Origin Story
Utopian City Beginnings!
Like many of the species I study, I'm not from around here. I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, which I only mention incase you are interested in urban planning or the incorporation of utopian ideals in city planning. Columbia is a city of ~ 90,000 right between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., designed (by James Rouse - inventor of the shipping mall and grandfather to Edward Norton!) not to be a gated bedroom community, but a stand-alone conscious community, thoughtfully designed to support and engage a socially, culturally, religiously, and economically diverse citizenry. Yeah, I drank the Kool-Aid. I'm a fan of the ideals and thought processes that went into planning Columbia, if not its current incarnation as a big-box store haven. |
Go North, then West, Young Graduate!
I made my way corner to corner, Seattle via Maine. I was initiated to the intertidal, and to invasives, in Maine during my time as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. Incidentally, this is also where I was initiated (thankfully only figuratively) into ultimate frisbee. I had larks in New Zealand, Rhode Island, Hawai'i, and hired myself a four-legged travel companion.
I spent my first few Northwest years working at Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, a truly great non-profit for adults and children with disabilities, one of the largest therapeutic horseback riding centers in the country. My time there gave me both access to great horses and a good perspective on the non-profit landscape.
I made my way corner to corner, Seattle via Maine. I was initiated to the intertidal, and to invasives, in Maine during my time as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. Incidentally, this is also where I was initiated (thankfully only figuratively) into ultimate frisbee. I had larks in New Zealand, Rhode Island, Hawai'i, and hired myself a four-legged travel companion.
I spent my first few Northwest years working at Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, a truly great non-profit for adults and children with disabilities, one of the largest therapeutic horseback riding centers in the country. My time there gave me both access to great horses and a good perspective on the non-profit landscape.
These days, if I had more time, I would absolutely spend it volunteering for the Nature Consortium. They do fantastic forest restoration work in the West Duwamish Greenbelt, the largest tract of contiguous forest in Seattle city limits. I have spent many a gratifying hour ripping out blackberry, scotch broom, ivy (witness ivy conquest at left), thistle, hawthorne, stinky bob, sticky weed, english holly, sweet pea... and, in turn, having some of them rip back. There is nothing like spending the summer destroying your hands in the dirt. Spending so much time thinking about conservation and restoration in my brain, it's absolutely critical to give my hands and my back conservation work to do as well.
Not to be neglected: I have extremely talented siblings! (... and bragging rights...)
Greg Grason's world of Macromolecular Packing
Matt Grason and his House of Soul
Greg Grason's world of Macromolecular Packing
Matt Grason and his House of Soul