High Desert Institute
Board Members
These are the current members of our nonprofit board, tasked with overseeing governance and empowering the teams and projects that make up the guilds and lands of the High Desert Institute.
Julia Heim
A seasoned expert in crowdfunding and land-trust-incorporation, Julia’s invaluable contributions to organizational governance and consensus-building have proven instrumental to the success of land projects like Emberfield and Pirate’s Cove. Julia has participated in more than half a dozen new land projects and volunteered at intentional community projects criss-crossing the globe from Costa Rica to Nepal across the last decade.
Joe Whisher
An expert in organizational leadership, Joe has spent time at traditional intentional communities including volunteering at both The Garden and Pirate’s Cove, but he is a maverick thinker who focuses on how these processes and systems could work better. This vital critical lens is the central value proposition of HDI; thinking about things in new ways and always considering how our systems and processes could work better.
CJ Trowbridge
An expert in sustainable infrastructure with multiple advanced degrees from San Francisco State University, CJ also comes to this project with the experience of having helped build half-a dozen new land projects and having also volunteered at countless others including collaborations with Arcosanti, Arizona Department of Agriculture, and the Rocky Mountain Institute.