00421 About Bob Waldrop

Bob Waldrop holds a certificate in permaculture design from Elfin Permaculture in Florida, and has been a discussion leader in the organization’s online Permaculture Design Course since 2007.

Bob is one of the founders of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, which was America’s first cooperative to only sell locally grown and made food and nonfood items. He served as the organization’s first president and general manager.

He is the founder of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, which works in food security for low income households. He works as the director of music at the Catholic Church of the Epiphany of the Lord in Oklahoma City. He is vice president of the Oklahoma Alliance for Liturgy and the Arts. He previously served on the Migrants and Refugees Advisory Board for Catholic Charities Oklahoma City.

Bob is the general manager of the Oklahoma Worker Cooperative Network.

He is a member of the Oklahoma Food Policy Council and the Oklahoma Food Safety Task Force.

He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil — USA.

He lives close to downtown Oklahoma City in a densely populated neighborhood. His house is on a 1/7th acre lot, built in 1929, which has been extensively remodeled to be more energy efficient. The house has 9 inches of insulation in its walls and 14 in its attic. The windows have R-20 interior insulated shutters. He landscapes his yard with edible plants and sculpted with earth works to retain and infiltrate rainwater. The house's original utility room is now a solar sunporch.

The primary house heating system is passive solar. There are two back-up heating systems: small, inexpensive (they cost about $50 each) oil-filled electric heaters, and a wood-burning stove. The house does not use natural gas. It is all electric. The household buys wind generated electricity from their utility.

The house is at 106% of the Passive House Institute (US) standard for new construction in terms of total energy used per square meter (the standard allows 120 kwh/sq meter).

In 2004, the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club honored him with its Earth Care Award for his work in founding the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. That same year the Oklahoma Sustainability Network gave him its Green Shield Award for his efforts to protect Oklahoma’s environment by organizing the Oklahoma Food Cooperative.