Our Team

Landscape Analytic Solutions has a comprehensive team to manage your consulting needs. The issues we face are part of a whole system and our whole-systems approach Is the only way to successfully solve the problems we are facing. Our team holds the diverse expertise needed to ensure viable and lasting solutions.

Rick Taylor, President and Lead Carbon Analyst for rural estate, urban, and municipal landscape systems

Rick has spent the last 25 years weaving ecological literacy into the landscape profession through practical cutting-edge solutions. His desire to transform the influence from extractive to regenerative has led to the creation of the Landscape Carbon Calculator and Landscape Analytic Solutions. His decades of experience in landscape design and construction have deeply influenced the efficacy of the Landscape Carbon Calculator.

Originally founded as a small landscape design/build/maintain contracting business, his firm, Elder Creek Landscapes inc. has led the SF Bay Area in practical and visionary approaches to sustainability.

He has taught and spoken at countless industry events as well as created curriculum and held a lead instructor position with Sonoma State University's Sustainable Landscape Professional Certificate Program as well as the Ecological Landscape Immersion Program at the Permaculture Skills Center. In this role he helped train future professionals in how to merge ecology, design, professionalism, and economics to build a career rooted in right livelihood.

In addition to his ecological work, Rick serves as a facilitator and collective member for Sonoma County Men Evolving Non-violently (M.E.N.), a volunteer organization working to end domestic violence by working directly with men who are committing these acts. He also speaks publicly on Male Violence to a variety of audiences.

Ryan Johnston, Consulting Team Lead

Ryan is passionate about deepening the beneficial integration of human and ecological systems. As the Principal of RengenWise he supports farms and food businesses to leverage their potential as forces of regeneration through their growing and sourcing practices. As Orchard Manager and Cidermaker for Ethic Ciders, Ryan lead the development of one of the first Orchard Carbon Farm Plans in the state in partnership with Goldridge RCD which received implantation funding from NRCS. From orchards, to hedgerows, to food forests, Ryan has a diversity of experience designing and developing perennial plant systems in landscape and production contexts.

As Program Director of the Permaculture Skills Center and a Senior Program Coordinator at Daily Acts, Ryan developed the skills to lead multifaceted teams through frequent government, nonprofit and corporate collaborations. A generalist by nature and pragmatic project manager by training, he brings a unique ability to work across disciplines to achieve high-quality outcomes with levity.

Complementing his work on the landscape, Ryan is fascinated with psychological dimensions of resilience and regeneration as they relate to our cultural capacity to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. He has a degree in Environmental Studies and Business from the University of Oregon and has complete hundreds of hours of additional training in ecological design, Permaculture, water management, farm design and nutrient management, as well as traveling widely to explore these topics. He is a frequent educator and facilitator, and currently serves as the Board Chair of Daily Acts.

Terra Emerson, Lead Research Consultant

Terra has a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. She works as a Reference Librarian for the Sonoma County Library, where she connects people with resources and information to help them better their lives.

As a graduate student, Terra conducted several research projects including The Power of Information Behind Bars: A Study of the Prisoner-Created Library at the Long Kesh Prison in Northern Ireland and The Impact of Transportation and Library Location on Accessibility: A Research Proposal for the Sebastopol Regional Library.

She grew up off the grid in the mountains of Northern California with parents deeply immersed in the sustainability movement and enjoys being able to put her research skills towards supporting the ecological community and confronting climate change.

Sebastian Bertsch, Rainwater Storage and Compliance Consultant

Sebastian left the radar mapping and mechanical engineering trades to focus on water management and land planning in Sonoma County. He integrates skills in mapping, land assessment, water systems design and fabrication to service human needs while improving the hydrology and ecology of the biosphere. A current focus is on reframing challenges like stormwater and graywater as resources for reuse rather than pollutants to mitigate. He designs and installs rainwater catchment systems from the residential scale to 60k gallon cisterns for farms.

Sebastian has partnered with local agencies such as the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District and sits as an advisor to the Santa Rosa Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency. He has built rainwater potable drinking systems and pulled the first PRMD permit for a graywater pump-to-drip irrigation system. He hopes to further help integrate to various stakeholders and changemakers in the community to ensure that our rebuilding efforts help regenerate our watershed.

Caitlin Hachmyer, Smart Scale Organic and No-till Agriculture

Caiti is the owner/operator of Red H Farm, a no-till vegetable operation located in Sebastopol, CA, since 2009. With an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Conservation Resource Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a graduate degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University, her work on the ground is complimented by research, writing, teaching, and activism.

In addition to designing and tending an agroecological farm landscape, she is a contract researcher and writer for the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First, an advisory board member at Petaluma Bounty, adjunct faculty (teaching Agroecology) at Sonoma State University and the founder and coordinator of the project Foundations and the Future: Celebrating Women's Leadership in Food.  In 2016 she was acknowledged by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s through their Agroecology Knowledge Hub and by American Farmland Trust’s Profiles in Stewardship project for her leadership in agroecological farming.

Caiti is a published writer, having contributed chapters to two separate books in 2017 – “Notes from a New Farmer: Rent Culture, Insecurity and the Need for Change,” in Land Justice: Re-imagining Food, Land and the Commons in the United States (Food First Books) and “The Role of Land Rights in Social Transformation: Stories from Boston and Philadelphia” in Public Policies for Food Sovereignty: Social Movements and the State (Routledge).

August York, Soils and Fertility

August grew up on an Organic/Biodynamic apple and pear farm in northern California. From a young age he was exposed to the concepts and practices of regenerative ag from his father. He earned a B.A. in Wholistic Systems from Prescott College with an emphasis in ecology & system thinking. He proceeded to work at Apricot Lane Farms, a large-scale farming enterprise leading in organic and regenerative agriculture. There he managed the farms large-scale windrow composting, vermicompost, compost tea operations and assisted the orchard manager in fertility management.

In 2015 he went to work with Growing Solutions bringing compost tea systems to larger commercial farming operations. He now runs his own soil fertility consulting company, Intuit Ag Consulting. His work both at Growing Solutions and now at Intuit Ag Consulting has given him a unique perspective on a wide range of crops, soil fertility issues and how to scale regenerative agricultural practices to wider audiences of farmers and farms.