Mountain to Sea — The Long Way
My dad held the world speed record on a windsurfer. My mom was a Parisian actress who became a yoga teacher, then a farmer. I've been doing yoga since I was four years old.
I grew up on Maui — Makawao, upcountry, on the slope of Haleakalā. My parents split when I was four. When I was eleven, I moved to the south of France with my mom and stepdad. That's when I started farming. My mom had transformed from actress to farmer, building sanCtum méditerranée, an essential oil operation. I was out in the fields before school, learning what it means to work the land.
I attended the international section at Lycée Jules Guesde in Montpellier, played handball, and fell in love with science and technology.
At fifteen I came back to Maui for high school — King Kekaulike — where I played football and picked up the drums at sixteen. At eighteen, I flew to Ireland alone. Two years studying permaculture and self-sustainability while working night shifts at Avalon House in Dublin city center.
Then a summer in Norway building football stadiums. Then two years at Université de La Rochelle studying biology and geology, bartending at an Irish pub to pay the bills.
Then two more years earning my BTS in Aquaculture, specializing in aquaponics. During that time I was elected délégué régionale de l'enseignement agricole — the student representative for agricultural education across the entire Occitanie region of France. Leading advocacy for thousands of agricultural students while completing my own degree.
In 2019, I came home to Maui. COVID hit. I built tiny homes with Maui Eco Built, took over property management, and started building what every experience in my life had been preparing me for.
I moved over 130 tonnes of rock by hand to re-terrace the backyard at 1,555 feet on Haleakalā — creating the foundation for the 9-cascade aquaponic system that runs today.
Everything I have, I earned. Night shifts, construction sites, bar tops, and farm fields across four continents. Zeph 808 Consulting is what happens when all of that comes together.