C H R I S P A R E N T
Chris Parent is the Vice President, Hydroponics at the Veterans Church since the spring of 2018 concurrent with being a Conductor on the Computer Underground Railroad. He is a key team player in the revised mission to make hunger, homelessness and thirst ancient concepts using (new age) #greenhouse farming, #3dprinting buildings / infrastructure, and atmospheric water generation systems.
Parent’s background perfectly suits him for the work at hand. He has a long and distinguished history in community empowerment, farming and food service, giving him a greatly needed, dynamic agricultural perspective in this age of a pandemic, climate crisis plus projected food and water shortages.
As far back as 1996 Parent specialized in solution based good works.
Community Service: From 1996-2000 he was a volunteer for President Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity in Americus, GA; the American Red Cross in Douglas, AZ; Public Works for the Douglas Nature Conservatory and the Leaders corps in Flagstaff, AZ.
Food Service / Restaurant Owner: Parent’s passion for growing plants and cooking resulted in in him owning two successful local restaurants between 2000 and 2008, Mountain Sushi Bar (2002-05) and Renaissance Pizza (2005-08) where he was responsible for all aspects of his restaurants, i.e. ordering ingredients, preparing food, employee management and most importantly, customer service.
Health Care: As a Cochise County Caregiver, using biofeedback and plant based medicines that he grows, Chris is a local healing legend in the community. Many who have used his techniques, both physical and spiritual, have experienced healings as a result of his guidance.
Hydroponics: Parent’s 12 years as a farmer is rich in experience. In addition to farming, he is consulting in the art and science of growing healthy, high quality crops to other local farmers. By combining hydroponics with robotics and his experiences with his scientific background, he is perfectly suited for this trailblazing, profitable and community enriching work.
Education: Parent’s formal education achieved a B.A. from Northern Arizona University in 2001 where he majored in religious studies with a minor in French and a B.S. in zoology minoring in chemistry. While there he served as the founder and president of NAU Students For A Free Tibet and as a tutor in the fields of English, algebra/precalculus and physics. His education is the perfect foundation for these works.
10 acres, Cochise County, AZ
Parent's strategic guidance and hands on experience in the field of seed to plate food service is a big part of the reason this mission is as developed as it is.
When the R&D question was aquaponic (water and fish) or hydroponic (water and nutrients), he made the right call.
During an exhaustive search sorting through the many greenhouse companies he not only chose the best one, AmHydro, he already has plans to triple the growing space in the greenhouse configuration.
While navigating through the endless maze called Cochise County, (which made it illegal to operate a commercial farm on the property in Mc Neal, AZ by doubling the land requirements to open a farm) his calm and logical spirit consistently lifts the missions of those around him.