Industry Cluster alum applies lessons to eco-farming

Published: 2013-02-12

Five consulting projects for Midwest companies, an invitation to speak at a professional conference on sustainability and a job secured with a rising consulting firm, Kalypso.

Those are some of the benefits Zach Friedman received through his involvement in the Industry Cluster in Energy and Sustainability at Fisher.

It has also led him to farming.

A member of Net Impact, Friedman is currently on a mission trip in Israel working on an eco-farm committed to permaculture -- a branch of sustainable agriculture based on self-maintained horticulture systems modeled from nature’s own ecosystems.

"I am having lots of fun and learning," said Friedman, who began the mission trip the second week of February. "The first week has mainly been about the responsibility of living as a community and getting used to the farm. Right now, I'm harvesting beets and purple carrots (both delicious)."

Friedman has leveraged his education and projects in the Industry Clusters program to pursue his passions outside Fisher. He was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the 2012 Association of Ohio Recyclers Conference last October.

“I talked about collaborative consumption,” Friedman said. “It’s a concept that supports the idea that access is greater than ownership. You can have a more sustainable world that way.” Examples he gave of collaborative consumption were vehicle sharing programs and eco-farming.

Friedman, who graduated from Fisher in December, will begin his work at Kalypso following his return from Israel.