Laura Bartels began her journey into the natural building field as the owner builder of Colorado's Roaring Fork Valley's first straw bale home in 1995. It ignited a passion that has led her to work, play and study in the field ever since. She has served as project manager on many projects such as the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork, the Naturita Public Library, and has owned her own plaster business. She has served as a consultant to owners, architects, contractors and organizations since 1997.
Her business, GreenWeaver Inc., offers consultation in design, construction, plasters, moisture & monitoring systems, school projects and more.

She loves to share her passion and knowledge of natural building through teaching, presentations and writing, as well as through playing in the mud. Discover more about Laura at Greenweaver Inc.

David Eisenberg is co-founder and Director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT) in Tucson, AZ. His three decades of building experience range from the on-site troubleshooting of the construction of the cover of Biosphere 2 to building a $2 million structural concrete house, a hypoallergenic structural steel house, and masonry, wood, adobe, rammed earth, and straw bale structures. For over a decade David has led the effort to create a sustainable context for building codes. He served two terms on the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council where he founded and chairs the Building Codes Committee.

He was vice-chair of the ASTM E-06.71 Subcommittee on Sustainability for Buildings for five years. David has presented workshops, seminars, keynote addresses and lectures at dozens of international, national and regional conferences and lectured at universities in the U.S. and abroad.

David is on the Advisory Board of Environmental Building News. He is co-author of The Straw Bale House book and has written dozens of published articles, forewords, book chapters and papers.

Jay Pozner started his career as a mountain guide, and educator. Working in the mountain, desert, and river environs sparked his interest in remote, independent living. Shoulder seasons were spent doing various forms of construction, which made for a relatively easy transition into the alternative energy field.

Jay cut his teeth working for a variety of solar contractors focusing in Photovoltaics and Solar Thermal projects before he and his wife, Lena, opened their own business, Nunatak Alternative Energy Solutions in Crested Butte, Colo.

Jay also teaches classroom and lab workshops for Solar Energy International, a school specializing in renewable energy education. He is NABCEP certified PV installer and ISPQ certified trainer. Off-time is spent outside skiing, hunting, climbing, running rivers, or learning about life from his newborn daughter Tazlina.

Ryan Chivers has been working as a natural builder since 1998. He started out in consruction as a drywall finisher where he acquired skills of working with hawk and trowel. He has played a key role in developing earth and lime plaster systems for natural buildings using standardized materials, locally available on the front range.

Dusty has also taught for National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and WMI for the last 14 years and occasionally still teaches.

Andrew Phillips has been slinging mud since the age of two, and after ingesting his fair share of it, was hooked for life. Since his first natural plaster job in 1999, he has taken to natural building as a whole. Contracting structures and coatings through his company Natural Dwelling LLC, his work with plasters, renders, and sealers became a focal point of study.

He is also the National Green Building Consultant for American Casein Co. and has consulted for Butterfield Color, Colonial Williamsburg, St. Astier Lime, Oregon Shepherd, as well as numerous other companies formulating many different natural product lines. Of late, he has been conventionally remodeling a couple of stick framed homes using supply chain available green building products. His experience further confirms that natural building systems and materials still offer healthier and more sustainable solutions for the generations to come. Currently, he is the plaster consultant for the new Sustainable Living Center at the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, which will simultaneously meet LEED Platinum, Bau-Biologie, Living Building Challenge, & Sthapatya-Veda guidelines.

Read more about Andrew Phillips.

Jeff Tejral grew up on a farm in Southeast Nebraska and lived two years in his great-grandparents farm house without running water or reliable electricity while attending the University of Nebraska. There, he studied Natural Resource Management and has since worked for various nature centers, the Denver Botanic Gardens and has managed Aurora Water’s Conservation program for the last eight years. Jeff has overseen and created Xeriscape gardens, adult and youth classes, many rebates programs, indoor and outdoor audits and regularly gives presentations on water efficiency, community gardens and alternative landscaping practices for Aurora’s water conservation efforts. Jeff is currently a master’s degree candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Colorado-Denver.

As a member of Colorado Water Wise, Jeff will present ways to balance water use and supply both inside and outside the home.

Fritz Diether is the President of Frostbusters & Coolth Co., a home performance contracting company serving portions of Western Colorado since 1985. Back then, green was just a color, now it’s a movement, a trend. The pursuit of energy efficiency for the past quarter-century has taught him a lot about buildings… and people. He looks forward to sharing some of what he's learned at the Ninth Annual COSBA Natural Building Conference.

Topics will include Building Science for Straw Bale/Natural Builders, Qualifying Your Natural Home ENERGY STAR®, Qualifying Your Natural Home Under the NAHB Green Building Program, and answering as many of your questions as possible during the event. And remember, it’s a conference until the bar bill exceeds the food bill… then it’s a “symposium”

In the past, Fritz has served on numerous boards including the Crested Butte Board of Zoning and Architectural Review and the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council and Planning Commission. Fritz enjoys mountain and road biking, most types of skiing, and whitewater rafting with friends, while trying to follow the number one rule, “Always keep your head above your feet”.

Frostbusters & Coolth Co. is based in Grand Junction, Colorado. They provide ENERGY STAR® & NAHB Green Building certifications and support services to homebuilders in Mesa, Garfield, Pitkin, Montrose, Delta, Gunnison and Rio Blanco Counties. They also conduct Energy Audits on existing homes and follow-up on the recommendations by offering energy efficiency improvements. They work directly with homeowners and through several utility companies including Xcel Energy, SourceGas and Atmos Energy.
They are co-sponsors of Grand Mesa Energy Star, a public-private partnership whose mission it is to foster the construction of Energy Star New Homes in Mesa County through outreach, education, advertising and promotion of the Energy Star brand and homebuilding process.

Frostbusters & Coolth Co. was recognized as Rater Partner of the Year by Energy Logic in 2009 and Energy Star Partner of the Year in 2010 by the Environmental Protection Agency.