Our Volunteers

Our volunteers are the heart and soul of Reap Goodness! Join us and learn more about each one where you will come to appreciate them as much as we do. You will find out about their skills, talents, intelligence and willingness to help humanity through the work they do for Reap Goodness and elsewhere.

Our Cherished Volunteers

Timm J. Esque

Timm Esque is Founder and Managing Partner of the East Valley Leadership Laboratory in Tempe, Arizona. Timm has consulted on organizational performance to fast moving organizations for the last 20 years. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions at Intel Corporation. Timm has published numerous articles and chapters and 3 books on performance improvement. He is an author of business related books, and his most successful book is No Surprises Project Management (ACT Publishing, 1999), which describes his commitment-based approach to helping teams do what they say they will do. Timm's activity for Reap Goodness stems from his many years' involvement with the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), ispi.org. His volunteer work there garnered the organization's first Community Service Award many years ago. This year, his work along with the other ISPI volunteers resulted in Reap Goodness receiving the ISPI Community Service Award for 2019.

Stephanie McCoy McLendon

Stephanie comes to Reap Goodness by way of the International Society for Performance Improvement. Her career in performance improvement and instructional design spans a wide variety of client organizations in industry and government. She holds two masters degrees and has applied that knowledge plus experiences in wide ranging technology and manufacturing firms, school districts and higher educational institutions. With this breadth of learning comes a much needed boost in the formation of Reap Goodness' newly forming system of developing trios of worker owned cooperatives, since this is a new form of doing business, the first of its kind. We rely on her good nature as well, since she is patient with newcomers to information, and can involve subject matter experts to come to organizational development suggestions helpful to a new system.

Ann Rush, PhD

Dr. Ann Rush holds a Ph.D. in Education specializing in Training & Performance Improvement. She is a retired U.S. Air Force officer in the Space Administration, and she has spent over 30 years performing duties as an adult educator, AF operator, and program manager. While in the Air Force, she was on several Crisis Support Teams and provided Suicide Awareness Training. She manages the nonprofit SC4I’s Family Support Program and is the Volunteer Coordinator. SC4I, located in Colorado, devotes its purpose to support all first responders, their health and that of their families. Reap Goodness is grateful for her relevant service and experience to create order out of all factors inherent in a new system development. Thank you, Ann!

Laurel Hardin

Laurel comes to Reap Goodness by way of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix. Her interest in our program began as a focus in that congregation’s Green Sanctuary/Earth Justice Ministry where she is the leader. It was Laurel who developed a Reap Goodness presentation at the congregation which was well received.

In addition to her devoted volunteering there, she is active with the Sierra Club, Arizona Faith Network, and Chispa, which means “spark” in Spanish. It is a program of the League of Conservation Voters. She keeps a connection with these organizations and is a link from Reap Goodness to them. She was a career long ESL (English as a second language) teacher, having logged studies beyond her Master’s Degree in Education although her liveliest interests include painting and singing life-long in various choirs.

Volunteers Hall of Fame

Tyler Jackson

During the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) undergraduate tenure at Arizona State University, Tyler received an annual Team Leader Award. His contribution was professional in all respects, which is the basis of his award. Today he is an Associate Project Development Engineer at Ameresco, a solar energy solutions corporation, focusing on photovoltaic and energy storage.

On behalf of our nonprofit, Tyler co-presented at Dine College which is located on the Navajo Nation relating to attendees the whole of the hydroponics development project. Also in his leadership capacity he co-presented to a Rotary International chapter in Anthem, Arizona. On our website Tyler chronicled the history of the project, honoring all team members and their activities from the start until his retirement from the project. He respected for not only his professional contributions at the EPICS Lab, but in addition, bringing all equipment and more to his home for robust experimentation with the team when that equipment outgrew its space. Going above and beyond what's expected earned him the respect of all who worked on that team.

Miranda Lambert

Miranda Lambert was excited to join the Reap Goodness team and utilize her knowledge of evaluation and data visualization to further the organization’s mission and help improve sustainability for communities in need. Miranda completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Economics from Texas A&M University and The University of San Francisco respectively.

Her academic research has focused primarily on behavioral and experimental economics in developing nations. As such, professionally Miranda works as a project manager with the Energy Institute at Haas involving work in Ghana and Kenya, and is an incoming PhD candidate at Texas A&M in Economics. Miranda started her volunteering for Reap Goodness through Taproot+, a program within the Taproot Foundation that encourages volunteers from the for-profit sector as part of the "pro-bono economy."

