Surprise Farm Retreat Center

Mission

Surprise Farm Retreat Center offers educational programs in the surround of nature, organic farming, and heritage sites. The experience of being in place, with creative intentional community, encourages well-being. Our Mission includes learning from each other about meaning and purpose, in workshops and around the fire-pit. We seek a caring and sustainable interaction between human nature and Nature, inviting Nature to heal us.

What We Do

Surprise Farm Retreat Center (SFRC) is an educational organization offering workshops, seminars, and discussion groups on the relationships between nature, culture, community, self, and well-being.

With educators from the Center, and in collaboration with others, we seek to provide meaningful and effective service to individuals and society. Programs (activities, workshops and events) provide experiential education with the following attributes:

The physical surround will provide entrance for philosophical ideas and meaning-making regarding our current existence in place.
An educational structure will provide service for people of all backgrounds and interests,
to explore our place in nature, discuss our backgrounds, relationship and ideas; and
to co-create activities, art, rituals and healing in a community of common values and experiences.
While offering our workshops, we will keep the idea of sustainable experience design in mind.We strive to co-create sustainable (environmental, social and economic) experiences that have lasting positive impact on individual and social well-being (Sustainable Community Development).

Who We Are

Our Founders and Board of Directors have a diverse background in Farming, Nature & Parks Conservation and Interpretation, Integrative Psychology, Arts and Humanities, and Business Practices. Workshop leaders have academic teaching, publications, and extensive experience in the field. Board members will co-lead workshops and collaborate with others to implement exciting explorations.

SFRC Board of Directors and Officers

Leana Bulay, Vista, CA
Leana Bulay, SFRC Programs Committee, graduated from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Sciences with an emphasis in Conservation Biology. Two decades with non-profits and governmental agencies in environmental conservation and education, most recently Leana is a leader in San Dieguito River Park and trails development. “I grew up in the area, and the Retreat grounds holds a special place in my heart.” She helps establish workshop series, nature preserve, and interpretive materials for SFRC.

Thaddeus (Thad) Camlin, Psy.D., La Jolla, CA
Thaddeus Camlin, SFRC Programs Committee, works as a psychologist specializing in self-empowering treatment for addictive problems. His clinical training emphasized integrative methodology, which led to his involvement in SFRC. “Experiential retreats that foster connection to community and environment are an exciting opportunity to participate in.”

Dana Carson Lopez, Psy.D., San Pasqual, CA
Dana Carson Lopez, SFRC Programs Committee, has worked in mental health for over 20 years, serving kids and their families, and adults managing life transitions. “I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua and worked with farmers, women's groups, and children, expanding my own worldview and learning to speak Spanish. I've traveled pretty extensively in Southeast Asia and Latin America, meditated at the Ganges River in India, and hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Piccuhu.” Dana supports the creation of SFRC as a space where people can wander, create, and explore-- finding their passions and soul-feeding experiences.

Heriberto (Beto) Escamilla Morales, Ph.D., National City, CA
Beto Escamilla, SFRC Programs Committee, conducts Clinical Psychology program development, interviewing, and focus groups. “Originally from Los Ebanos, a small ranch near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. My grandparents and parents were farmers. I would say that by nature I am a dreamer, frequently getting lost in my imagination. But, I have been blessed with great teachers and a wife who has taught me about faith and helped me appreciate intimacy. I believe that our children are forgetting how to dream and how to plant. I see the Retreat Center as an opportunity to share some of my experience and to pass along an appreciation for these natural human abilities.”

Don Eulert, Ph.D., Santa Ysabel, CA
For 40 years Don Eulert served as Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego—where he urged candidates to fit psychology to the history of ideas, and to global and ethical concerns. Founder of the Center for Integrative Psychology-- one project a U.S. Education grant that afforded Native Americans to become mental health professionals. His books of poetry include haiku and translations of Romanian poetry. His collection Ritual and Healing won a 2014 San Diego Book Award. Now with the Retreat Center, he presents and guides workshops for integration and enactment of Self, with the help of nature.

John Colby (JC) Eulert, Ramona, CA
John Colby executes the office of Treasurer for the non-profit corporation. And as Vice-President of SFRC Operations, J.C. designs and heads construction of Retreat Center facilities and infrastructure. With decades of inhabitation in this climate niche, he brings commitment and care to the shared experience of place.

