about jeremy. #teamMSO #overland #conservation #appalachia

And here's a little bit about Jeremy and why he's an MSO team member -

I, like my counterparts, have spent a large part of my life either thinking about or actually experiencing the mountains of Appalachia.

I grew up on a couple hundred acre farm in South Eastern WV and work was something that didn't run dry.  My two brothers and I definitely learned all about hard work and its requirement to live in that ecosystem some of us call "home;" but that surely wasn't all we did...

I spent a large part of my time interacting with the environment around me...sitting in the woods for hours on end waiting for things to return to life following my initial, yet minimal, disturbance.  I learned to move in a way that caused minimal disruption to the ecosystem...all so that i could have a much deeper immersion into that environment, and it worked.  I soon realized as a young child that there was nothing to fear and much to gain from these experiences.  After all, most of the memories I hold onto revolved around campfires, laying in a tent or fishing an ice cold stream.  These deeper immersions into wilderness and environment have a lasting impression on who you become.  All of this laid the foundation for who I have become as an adult and what I hold value in. 

In recent years, mainly since the birth of my two lovely daughters, I have begun to take the world a little more seriously.  The way we are doing things now will create more hardship for those that follow and I am not OK with that; I want to "walk the walk" so to speak.  I want my kids to know that I did everything I could do to try to make things better for their generation. 

Other than the multiple "do it yourself" solar energy projects I have completed I have always felt people need to see this stuff; people need to touch it and realize it isn't as high tech as it seems - it is something you can do with minimal experience.  I am not an electrician and have no training as an electrician, I just have a passion to reduce my impact on the world and to hopefully inspire others to do so as well. 

Mountain State Overland (MSO) is something I have thought about many times before. 

"How can I get this message across to people?  How can I rest assured knowing that they are making a conscious decisions about our environment?"

MSO is about doing the things I love with people I respect and admire all while teaching others something important along the way.  We will see some beautiful and inspiring things along this journey and perhaps some of the side effects of poor decisions; i.e. the uglier side.  We're all about improving the awareness of environmental concerns.  We aim to teach alternatives that are truly sustainable. My motivation is ready to be put to work and that is what I plan to do. 

 

On a lighter note, I enjoy long walks/runs on the beach, soul wrenching solo bicycle tours and hanging out at my little piece of homestead heaven along the banks of the Greenbrier River with my family. 

Here is a link to some of the projects I have completed. 

http://solarenergyinwv.blogspot.com/

And here is a link to the holy grail of do-it-yourself solar projects; special thanks to Gary Reysa for putting this site together.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/PV/pv.htm#OurPV

Cheers,

Jeremy