Ted and his wife Pearl are longtime residents of the Ojai Valley; having first lived in Matilija Canyon in the mountains north of Ojai and more recently along the nearby North Fork Matilija Creek.  Ted graduated UCSB in 1974 with his teacher’s credential, teaching at both public and private schools. These schools included Ojai Valley School, Conejo Unified School District Outdoor School, and co- founding of the Matilija Environmental Science Area (MESA).  Later he took a different course into the field of technology.  He worked in a variety of settings as a Systems Analyst and later as the Director of Technology at both Community Memorial Hospital and then at Ventura Unified School District.  Ted retired in 2012 from VUSD after 16 years of service; connecting the education of children with the business aspects of the school district.  He was a major contributor in the development of the I-NET which linked the school district to the City of Ventura, Police, Fire Department, and hospitals.  Ted joined the OVFSC Board in 2012 because of his interest in protecting the Ojai community from fire danger.

A self-deemed ‘shepherdess’, Brittany Cole Bush, AKA Cole has over a decade of experience working as regenerative agriculture and land management specialist. Cole aids in the creation of prescribed grazing programs for public safety and ecological enhancement as an educator, practitioner, and consultant. She is the sole owner-operator of Shepherdess Land and Livestock Co., a contract grazing business working with sheep and goats based out of the Upper Ojai Valley at Oak Heritage Ranch. Her on-the-ground experience includes the development and implementation of large-scale prescribed grazing programs in the Bay Area of California as the Project Manager for Star Creek Land Stewards (SCLS), a premier contract grazing operation based out of the Central Valley. During her tenure with SCLS from 2012-2016, she oversaw contract grazing programs impacting over 2,000 acres of private and public lands on an annual basis for vegetation management, ecosystems services, fire fuel load reduction, invasive species management, and biological enhancement, using upwards of 2,000 head of sheep and goats in over six counties. Cole is also the Co-Director of the Grazing School of the West, an ongoing project creating vocational paths for next-generation agrarians as land stewards through training, technical assistance, and experiential learning. Cole is thrilled to be working to support fire resilience and ecological health with her experience as a land steward shepherding animals, people, and projects.

Michael has been passionate about regenerative agriculture from an early age. At 20 years old, he began writing about the importance of local vs. global food economies. When he started his own small farm at 23, he would slip short essays lauding the benefits of localized agriculture into his weekly ‘CSA’ veggie deliveries. When asked why he was so passionate about local food, Michael would exclaim “Localizing agriculture is not only good for our health; it benefits our community, our planet, and just tastes better!”

At 24, his daughter Lavender was born, and Michael struggled to find locally produced milk to provide for her. Not content with the store-bought fare, this first-time dad decided to learn how to milk goats to provide homegrown milk for his daughter.

Michael was milking several goats every day, and raising the dairy kids for meat. After the Thomas Fire ripped through Ventura County, friends and neighbors started to ask Michael to keep the goats in their yards to keep the weeds down. The opportunity to make a living working with livestock to help protect his community from future wildfire was ripe, and Ventura Brush Goats was born. The demand for this holistic and effective vegetation management service was so great, Ventura Brush Goats went from managing just 6 goats to about 400 sheep and goats in just 3 years. The company clears 2-3 acres of fire-fuel per day on average. This Spring of 2021, the herd is finally large enough for Michael to start a fledgling meat enterprise. A long-standing dream of Michael’s, Wildfire Meat Co. is offering locally raised lamb, for sale only at the Ojai Community Farmer’s Market, Thursdays from 3-7pm.