Speakers

2023 Florida Suncoast Tiny Home Festival Speakers

Update (January 15, 2023): Please join tiny living enthusiasts from around the world for a weekend of INSPIRATION and INSIGHT with the INCREDIBLE line-up of SPEAKERS who will be PRESENTING and SHARING during the 2023 Florida Suncoast Tiny Home Festival.

2023 FL Suncoast Speaker:

Melanie Copeland

Sun (11AM)

Melanie is the National Spokesperson for the Tiny House Alliance USA. She is an advocate for legal tiny living and a supporter of ASTM standards for tiny houses. After building her 144 Sq ft. tiny house on wheels in 7 days she went from living illegally to being a legal tiny house on wheels land owner. She recently published a book, Trailblazing Tiny: A Guide to Breaking Free, to help others track and create their own tiny dream. She is a DIY builder, a writer, speaker, homesteader, and runs her own wood burning business. In her spare time, she backpacks, travels, hikes and enjoys her home and land with her husband of 21+ years, along with their dog Shiloh, and her many chickens!

2023 FL Suncoast Speaker:

Queen Tasha Wharton

Sun (11AM)

Queen Tasha has been a Full-Time Solo RV nomad for the last 4 years. She has traveled around the country in her self-renovated class C RV named The Purple Palace and documenting her journey on her YouTube channel Queen Tasha TV.  Although she has no official home base, she calls Florida Home, mainly as a “snowbird” in the winter; she is originally from Maryland.  What lead her to RV life was the “Tiny Home on Wheels” movement on TV that showed her how to live an alternative lifestyle free from social norms and experience life more fully. In 2021 she co-hosted the Black Nomads Meetup and started the Black Travel Tribe to support other nomads like herself to find community and freedom on the road. In 2023, she will be hosting the 1st Black Tiny Home Festival in 2023 to bring together the community and show the representation of Black and Brown people in the “Tiny Homes on Wheels Movement”.  Queen Tasha is a published author, and the owner of Royal Armor Natural Products.  To follow and learn more about Queen Tasha and her endeavors, please visit www.queentashasempire.com or on IG @queentashasempire.

Dr. Thomas Henry Culhane is a professor of Environmental Sustainability and Justice at the Patel College for Global Solutions at University of South Florida (Tampa) with a passion for transforming food waste into fuel and fertilizer, harnessing this neglected form of Solar Energy, stored as biogas and bioslurry, to not only cook food, heat water and generate clean electricity, but to grow new nutritious food without soil. Dr. Culhane is co-founder and president of Solar CITIES Inc., a not-for-profit environmental technology training organization that uses the trainer of trainers model to teach members of impoverished urban and rural communities around the world how to build their own home and community scale biodigesters and vertical aeroponics food production systems with the goal of eliminating all waste.

A National Geographic Explorer since 2009, Culhane teaches courses at USF in Food/Energy/Water Nexus Technologies, Sustainable Cities, Sustainable Tourism and Coastal Management. He champions the use of small scale biodigesters as a core technology to protect the health of our oceans, and has lectured and demonstrated biodigester technology on the Lindbland Expeditions National Geographic Explorer cruise ship.

Dr. Culhane and Solar CITIES are members of the Clinton Global Initiative and are fulfilling a commitment that started in December of 2016, to bring the HomeBiogas solution to the Zataari Refugee camp in Jordan to make sure that food and toilet wastes are turned from grave health problems into solutions for healthier living.

Dr. Culhane lives with and uses these technologies in his daily off-grid life at the Rosebud Continuum Education Center in Land O Lakes Florida where he resides. Dr. Culhane’s full bio is available on National Geographic’s web site HERE.

Robin Butler is the CEO of NOAH, a third-party inspection & certification company. He is co-chair of an ICC (International Code Council) subgroup working to recognize Best Practices and Innovation in Code Administration. He has presented to hundreds of Tiny Houser’s and has always proven to be informative & enlightening.

