munich, Germany. Originally from Poland, he grew up in Germany and developed an early fascination with how electronic devices work. As a teenager he began taking apart and repairing electronics—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—and built his first electronic circuits by soldering components. He studied physics and later worked at the Technical University of Munich as a scientific assistant, where he also gained practical experience maintaining and repairing laboratory equipment. Today he teaches mathematics and physics at the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich and actively integrates repair culture and sustainability into education. Through student repair workshops and hands-on electronics projects, he encourages young people to open devices, understand how they work, and see technology as something that can be maintained rather than discarded. Blaszczynski is a member of Reparieren macht Schule e.V., a German initiative founded by Walter Kraus and Claudia Munz, promoting repair education in schools.

Contact: Marek.Blaszczynski at waldorfschule-schwabing dot de

Megan is a Coordinator for the City of Austin’s Circular Economy Program, where she champions sustainability by promoting reuse, repair, and other environmentally conscious behavioral changes. Megan’s key responsibilities include overseeing the annual university move-out program, MoveOutATX, spearheading the City’s Fix-It Clinics and other repair initiatives, and maintaining the Austin Reuse Directory. She is a proud alum of the Texas State University Sustainability Studies master’s program.

Contact: Megan.Kaplon at austintexas dot gov

Meg is the Energy & Sustainability Engagement Coordinator at SUNY Cortland, where she leads campus-wide sustainability communications and engagement programs that empower the campus community to advance environmental stewardship, including the end of semester donation collection program, Red Dragon ReUse. This partnership with Cortland ReUse, which is also a board member, diverts usable materials from landfills and helps to create a circular on campus and in the community. Megan holds a Master of Mass Communication from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School and a B.S. in Environmental Science & Sustainability and Spanish from Allegheny College.

Contact: megan.swing at cortland dot edu

Melina Scioli is an activist who works in the intersection between environment and material culture, with an interest in design, education and the impact cities can have towards a sustainable, circular transformation. In 2015 she co-founded Articulo 41 NGO and Club de Reparadores, a citizen repair movement. She is part of Ciudades Comunes, a network organization to rethink the co-construction of the city. She became an Ashoka Fellow in 2025.

Contact: info at articulo41 dot org

Michael Starch is a software developer working in high reliability systems who has been tearing things apart since he was a wee child. Michael has been involved with Repair Cafe Pasadena for over a decade, tinkering, leading, and, lately, working as a member of the front desk.

Michael is the inventor of the front desk system that has expanded from a small triage system into a full event data management system capable allowing Repair Cafe Pasadena to handle upwards of 200 repairs.

Contact: starchmd at umich dot edu

For over a decade, Midge has played a central role in shaping and growing Bedford 2030’s climate action work. Now as Program Director, she continues to lead impactful initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect natural resources—ranging from energy efficiency and EV adoption to youth engagement and natural climate solutions. Under Midge’s leadership, the Bedford Take It or Leave It (TIOLI) Shed is heading into its 10th year as a community resource to reduce waste. A strategic thinker and passionate community advocate, Midge is dedicated to making climate action accessible and effective for everyone. She lives in Katonah where she and her husband raised their two sons. She enjoys cooking from pantry scraps, drawing botanicals, and cultivating her vegetable and pollinator gardens.

Contact: midge.iorio at bedford2030 dot org

As part of Syracuse University’s Institute for Sustainability Engagement, Morgan works to expand reuse and repair programs across New York State and beyond. She coordinates Repair Cafe CNY, leads the NYS SMM Stewardship Program, serves as Chair of the NYSAR3 Reuse Committee, and provides free technical assistance to communities. She has over a decade of experience in education, outreach, and ecological research with environmental non-profits. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Humboldt State University and an M.S. in Environmental Biology from SUNY-ESF.

Contact: meingrah at syr dot edu

Mya Keyzers (looks like Key-zers, sounds like Kaisers) works for the Recycling Market Development Center (Center), within the Solid Waste Program of Washington State Department of Ecology. The Center is a partnership between Washington Department of Commerce that focuses on Circular Economy principles by developing domestic markets and processing infrastructure for Washington’s recycled commodities and products. The Center provides research, innovation, and technical assistance to convene equitable stakeholder engagement that builds a stronger circular economy for Washington.

Contact: mkey461 at ecy dot wa dot gov

Paige leads communications work at Shareable. Paige has a background in art, design, and political organizing and is passionate about storytelling and doing local movement work in Syracuse, NY.

Contact: paige at shareable dot net

Phoebe is the Executive Director of the Reuse Alliance. Previously, she was the Chief Planning Officer of the Eames Institute – a nonprofit working to expand the use of design to solve problems. Prior to that she spent over 15 years working as an architect, primarily at EHDD in San Francisco, and as an exhibit designer always focused on sustainability and reuse. Her award winning projects include the Lands End Lookout in San Francisco and the New Seas Aquarium at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, WA . She is a UC Berkeley alumnus and received her M.Arch. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where her thesis was on the reuse of big box stores. She is also the founder of The Mending Library, a pop-up that helps people repair and rewear their clothes.

ContactL phoebe at reusealliance dot org

Ruth is a Full Professor in Design for Sustainable Consumer Behavior at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. She takes a consumer-centered perspective to developing sustainable design theories. More specifically, her research focuses on investigating the role of design for encouraging different sustainable consumer behaviors, such as slowing down premature obsolescence by extending the lifetime of well-functioning products, encouraging maintenance and repair of consumer electronics and increasing the adoption of refurbished products.

