Michael is an emeritus 4-H Youth Development and Master Gardener Advisor with UC Cooperative Extension in Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. He has over thirty years of experience in the field of non-formal environmental education in national and international settings. He is the Principal Investigator of the Agua Pura and Pescadores watershed, salmon and steelhead youth education project. Michael holds a M.A. in Education, specializing in non-formal education, from the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts. His undergraduate degree is in fine arts, from Humboldt State University, with course work and special projects in environmental planning and design. In recent years he has served various consultancies with ACDI/VOCA in Bolivia and in Serbia. Before he began his work with the University of California, He directed a farm worker service center for eighteen Northern California counties. He served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala and as Peace Corps recruiter and trainer and as a non-formal education project-leader in Lesotho, Southern Africa. He has served on the board of the NAAEE as Chair of the Non-formal Commission, and more recently as Co-chair of NAAEE’s International Commission. He is fluent in Spanish and he has a working knowledge of Italian.