2023 FL Suncoast Speaker:

Pat Dunham

Sat (1PM)

Pat Dunham, known as the Tiny House Advisor, is a tiny spaces consultant and specialist who is an expert in outlining ways one can live comfortably in their own small space.  Her ideas work for space-challenged living environments from tiny homes to efficiency apartments to RV’s and boats.  Long before the tiny house movement began, Pat lived a life in tiny living quarters for several years aboard a boat with her husband and six children and now lives with her husband and 35-lb dog Annie in their own 235sqft. tiny house. She speaks on the many benefits of living small, while offering practical advice for downsizing and useful tips for creating storage solutions.  Pat and her many space-saving ideas can be found online at Tiny House Advisor.

2023 FL Suncoast Panel:

Homeowners Q&A

Sun (12PM)

Listen and learn from those who actually walk the tiny walk – and not just talk the talk.  The owners of skoolies, van conversions, tiny houses, and other modalities of micro homes shares their experiences, expertise, adventures, trials, tribulations, and accomplishments in a humorous, personal, and inspirational sharing of themselves followed by a Q&A session.

John and Fin Kernohan have been living the past 11+ years in their DIY, off-grid, 304sqft shed-to-home conversion. They have full solar, rain-water collection, a biogas system for creating methane gas cooking fuel, composting soil creation, humanure composting, solar thermal heating, fruit orchards, veggie gardens, chickens, goats, have 7 short-term rentals on their homestead (3 tiny houses, 1 yurt, 1 skoolie, 2 geodesic domes), and run an animal rescue on their 16-acre homestead known as Beloved Cabin Tiny House Homestead & Stay  Come join The Kernohans, HomeBiogas, PrecisionTemp, EcoFlow, and others, for an informative, humorous, and educational session on living off-grid and how to do so without missing any of the comforts and benefits associated with on-grid living.

John is the co-founder, along with his wife Fin, and the Chairman of the United Tiny House Association.  John and Fin are two of the truest examples of the tiny house movement… living full-time for 11+ years in their DIY, off-grid 304sqft Beloved Cabin and the owners of their 16-acre Beloved Cabin Tiny House Homestead & Stay.  They also own the World-famous towable Tiny Firehouse – Station No. 9, 2 additional tiny houses on wheels, two yurts, a skoolie, two Pacific Domes geodesic dome homes, and they are currently building a tree house with a grain silo.  John is a known DIY and re-purposing expert, and is an off-grid specialist.  He is also a tiny house and affordable housing advocate, and has been invited to speak at colleges and events around the Country, as well as with local state and Federal governments… including HUD in Washington DC… on the subjects of affordable housing solutions.  John and Fin have been featured on A&E, HGTV, DIY Network, Apartment Therapy, Hobby Farms, TODAY, JEOPARDY!, The Rachel Ray Show, AOL, Yahoo, and MANY other media outlets around the World… plus, he and his wife, Fin, along with all their small houses and tiny homes, were featured in A&E’s 2022 series titled “Living Smaller”.

2023 FL Suncoast Organizers:

John & Fin Kernohan

#johnandfin

John and Fin are the Founders of the United Tiny House Association, which is the largest tiny lifestyle advocacy organization in the World with over 56K+ members.   They are the organizers of the 28 for-charity tiny house festivals, including the 2023 Florida Suncoast Tiny Home Festival (2nd Annual), which has raised and donated over $754K+ to over 100+ charities & great causes.  They own 3 tiny houses (including the World famous Tiny Firehouse – Station No. 9), 2 yurts, 2 geodesic dome homes, a skoolie, multiple cabins, 3 bell tents, and a tree house on their 16-acre Beloved Cabin Tiny House Homestead & Stay. They and their tiny home creations have been featured on A&E, HGTV, DIY Network, GAC, TODAY, The Rachael Ray Show, Apple TV+, AOL’s “Dream Big-Live Small“, JEOPARDY!, and numerous other programs and media outlets around the World… plus, they wrapped up filming a new television series titled “Living Smaller”, which debuted in 2022 on A&E.  John & Fin have been living 11+ years in their Off-Grid DIY 304sqft tiny cabin, and are DIY & Re-purposing Experts, FREE Off-Grid Consultants, Philanthropists, Full-Time Tiny Lifestyle Advocates, Public Speakers; and authors of “Tiny Talks: Communicating BIG with Love & Laughter”.