ROBINIA INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Daniel Firth Griffith is a storyteller, a hunter-husbandmand, and a lover of the wildwoods. He is an undeserving father to three wonderful children and an unworthy husband to the best partner this world has to give.
Daniel is a Certified Permaculture Designer and Educator, Accredited Professional of the Savory Institute, Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) Hub Verifier and Regional Trainer, and a Doctorate Student at the Ashbrook Center for Political Affairs.
In October 2020, Daniel published Boone: An Unfinished Portrait, a wild biography of Daniel Boone that has, although not entirely highly-reviewed and received by the commons, become a pivotal work in the academic scholarship of one of America's foremost woodsmen.
In March 2021, Daniel published, Wild Like Flowers: The Restoration of Relationship through Regeneration, a book about regenerative agriculture gone wild. Wild Like Flowers within its first year of publication has sold many thousands of copies, enjoyed time as a #1 best seller on Amazon, was awarded an Indie Publishing Award in Nature and Environmental Essays, and effected the hearts and souls of the agrarian movement. The book received a wide array of influential "blurbs" from Joel Salatin calling it the regenerative movements' "devotional," to Gabe Brown declaring that it provides the "words [that] so many in the Regenerative Movement are missing," to Judith D. Schwartz calling it a "buoyant riff that gets to the heart of regenerative farming," to Allan Savory calling Daniel the "poet laureate of holistic management."
Drew is a homesteading powerhouse and passionate soil advocate. With his wife, Lacey, Drew has been pursuing the self-sufficient life for over 19 years. With their combined knowledge as a Holistic Health Coach, Certified Permaculture Designers, and now an Accredited Professional through Savory Institute, Lacey and drew are eager to help the willing tap into their own capabilities to live more fully the life of their dreams.
Eli studied with Robinia for years, learning the complex intricacies of wildland ecology and holistic management, graduating as an Accredited Professional of the Savory Institute and Verified EOV Monitor with Robinia.
Eli has worked in different aspects of Agriculture all his whole life and started his farming efforts at the age of twelve, when he bought his first two cows.
Being young and poor, he didn't have the means to raise grain-fed beef like the "real farmers" around, so he and his dad sunk their teeth into our first taste of rotational grazing. After all, grass was free!
After highschool, Eli attended a grazing conference in Clarion, PA where Greg Judy was the keynote speaker. He had no idea who Greg was at the time, and he proceeded to flip my world upside-down as he described his grazing methods and natural practices. From that moment on, Eli has been head-over-heels for grazing and natural practices.
Over time, his passion for complex and natural systems fermented and sweetened, providing him solutions to environmental, social, and climate issues.
He is the owner and farmer at Mack Farms, a 60+ acre regenerative and diversified livestock operation in Pennsylvania, raising Highland Cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens.
Eli is the founder of Regensylvania, a network aimed to regenerate Pennsylvania through relationship, education, and commerce.