Ken Gill, San Diego, CA, Marketing Committee
Music: 52 years as a professional musician: touring, writing, recording, and teaching.
Art: Studied art at Northern AZ University and Mesa College. VP of Clairemont Art Guild for several years. Art in various local galleries. Created a new art form using sustainable plant materials.
Business: Thirty years in business, in electronics. Go figure.
“I see in the SFRC a chance to bring nature, art, music, farming, and personal growth together in a safe, welcoming, beautiful and sustainable place with a group of dedicated and conscious people.”

Ute Jamrozy, Ph.D. , Solana Beach, CA
Founder and Director of SFRC, Ute has a PhD in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management and twenty years of academic experience in Sustainable Tourism and Marketing. In San Diego, she added Integrative Psychology and organic farming to her fields of interest. With SFRC, she hopes to implement sustainable experience design-- in retreats and workshops that offer lasting transformations to the individual, and positive impacts for human-environment relationships.

Nicole M. Karst, Psy.D., LVN, La Jolla, CA. President and Founder Hiking Meditations Inc.
Over the course of 17 years of working in the health and mental fields, Nicole discovered the healing potential of spending time in green spaces. Nicole’s career started as a Fleet Marine Force Corpsman where her training afforded the opportunity to sleep under the stars and navigate the earth. As her career progressed into nursing and then forensic psychology she discovered that there is no such thing as separation between mind, body, biosphere, and community. When we pull these elements apart we create suffering. Nicole joined Surprise Farm Retreat Center-- with service on Communications Committee-- to help protect the planet by helping connect people to it and to one another.

Kari Riordan, Ramona, CA
On the executive board, Kari serves as Secretary for SFRC. As our on-site budding ethno-herbalist, Kari has identified and prepared many native plants for food, health, and propagation. As eco-friendly landscape architect, Kari’s garden environs seamlessly mesh with our protected wild preserve. As hostess of the place, Kari will see to it that visitors to Retreat grounds are cared for, and charmed by their experience.
(Staff gemologist at Gemological Institute of America for 12 years, Kari also has a talent for finds in Surprise Mine tailings . . . )

Peter Riordan, Ramona, CA
On the executive committee Peter serves as vice-president of Farm Relations. His on-the -ground roles include growing and managing Surprise Farm Organics . . . and for the Retreat Center, he’s the hospitable host.
THEN: Brooklynite, New Jerseyan, Rhode Islander, Aussie, South American circumnavigator, navigation instructor, skipper, webmaster, folk/outsider art curator, graphic designer.
NOW: Californian (1989), organic farmer, native landscaper, artist, husband. Environmental horticulturalist.

Amy E. Roost, San Diego, CA
Amy Roost serves on the SFRC Marketing Committee, with a background of ten years in nonprofit management and grant writing. She is a personal essayist, memoirist, and award-winning journalist as well as a documentary podcaster. A Board member of San Diego Writers Ink, she proposes collaborative workshops for nature writers, in nature, at the Retreat Center.

Jacques Sapier, J.D., San Diego, California
Jacques Sapier, attorney at law, serves on the SFRC Board for Business Operations. In practice for 40 years, former Registered Investment Advisor with U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, Jacques has conducted hundreds of seminars throughout San Diego County tax and financial planning needs. He and his partner operate Vineyard Grant James next door, committed to community enterprise.

Leslie Ziegenhorn, Ph.D., La Jolla, CA
For over two decades after completing her doctorate, Leslie has been exploring contemplative and ceremonial practices through study, retreats, and travel, weaving relevant elements into her career as an Clinical Psychologist. Although much of her professional life is devoted to private practice, Leslie holds faculty positions at UCSD (School of Medicine) and is on the Steering Committee for the Center for Integrative Psychology. For the Surprise Farm Retreat Center she serves as the Director for Community Relations, Partnerships, and Grants. “Surprise Farm invites all ages to co-create transformational experiences by offering fundamental elements such as nature, ritual, exploration, creativity, community, and solitude. And of course, we can’t leave out fun!”

Mission

What We Do

Who We Are

SFRC Board of Directors and Officers

OUR MISSION