Mike and Jan Canaday

Owners / Operators

Mike and Jan Canaday have over 30 years experience in ranching and training border collies for livestock handling.  They are respected members of the border collie community and Mike served as president of the United States Border Collie Handlers Association from 1999-2004.  Mike is one of a handful of dog handlers that has placed in the top ten of both the National Sheepdog Finals and National Cattledog Finals.  Mike and Jan are breeders of registered White Dorper sheep, with extensive experience grazing both sheep and goats on small- and large-scale projects throughout California.

Brian S. Kirbis

Resource Manager

Descended from a lineage of foresters and farmers, I have long maintained an interest in agroforestry and have spent a number of years involved in the study and practice of resource management.  After a number of years engaged in the study of Chinese natural science, then managing a mountain nursery and promoting native gardening in Big Bear Lake, California, I returned to school and received a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a focus in Ecological Anthropology.  I began working for LSLM during the summer of 2005.

While not in the field tending herds for LSLM throughout the state of California, I spend my time in southwestern China conducting fieldwork on tea garden ecology, indigeneity, and development in Yunnan Province.  The transformation of ecological, cultural, and conceptual, or knowledge-based, landscapes is of primary interest to me, as is the interconnectedness and interdependence between them.  These processes extend across time and through space and my research is consequently informed as much by historical trajectories as by contemporary fieldwork, and by a comparative approach between my work in China and in the United States.

Dr. Charlotte W. Lewis

Director/Analyst

Charlotte has had a life long connection with the earth and with animals.  During her graduate school training she was introduced to the concepts and practises of Taoist thought, Jungian psychology and ecopsychology, which along with mystical Christianity inform her life and practise. The creation and vision of Living Systems has been for her another vehicle of service to family, community and the earth.  Charlotte practises as a spiritual psychologist in San Francisco having received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Charlotte is also a graduate of  UCLA where she received her B.S. in Psychobiology and Neurophysiology. She is also currently a half time core faculty member at ITP (Institute of Tranpersonal Psychology) in Palo Alto, California. As Director and Analyst with LSLM, Charlotte is engaged in the construction and implementation of community based ecological models for resource management, within the greater California megaregion. She serves as one of our marketing and educational outreach persons and takes great pleasure in seeing the delight and healing the animals bring to the communities we serve. "The practise of spritual psychology and holistic land management create a great balance in my life.  I have the blessing of working to bring balance and wholeness to both the inner and the outer worlds."

Jared A. Lewis

Manager/ Analyst

Jared is a graduate of Bennington College. Since 2003 Jared has been responsible for the implementation and design of sustainable systems--developing robust and sustainable models which emphasize; fiscal responsibility, practicality and environmental responsibility, under the aegis of sustainable practice.

     In addition to providing insight and vision, streamlining corporate practices and managing the corporate image of LSLM, Jared is also responsible for long range corporate planning and developmental activities, including the development of a non-profit wing and numerous partnerships within the private and municipal sectors.

     Jared is also an authority on Sustainability Modeling; a concept based on the HRM model, with deeper integration of mathematical and analytical models which underlie and support frameworks designed to reveal the interconnectivity of correlated systems.