The Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture: Board of Directors
The board of directors for the Center for Sustainable & Cooperative Culture (501c3) and Dancing Rabbit Land Trust (501c2) oversees financial development and strategic planning for our non-profit in conjunction with the Dancing Rabbit membership.
Daniel Pugh
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Rutledge, MO
Daniel grew up in the Kansas City area and considers himself almost local. While studying at the University of Kansas, he spent two years living in the Sunflower House, a NASCO cooperative, which left him with a love for Community living. In college, Daniel also discovered a love for prairie landscapes and an interest in the ways that cultures have lived with them. After completing a doctorate in anthropological archaeology and teaching briefly in Michigan, Daniel moved to Kazakhstan with his partner Tails where they contributed to developing a new university. At some point in 2020, Daniel and Tails decided it was time to live closer to their families, the earth, and their values, and so they set out to find a place where they could do that. They have lived at Dancing Rabbit since Summer 2021 and Daniel continues to serve on the board of Kazakhstan’s National Conservation Initiative. Daniel spends his time at Dancing Rabbit supporting the operation of the Milkweed Mercantile, and participating in pretty much any activities that he can fit into his schedule. His favorite moments in Community are in Song Circle and sweating with friends in the sauna.
Karen Gillooly
Director of Programs for Family Connections – Cleveland, OH
Stephen Shapiro
Turin, Italy
Stephen grew up in Los Angeles, CA and, after living in the Midwest for ten or so years, has recently moved with his wife to Turin, Italy (where she is from) and there they have a young baby. Between 2010 and 2018 Stephen spent about five years living at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Stephen has studied and/or worked in photography, writing, real estate, education, environmental canvassing, and other fields. He now teaches middle school in Turin, Italy and tries to integrate all he has learned from Dancing Rabbit and elsewhere, and hopes to pass it on to the next generation.
Sue Ann Kortkamp
Foundation Executive Director of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of IL (Retired) – Illinois
Sue Ann Kortkamp graduated with a BS in Biology from the University of Illinois. She retired in 2008 after a 23 year career in health care fundraising. Prior to that time, she also worked for the Tazewell County Health Dept as their first environmental sanitarian and served for 12 years on the Council of the City of Pekin. Currently, she serves on the board of The Dirksen Congressional Center and the MS Council of Central Illinois. During retirement, Sue Ann enjoyed helping students with their reading skills and helped found the Pekin Outreach Initiative which provides weekend snack packs to all students who are food insecure; as well as helps feed the homeless through local food pantries and church feeding programs.
Zach Rubin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lander University – South Carolina
Zach Rubin is a Midwesterner displaced to the South, trying to learn a whole new group of trees and bugs while working as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lander University. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Missouri and is working on some other, higher degree in loving the Earth. In 2015, he lived at DR for eight months. This led him to write his dissertation, “My Year Pooping in a Bucket” about the experience, as well as to publish several journal articles using DR as a case study for social movement activity. He also sits on the board for the Communal Studies Association. In his spare time he likes to practice carpentry and gardening.
Brenda Van Gelder
CPA & Senior Vice President, Finance for the Arizona Science Center
Brenda was introduced to Dancing Rabbit when she and her family attended a visitors’ session in 2017. It was a transformative experience for them, and she is honored to be able to contribute to the organization’s mission through service on the Board of Directors.
Brenda graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Accountancy in 2000 and obtained a CPA license from the Arizona State Board of Accountancy in 2004. She worked as an auditor in public practice for seven years performing audit, review,and compilation engagements for privately held companies. Since leaving public accounting in 2007, Brenda has held various accounting and finance roles: Revenue Analyst for a medical transportation company, Controller then CFO for a fundraising company, CFO for a health and safety consulting company, and most recently as head of Finance for state education and culture institution. Additionally, from 2012 to 2018, Brenda served on the Board of Directors at an Arizona based non-profit organization that provides free out-of-school programs for youth.
Brenda is currently employed as the Senior Vice President of Finance at the Arizona Science Center, a non-profit organization that seeks to inspire, educate and engage curious minds through science. She lives in Chandler with her husband, Charles. Brenda and Charles have four adult children and one grandchild.
River Abel
Toledo, Ohio
River grew up in South and North Carolina and has lived in Northern Ohio since 2018. They currently live in a queer collective in Toledo, OH and do a lot of event planning and facilitation with a focus on conflict engagement, group process, and non-hierarchical collectivizing of resources in the Upper Midwest. They have attended the visitor program and WEXed at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage; they also coordinated a speaking tour for Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage which kicked off in spring of 2023. They are frequently on the road cooking for Food not Bombs or calling contra dances in the midwest and eastern so-called United States.
Dylan Linet
Minneapolis, MN
Dylan has lived in intentional community his entire life. Growing up in a multigenerational family with his mom, sister, grandparents, and often cousins he learned to love having people around to share fun, food, and work. In college he lived in the Farm House cooperative at Carleton College, assisting with house meetings, event planning, and meal prep. After living at Dancing Rabbit for a year after graduating college, he now lives in Minneapolis and works in Housing Justice.
Ed Pultz
General Practice Attorney, Farmington, MO
Ed Pultz’s connection with sustainable community began in 1974, when he and his wife, Wendy, were founding members of Dancing Rabbit’s neighboring community, Sandhill Farm. After leaving Sandhill, he taught for two years in the two-room school in nearby Rutledge, before leaving the area to pursue a law career. Ed has practiced law in Farmington, MO for over forty years. He served as the part-time municipal judge for the City of Farmington for 33 years and as legal counsel for the City of Park Hills for 20 years. Ed has served on the boards of the Farmington School District, Presbyterian Children’s Services, and Legal Services of Southern Missouri. He has been actively involved with the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate since its beginning in 1998. Wendy has renovated 24 older houses in Farmington to make them more functional and, often, more energy efficient and rents them out at affordable rates.
Brent Whistler
Puebla, México
A native Wyomingite who identifies as Coloradan and former resident of Dancing Rabbit (2015-2017), Brent has moved on to Latin America – first Nicaragua and now Mexico – where his background in programming, technical service management and customer service is put to good use daily in small business consulting, web design and maintenance as well as technical support and general problem solving. He can be found serving as fractional IT director for small businesses, running his own micro-enterprises, doing home improvements and voraciously consuming online courses. Brent lives with his husband, Rommell and two lovable, bilingual dogs, Pepe and Oliver.