Self-Reliance Workshop

This workshop will feature three speakers who are experts in their fields and who will teach you how to become more self-reliant with less dependence on the government. Topics covered will include permaculture and landscape design, solar water and heating systems, and evading the red tape and deception of government tyranny in order to lead a freer and more fulfilling life. As we enter times of greater uncertainty, scarcity, and government overreach, these are priceless skills for which you will need to make a minimal investment.

Stephen Monroe

Stephen Monroe is an ecological landscape designer, born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. He honed his skills in the tropics, where he established a Permaculture farm in the highlands of northern Nicaragua. Through careful land management – including pasture rotation, the creation of millions of gallons of water storage and the planting of over 30,000 trees – this former run-down cattle farm now produces an abundance of meat, milk, eggs, honey and over 150 different types of tropical fruit.

After returning to the Sonoran Desert, Stephen founded “The Rain Harvester,” bootstrapping his on-the-farm education in Permaculture and background in systems design to create abundant, regenerative landscapes at all scales – whether tiny backyards in the city, or large acre properties in the country. He is an avid natural builder and a wild foods forager who designs and builds beautiful productive regenerative landscapes in harmony with nature. This harmony yields more production (think food and medicine!) and less maintenance, because rather than an adversarial relationship, we enlist nature as an ally.

Dan Behrman

Dan Behrman is an international speaker, promoting the ideas that Taxation Is Theft, that individual freedom is paramount to the government, and that we are not government property. He believes that all human interaction should be voluntary, including with their own governments, so that humans can be free from the coercive nature of abusive taxation and regulations. He further argues that the government belongs to people, that we are not government property, and that these ideas are almost completely absent in popular politics. The purpose of government is to protect our rights, not to force us to live our lives in any particular way that a simple majority has deemed preferable. Any person should be free to live their life however they prefer, so long as they don’t hurt others and don’t take their stuff.

Dan is a supporter of free markets, individual rights, environmental and social issues, and has delivered his message to 6 continents, empowering people in some of the world’s most impoverished nations. He has worked in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, and the tech industry internationally, from startups to fortune 500 companies. He previously worked with the Sea Save Foundation, a Santa Monica, California based international ocean conservation organization, and is currently supporting Students for Liberty Uganda and many other African freedom-based initiatives.

Katherine Kent

Katharine Kent, President of The Solar Store since 1998, is a second-generation Tucsonan with a passion for harnessing and utilizing solar energy. She is a licensed professional engineer in Arizona and a Certified Energy Manager. In addition, she holds dual commercial and residential Arizona contracting licenses in electrical and plumbing with solar. She specializes in a number of practical systems which are highly relevant to the times we are entering, including: passive and active solar hot water systems and tankless hot water, radiant floor heating, and solar electric systems for remote or grid-tied systems.

Katharine earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston in 1986. In 1994, she earned an M.S. in Nuclear and Energy Engineering, from the University of Arizona. Her specialization is thermal and electric solar energy and thermal human comfort. While employed at the University of Arizona, she was awarded the Department of Energy’s Energy Innovation Award for work on passive cooling strategies for desert climates. In addition, Ms. Kent was named the Society of Women’s Engineers’s Distinguished New Engineer in 1995. Katharine has been appointed to the Arizona Solar Advisory Council.

Health & Medical Freedom Workshop

This workshop will feature three people who have experience health and medical freedom from three important perspectives: vaccine regulations, emergency medicine, and cancer treatment.

Karl Kanthak

Karl Kanthak is a lifelong educator and elected school board official specializing in the inaccurate data being used to restrict citizen access to both public, taxpayer, supported and private education activities include being a patient, safety advocate for preventing medical errors, unnecessary treatment and undesirable, pharmaceutical interactions.

Karl has researched school vaccine exemption regulations, served as an expert witness in several lawsuits challenging the policies, providing written and oral briefings regarding vaccine exclusion risks and safety to health and education governing boards. He was prompted to become an activist for the issue after a national mumps outbreak in 2016-2017, which was centered among Marshall Islanders and other Pacific Islanders living in the mainland U.S. Even though most of the infected students during that outbreak had been vaccinated with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, schools in Washington began implementing a zero-tolerance policy for students with vaccine exemptions, barring them from school. He also began researching youth suicides and risk factors after one of the students excluded from school committed suicide.