Contact: r.mugge at tudelft dot nl

Sam Bennett is a design researcher, repair artist, and doctoral candidate at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her work centers on aging, care, and repair, drawing on material culture, storytelling, and participatory design to build frameworks that honor aging and embodied knowledge through co‑creation, slowness, and care aesthetics. Through her research and learning studio Repair Shop, she facilitates public mending programs in libraries, schools, and residencies, using repair as a platform for social dialogue and collective memory. Sam is co-chair of the Maintainers Steering Committee, a global network advancing maintenance, repair, and care. She also founded An Apple a Day, an intergenerational collective of menders exploring experiences of care. She enjoys creating absurd maintenance tools and finds magic in the existing and the discarded.

Contact: sambennett13 at gmail dot com

After years of professional software development and thinking in clean, logical systems, Scoops now channels that same mindset into the maker world. He uses 3D printing to fabricate replacement parts, prototype fixes, and occasionally give broken objects the mechanical equivalent of a second life patch. He is a proud, small part of the Repair Café Pasadena digital check in system, responsible for the printed tickets patrons carry through the repair process. A simple slip of paper, quietly keeping everything on track.

Contact: mescoops at gmail dot com

Steve currently serves as the Becker County, Minnesota Land Use Department Director, which provides direction and operational oversight of Environmental Services, Natural Services, and the County Parks & Recreational departments. In this role, Steve guides County solid waste diversion programs and related construction projects, including expansion of the County wide recycling program, hazardous waste program, battery recycling, mattress recycling, and most recently begin source separated organics waste diversion program. Construction projects include the design and construction of a solid waste transfer station, a material recovery facility and expansion, a new pay station/material reuse building, and instrumental in the development of a 5-county regional mass burn solid waste incinerator with material recovery capacity.

Contact: steve.skoog at co dot becker dot mn dot us

Suzanne manages Oregon Metro’s new Reuse Impact Fund grant program, which aims to strengthen and expand greater Portland’s reuse, repair, and share systems. After a detour as an environmental lawyer in San Francisco, Suzanne returned to her home turf of Portland and found her passion working in the public sector in conservation of natural areas and waste management policy. Early in her career, Suzanne ran grant programs for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and feels incredibly lucky to be working in grantmaking again to support organizations doing incredible work to make the region a better place for all. When not in front of her computer screen, Suzanne can be found exploring new hiking trails with her husband and beloved rescued chihuahua cattle dog mutt, Cora.

Contact: Suzanne.Piluso at oregonmetro dot gov

Suzie Fromer is the coordinator for Repair Cafe Hudson Valley, a consortium of over 50 Repair Cafes that was founded by John Wackman in 2013. The daughter of antique dealers who specialized in the restoration of vintage furniture and woodworking tools, Suzie grew up shopping at flea markets and antique shows for vintage jewelry as well as assisting in her father’s workshop. A lifelong gem and mineral collector, she learned metalsmithing and jewelry making first as a camper at Buck’s Rock Creative Work Camp and later as a teaching assistant at Dartmouth College’s Clafin Jewelry Studio. She has spent the last 18 years in Westchester, NY, where she has run a food allergy support group, been an advocate for OIT food allergy treatments, chaired the board of her local farmers market and run a jewelry making and repair business. She started volunteering as a jewelry repair coach for the Hastings Repair Cafe in 2019 and fell in love with the repair cafe concept. Suzie lives in Irvington, NY with her husband and two teenage boys and can be found fixing jewelry at a Repair Cafe throughout the Hudson Valley almost every weekend.

As the former lead of the innovative Columbia Springs‘ Repair Clark County program, Terra brings a wealth of expertise in event coordination and volunteer management. Raised on 70 acres of forest in southern Oregon, Terra has always had a strong earth ethic. Terra earned a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Science, with an emphasis in public education and has been running environmentally focused events for more than a decade. 

Contact: reuserterra at gmail dot com

Tina is lead planner & circular economy strategist for the Recycling Market Development Center at the Washington State Department of Ecology. Tina’s work at the Center focuses on market development for recyclable materials in Washington state. She currently leads the Center’s repair and reuse efforts including the NextCycle Washington project.

Tina started her work with Ecology as an intern in 2000 in the Water Quality Program. She spent six years working with the Water Resources Program on water rights and well drilling issues, and most recently spent six years as the Children’s Safe Products lead with the Hazardous Waste Program.

Tina holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Policy and is a graduate of Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University.

Contact: tina.schaefer dot ecy dot wa dot gov

Tom is Shareable’s Program Director, co-leading their collaborations with organizers and allies to imagine, resource, network, and scale cooperative projects. Tom’s current work focuses on supporting communities to develop Libraries of Things (LoTs) – low-cost, environmentally friendly social infrastructure that enables people to meet their material needs with a focus on housing developments, universities, and post-disaster recovery areas. 

He also serves as the executive producer and host of the award-winning documentary film and podcast series “The Response,” producer of the “Cities@Tufts Podcast,” co-facilitator of SolidarityWorks, and communications lead for the Rural Power Coalition.

Contact: tom at shareable dot net

Since forever I’ve worked with my hands and felt an urgency about taking care of what we’re fortunate enough to have. My biographical scaffolding begins in South Texas. Then the East Coast for liberal arts, finance, social ethics and theology, and ultimately the Bay Area. Over those years — a corporate run, community service, momhood, and all along the way: fixing stuff and making things that are meaningful to me. I started The Culture of Repair Project in 2017 when I couldn’t stand walking by one more thing left on the curb that just needed a screw or a dab of glue. The project’s mission is for repair to be an actionable and pervasive cultural value and is now principally focused on bringing repair into K-12 educational settings. This work currently takes the form of collating details about and links to teaching resources around the world, making grants, and information sharing. 

Theoretically, I balance advocating for repair with an art practice (www.vitawells.net), but balance is elusive. Finally, I know the Camino de Compostela quite well and am ever looking for flechas — following the field of stars.

Contact: contact at cultureofrepair dot org