Michelle Cabrera: ENVIRONMENTAL HORTICULTURALIST & PROJECT MANAGER
Site Assessor, Irrigation Specialist, Native Plant Specialist
Michelle works closely with clients to oversee projects and ongoing maintenance for water resource conservation systems including greywater, rainwater, stormwater, and regenerative landscaping practices. She also develops grants, performs outreach and education, and holds a key role in advancing the Land Resilience Partnership in the Ojai Valley. In 2016, Michelle achieved her International Permaculture Design Certification at Santa Barbara City College and an A.S. in Environmental Horticulture with an emphasis in Landscape Contracting C-27, Landscape Design, Nursery and Greenhouse Technology, and Ecological Restoration Management. Her resume also includes a robust collection of permaculture, horticulture, and landscaping certifications.
Prior to joining Watershed Progressive, Michelle fell in love with permaculture and started Cabrera Ecosystem Services, a specialty landscaping business, where she worked with residential clients to provide routine maintenance to gardens, installs, and landscape design. Realizing that her mission to save the world would be better accomplished with many minds working together, she joined the Watershed Progressive team in November 2017. Michelle was born and raised in Ventura County. An avid lover and steward of the earth, Michelle enjoys tinkering in her garden, hiking, exploring the natural world by kayak or paddleboard, sunsets, and full moons—sometimes you might find her dancing in the moonlight. Michelle lives in Casitas Springs, California, near the Ventura River, with her partner, their three kids, one dog, two cats, and a tortoise.
“My relationship with water is simple,” Michelle says. “It is the blood of the earth. Humans are of earth; therefore, water is part of me, a part of you, a part of everything. It takes on the color of blue, a color that floods my soul with a soothing calmness. It smells like the earth, rich and full of minerals. It feels like silk when it wants, caressing the senses or can be viciously painful and in its own right. Its taste quenches like nothing I've tasted before, so clean and pure. When water moves it can flow slowly with a trickle singing earth’s hymn or flow briskly like a symphony in the wind. The plants, the soils, the little critters in the middle, we all depend upon it and its sacred value. So, I choose to protect it; after all, water is life, and a life without is like a sunless garden when all the flowers are dead.”
What does your work at Watershed Progressive mean to you?
It means the worlds to me, quite literally. Everything in terms of what I love, how I like to spend my time, and the passions that drive me are connected to water. The land on which I reside, the mountains and the flora and fauna on which they reside, the activities I enjoy, from lazy times at the beach or a river to making things to eating food and all things in between, it all depends upon water. Everything. So, the work we do at WP is working towards protecting this very thing that we all love and need for earth/us and our survival. To me it's absolute, it's my duty.”