Jonathan Wood

Jonathan Wood brings a unique background of law enforcement, military, and public safety, as he worked as a corrections officer with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for two years, gaining experience in law
enforcement and inmate management. He served nearly five years in the U.S. Army as an infantryman with the elite 75th Ranger Regiment under SOCOM and JSOC, completing three combat deployments and specializing in Direct Action raids and reconnaissance operations.

Following his military service, Jonathan transitioned to civilian roles and applied his technical skills as a welder in the mining industry for two years before dedicating almost six years to serving as a firefighter and EMT, where he honed crisis response and life-saving capabilities.

At age 35, Jonathan faced a personal challenge when diagnosed with Stage 3B colon cancer. Through determination and alternative approaches, including the Ketogenic diet and high-dose vitamin C therapy, he overcame this obstacle and returned to professional life. Today, Jonathan leverages his extensive background in security, emergency response, and leadership in his corporate security role, ensuring safety and operational integrity across organizational environments.
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Dr. Kurt Denninghoff

Kurt Denninghoff, MD is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at The University of Arizona College of Medicine. For the last 35 years, he has trained many hundreds of clinicians, published over one hundred research abstracts and scientific journal articles. He serves as a reviewer for several clinical journals and, until starting his phased retirement in
January of 2024 he served as the Associate Department Head for Research. He is a NIH funded clinical investigator with a focus in emergency care of children.

Unfortunately, while vacationing in Germany in August of 2024, he developed bleeding into his gut and was diagnosed with a large gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) of the stomach with an associated bleeding ulcer. Once back in the states an MRI showed a massive 16 cm primary tumor on the stomach and many metastases to the liver. The biopsy showed that the tumor was many times more aggressive than expected for GIST tumors. Faced with what is a terminal cancer that was aggressive and high grade, Dr. Denninghoff pursued alternative methods that could augment the metabolic treatment (Imatinib or Gleevec) that is standard of care for his cancer. This approach included using intermittent fasting, a calorie restricted ketogenic diet, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, targeted vitamin support and microbiome supplementation. After 17 months of treatment since being diagnosed, his last MRI and PET scan show that all the remaining lesions are shrinking and metabolically inactive.

Candidate & Advocacy Workshop

This workshop is intended for anyone who is interested in becoming more directly involved with the political process, whether that means running for office or becoming involved with lobbying and activism. The speakers will cover candidate recruitment and training, campaign strategy, and event coordination and lobbying for Libertarian issues and principles.

Ruth Bennett

Ruth Bennett is Vice-Chair of Outright Libertarians and was formerly chair of the Libertarian Party of Washington and the Libertarian Party of Colorado. In the 1980s, she chaired the Libertarian Party and helped organize the party’s national convention. She campaigned twice for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives, winning 4.5% of the vote. In 1984, she was one of the successful plaintiffs in a federal district court case, Baer v. Meyer, that challenged Colorado’s election statutes and voter registration procedures.

In 2000, Bennett was the Libertarian nominee for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Washington. She obtained 7.81% of the vote, enough to qualify the Libertarian Party for ballot access in the next election. In 2002, she ran for the state House of Representatives in Washington’s 37th legislative district, and in 2004 she campaigned for the office of Governor of Washington. Bennett received 63,465 votes or (2.26% of the ballots cast) in that elections; the election abuses discovered throughout the course of multiple recounts in the close race resulted in a reform program for which Bennett was able to claim credit.

In 2008, Bennett ran for the state House of Representatives in Washington’s 37th legislative district, opposing incumbent Democrat Eric Pettigrew. She now lives in Arizona where she is the Executive Director of the Funeral Consumer Alliance of Arizona and serves on the National Board of the Funeral Consumers Alliance.

Wes Benedict

Wes Benedict is a longtime Libertarian organizer and former Executive Director of the Libertarian Party, serving in that role from 2009 to 2018. Prior to that, he was Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Texas from 2004 to 2008 and has served as a member of the Libertarian National Committee. He is the founder and president of the Libertarian Booster PAC.

Wes has played a central role in building Libertarian Party infrastructure nationwide, with a particular focus on recruiting and supporting candidates for public office. Over the years, he has helped recruit more Libertarian candidates than anyone else in party history and has worked closely with state affiliates to get candidates through filing, petitioning, ballot access, and compliance requirements.

Professionally, Wes has worked as an engineer, management consultant, and political organizer. He is currently a registered lobbyist working with a free-market advocacy organization in Texas and was recently involved in helping get four bills passed during the Texas legislative session.