Patrick Le

Patrick innovated a plant production planning tool for our hydroponics development project for an agricultural business incubator on Navajo Nation, a full scale development data system for a greenhouse hydroponics towers system. He received assistance from Miranda Lambert, an economics data collection professional. His design is now being repurposed for food forestry planning and development for a group of American and international universities in Reap Goodness' Heartland Trial research test of trios of mutually supportive worker cooperatives.

Patrick is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Chemical Engineering. In college his favorite experience was installing a water fountain station that provided free drinking water to a rural community in Thailand. Currently, he is working as Project Engineer Challenger at BP for its motor oil and lubricants division. He lives in Baton Rouge and enjoys sports like basketball and Frisbee as well as cooking up some great pasta. Like Miranda Lambert, Patrick Le was a Taproot+ pro bono volunteer.

Andrew Nelson

Andrew Nelson graduated from Arizona State University, Barrett Honors College in Biomedical Engineering and Pre-Medicine. He was been with EPICS for all four years of his undergraduate experience, helping design and develop hydroponic vertical growing towers and grow bags used to sustainably grow fresh produce for the Navajo Nation via the nonprofit REAP, now Reap Goodness. He believes having a healthy diet is important in preventing chronic disease and maintaining energy throughout the day. EPICS allowed him to engage in creative and technical design during the prototyping process. While an undergraduate, Andrew tutored all levels of undergraduate higher mathematics as one of his part time jobs.

He was involved in transtibial prosthetic design and translational neurotrauma research. His research revolved around active temperature management in prosthetics. Estimates predict transtibial amputee population could nearly double by 2050 due to the rise in vascular disease (diabetes) and having a comfortable socket heavily contributes to quality of life. He applied for and successfully received funding for his project through the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative Program at ASU, and is currently working on a prototype for a patent. His translational neurotrauma research focused on imaging microglia in the brain that can be used to predict and model the effects of trauma, neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s), and the immune response of the central nervous system.

He interned for a drone research and development team at Sandia National Laboratories, redesigning circuit and antenna mounts inside the fuselage to prevent excessive weight and balance shifts during flight. Andrew is also a certified private pilot operating out of Kirkland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As of Fall 2020, Andrew is attending the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS, military medical school in Washington, DC) as a commissioned officer in the US Navy.

Chelsea Pennington

Chelsea is currently a manufacturing engineer at Able Aerospace Services. She is an experienced and accomplished freelance artist with educational qualifications and work experience in the aerospace industry. Her strengths are in visual arts and as a design professional with a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) focused in Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering Technology/Technician from Arizona State University.

As an undergraduate, she served as a team member on the REAP (now Reap Goodness) Team, garnering a team award in the Engineering Projects in Community Service Program. Her professional speaking and writing abilities contribute to her artistic and engineering design capabilities, and support of community service. Her willingness to go the extra mile cheerfully is an asset to any team, and was cherished as she contributed to the design-build project for hydroponics tower creation.

Rohan Shah

Rohan Shah is currently a mechanical design engineer at Astronautics Corporation of America in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he and his team received an innovation award in 2019. He received a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Engineering Management and Sustainability from Arizona State University. At ASU he was a student at Barrett, The Honors College. Starting his college experience as an Aerospace Engineering major, he built the first ever full aerodynamic kit for a vehicle at ASU in its history. He also designed and manufactured a race car in-house that adheres to FSAE rules to enter the vehicle in the national competition.

Rohan's experience in working as team leader with ASU's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) helped him realize that his true passion was pursing sustainable projects that help people who need it most. Like his award winning team colleagues, Rohan worked as subject matter expert for design-build training for clients who would then train others in hydroponics greenhouse food production using solar power and rain capture purification while inputting vermiculture nutrition combined with plant bolstering effective microorganisms. The experimental towers were constructed of reused restaurant food-grade containers, keeping costs in check with food safety and sustainability in mind. He presented about the whole of the project at Tolani Lake Enterprises, an agricultural business incubator on the Navajo Nation, with whom Reap Goodness had a Memorandum of Understanding for the project.

Rohan is working to obtain certification in Project Management.

Dani Kent

Dani received her BA from State University of New York (SUNY) Albany where she was an English Major with a Business minor, graduating Magna Cum Laude, and a member of Phi Theta Kappa. She maintained a 23 year career in the Banking and Finance field. Upon retirement she became a Student of Life. Through her journey she developed the intention of healing the planet, and has taken the opportunity to bring her extensive non-profit experience to Reap Goodness and expand the reach of its Visions. Her organizational development capabilities are formational in communications expansion and its promise to fulfill Reap Goodness’ 5-year plan.