This morning I read a post by Dylan Ratigan announcing he was leaving MSNBC and a 15 year career in financial journalism (and an annual compensation said to be in the $1 mil. range) to more directly work with the “[m]illions of men and women…daring to create new, sustainable, tolerant, problem-solving cultures in almost every social, personal and financial system.”

The post made a reference to Archi’s Acres, a venture launched by a Marine vet and his wife in north county San Diego “to teach returning veterans how to use low-cost, hydroponic, organic farming techniques to create good jobs that produce twice as much food, at a higher quality, using 90 percent less soil and water.”

This got my attention (in part because I live in the San Diego area), so I visited the Archi’s Acres web site, where I watched several videos.  Here’s the first one, a 3 min. video introduction to the Archipleys and Archi’s Acres.

The story of Colin and Karen Archipley is important and inspiring for a number of reasons. Perhaps most fundamentally, it represents a solution that addresses multiple problems through creative thinking…in this case, combined with the fortitude, leadership skills and deep comradery that Marines and other vets bring home with them, but too often have no way to channel.

As you’ll see in these videos, the Archipleys have developed a model–and an educational system to replicate it–that simultaneously addresses the need for economically and ecologically sustainable and health-enhancing agriculture, while also providing a healthy transition path for returning military vets.

Archi’s Acres is a potent, practical and inspiring example of the bottoms-up New Economy movement, and of the kinds of “evolving human systems” I believe are needed and can make a big difference in our world.   My hat is off to the Archipleys, and also to Ratigan, for deciding to walk away from his high-paying and high-visibility MSNBC bully pulpit to more closely work with people like them.

Here’s the Archipleys’ TED presentation, which runs just under 19 minutes.  The Archi’s Acres website also contains other videos and lots of other information.

Though I don’t claim to know what goes on in Dylan Ratigan’s mind, I think these videos provide a sense of why he decided that “the thrill of an opportunity to expand new systems that cost less and give us more in every part of life is impossible to pass up.”