ZON EASTES champions the collaborative power of the effective nonprofit. He has led nonprofit organizations as Executive Director (Brattleboro Music Center, Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council) and has consulted with numerous nonprofits about increasing organizational capacity, planning strategically, and enhancing board responsibility and involvement. He has served on community boards such as the Windham Regional Planning Commission, Building a Better Brattleboro, and the Brattleboro Arts Initiative. He was instrumental in establishment of the Alliance for the Arts, a rolling collective of southeastern Vermont arts organizations looking at shared issues, and the Bainbridge Island Tourism Alliance, a four-organization collective unifying and streamlining efforts for island tourism promotion. He has conducted symphony orchestras on both coasts, and was Music Director of the Windham Orchestra for over twenty years. He lives in Guilford, Vermont.
JARED FLYNN grew up in southern Vermont and has always felt at home with the natural landscape. Jared’s outdoor lifestyle inspired his interest in horticulture, which paved the way to a career in walling in the mid-1990s. Like most wallers, Jared started by teaching himself and learning from others by working alongside them. He started his own business in 2000 doing residential work primarily in southeastern Vermont. After taking a workshop with Dan Snow in 2003, Jared became interested in craftsman certification from the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain (DSWA) and earned his Intermediate Certificate in 2005.
Jared attained his DSWA Advanced Certificate in 2009 and his Master Craftsman certificate in 2017. While continuing to run his walling business, he has also instructs stone wall students in workshop and classroom settings, including courses at the Windham County Career Center. Jared’s interest in education and the development of professional standards has opened conversations about statutes with the Windham Regional Planning Commission, Vermont state legislators, the Vermont Scenic Byways Council, and local communities.
He is also committed to historic preservation of the stone walls and walling traditions of his native state. To that end, he creates workshops focused on rebuilding historic walls and is working toward developing an inventory of Vermont’s historic roadside walls. Jared lives in Dummerston, Vermont.
DAN SNOW is an art maker specializing in dry stone constructions. He has been building with stone since 1972 when he helped restore a 13th century castle in Italy. In 1986 he was an apprentice dyker in Scotland. Snow achieved DSWA Mastercraftsman in 2000. Dan’s dry stone constructions include fences, pillars, staircases, bridges, follies, grottos, and environmental sculpture. In 2001 Snow authored “In the Company of Stone.” His second book “Listening to Stone”, came out in 2008. Snow has created works and instructed workshops in a 13 states and eight countries. He lives in Dummerston, Vermont. http://www.dansnowstoneworks.com
MICHAEL WEITZNER has been a full-time dry stone waller/mason and a professional member of the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain since 1993. In 2003 the DSWA-GB awarded him a Master Craftsman certificate (no. 159) their highest level of certification. Michael has a strong interest in historic preservation and has become involved in historic bridge preservation. He has provided technical condition assessments for the State of Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) and other entities. Michael has also teamed with area engineering firms as a subconsultant on other structural studies around Vermont and New Hampshire.
Michael was born in Switzerland in 1962 and has lived in Spain, England, Scotland and the USA. Michael’s involvement with dry stone began at an early age when he was introduced to it by his Swiss grandfather. Michael arrived in Scotland in 1981; he became a full-time professional dry stone waller in 1993 when he was hired by Master Craftsman Neil Rippingale (now the Training and Certification Coordinator for the Dry Stone Conservancy of Kentucky) to assist with the construction of a dry stone house in the Outer Hebrides, an archipelago off the West Coast of Scotland. Michael’s work has been featured in New Old House magazine, Vermont Life magazine, ‘Good Fences’ by Bill Hubbell and on HGTV’s Rebecca’s Garden. Michael lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.