Member Directory

Current Members

Sophie Wedd is a board member at Purpose Cooperative, and the founder of Sophie Wedd Design, a branding and design studio. She grew up in Philmont, NY and cares deeply for the community. Her agency offers pro bono branding work to organizations and local initiatives that align with their hearts and values.

John Mulligan is the co-founder of Rise & Run Permaculture and manages various design/installation/maintenance projects in Columbia County. He is a dad of three and enjoys working in his vegetable garden. When he's not in the garden he can often be found at his desk at Purpose.

Brandon Gamm is a board member and founder of PRIXEL, a toy printing press company. He draws inspiration from toy printing presses, bicycles, pixel art, dad jokes, and glitches.

Judd Maltin is a long-time Purpose member and lives in Harlemville, NY with his family. He's an Internet engineer and software developer, and an active member of the local Jewish community. He's offering software development and systems design classes at Purpose Makerspace.

Anthony Lovenheim Irwin is a scholar, teacher, and musician. In his professional life he publishes and teaches about Buddhism in Thailand, and the social and ethical resonances of craft, and construction in religious contexts. In addition to playing in his string band Salt Tooth Serenaders and DJing classic vinyl Thai, he also runs programming through Purpose’s makeshift music studio, Ivan’s Lounge. You can check out his website here.

Michael Wedd grew up on Eagle Street in Philmont. He’s a software engineer at Okta. His team at Okta enables hundreds of thousands of software developers build identity and access management into their apps, securing billions of logins per month. He spends free time on nature-focused adventures like long-distance cycle touring, renovating his property in Philmont, or cooking big meals with family and friends.

Gabrielle Purchon is a UX manager and photographer who lives in a cabin near Copake Lake. She owns a lot of film cameras and likes to spend her free time photographing nature and urban environments, particularly where the two intersect. She's often out seeking adventures, cooking big family dinners, or planting things and hoping they'll grow. LinkedIn Website Insta

Purpose Alumni

Brendan Gaesser is an assistant professor exploring the relationship between imagination and morality. His lab investigates how imagining the future and remembering the past shapes moral decisions in the present (with an emphasis on fostering empathy, altruism, and collaboration). He writes, reads, thinks, hikes, dances, and dabbles with fiber art projects.

Sophia Taylor is a creative director, copywriter, sci-fi novelist, and children’s book author. When not writing she can be seen snuggling her cats, reading, gardening, doing tarot and giving free writing workshops to the Philmont community. Check out her work here.

Heath Iverson is a filmmaker, educator and Director of the FILMont Media Project. He lives in Philmont, NY.

Rob Garrity lives in Harlemville with his three kids, is committed to furthering social & economic forms rooted in a worldview of inter-being-ness, and builds big community solar projects from his office at Purpose.

Debra Gitterman is an editor, book coach and published poet. She also happens to be a skilled front-end developer and WordPress maven. Editing, however—all things language-based and story-related—is her superpower and true love. She is co-founder of On The Fly Story Slam and S.O.S (Share our Stories) and a founding member of Purpose.

Caitie Hilverman is a data scientist and cognitive psychologist studying hand gesture and memory. In her free time she’s typically reading, writing, hiking, shooting pool, or making baby clothes. She’s a Hudson native and recently moved back to her hometown with her partner and toddler after 12 years away.

Ben Brownell is a semi-nomadic rural futurist, ecosocial design-build artist, and "place coaching" consultant intent on creative community revitalization and inclusive human+ habitat regeneration regionally in the mid-Valley and beyond. Find Ben wandering obscure local woodlands and waterways, or indoors scouting and plotting new pathways to adventure on a growing web of alternative low-carbon travel routes and transformative destinations. Visit placemate.me for his latest work in progress.

Rosie von Lila is a polished, diplomatic advocate and negotiator, and highly organized operations executive who gets it done gloriously. You can find her on LinkedIn.

Josh Olsen is based in Catskill. He’s been a Product Designer at Turo for 5+ years, helping people rent cars from local car owners (everywhere but NY, sorry). He spends his spare time woodworking (furniture and hand carved items), playing with sourdough (bread and pizza mostly), and getting lost in the Catskills.

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