Quentin Wilson, the department chair, chose adobe to make house models in the fifth grade. By the seventh grade he made full-size adobe bricks in his Albuquerque back yard. In 1970 he moved to Ojo Caliente with Maria and raised three children in a run-down, abandoned adobe home which the family reclaimed, renovated, modernized and enlarged. After teaching high school and college math for 5 years, he began to earn his living in solar adobe construction beginning with project management and construction instruction for the Sundwellings Demonstration Project built with 18 students at Ghost Ranch in 1976. His mentor was Peter van Dresser. Following that, he built adobe homes for 25 years as a licensed general contractor while continuing to teach evening and weekend solaradobe classes throughout the Southwest. In 1995, Quentin organized the Department of Southwest Construction at Northern New Mexico College while tapering off his construction business. Now beginning theirsixteenth year, the adobe classes represent the only full-time adobe construction program in the USA. After 35 years the family homestead is now quite ready for a new cycle of renovation and a second bathroom. www.quentinwilson.com

Eduardo Carvalho is an architect, born in 1974 in Angola who lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. He graduated in 1998 from Oporto Faculty of Architecture. He has been interested in earth architecture since 2001 when he attended the Adobe Program in New Mexico with Quentin Wilson. Eduardo was co-founder in 2002 of Plano B arquitectura, an office dedicated to architectural research with earth and natural materials in conjunction with industrial materials and co-founder in 2003 of Centro da Terra, the Portuguese Earth Building Association. www.planob.com

Pat Taylor has been involved in carpentry and masonry since 1975 and built his first adobe home for his family in 1980 in the Mesilla Valley in southern New Mexico. He attended and completed a carpentry program at Technical Vocational Institute in Albuquerque, NM in 1975, and shortly after became a member of Local #1962 Carpenters Union and completed a four year union apprenticeship program. He started contracting as “Mesilla Taylor Construction”, NM  Lic. # 30168 GB 98 General Contractor, in 1987 specializing in adobe restoration in southern New Mexico. From 1990 to 2009 Pat began working with Cornerstones Community Partnerships as a program manager and then as Senior Program Manager, Adobe Conservation Specialist. He provided technical assistance in addition to organizing, estimating, and supervising several major and minor historic preservation community based projects regionally in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, California, Texas and Mexico. With Cornerstones he organized, presented and taught in over 50 regional, national and international preservation symposiums, conferences and workshops. In 2009 under Pat Taylor, Inc. his projects included consultation, training and supervision of adobe and lime plaster crews on the Mission San Miguel Project (Ca) and several other California consultation projects. Pat continued contracting in 2010 as “Pat Taylor, Inc.”, NM Lic. #365860 GB 98 General Contractor, in specializing in adobe preservation projects in New Mexico and also doing contract work with Cornerstones. During this time he also provided consultation and training in two separate series of adobe, stone and lime workshops that were held in Chile, South America, along with numerous consultations and assessments of earthen structures that had sustained damage from the 2010 Chilean earthquake. Pat is currently working with Avanyu General Contracting on a 21 adobe home preservation project at Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo). In addition to the preservation of the pueblo’s homes he is training pueblo crew members in traditional building and preservation practices.

Wayne Williams is the newest instructor to the adobe program graduating in May of 2009. Being interested in adobe building since 2005 he moved to Northern New Mexico after taking Kurt’s first online adobe class in the Spring of 2007. Having the desire and passion for teaching other skills, Wayne is looking forward to taking his passion to a new level in teaching the art of adobe building and restoration.

Kirk Higbee