“If you can make a small improvement in small farm income, you make a huge
improvement in the entire national economy,” Brandis says. “We try to teach farmers
how to get the most product from a day’s labor in a plot of land. Which is, in a word,
efficiency. Sometimes all you need is a gizmo that makes shelling peanuts 50 times
faster. Or a gizmo that means your whole crop gets to market without it being spoiled
or eaten by insects. It’s all about efficiency.”
At first glance, 70-year-old Brandis might be mistaken for a mechanic rather than
an inventor. There’s no lab coat, no electrified hair, no maniacal laugh; just a raggedy
work shirt, jeans, and grease-stained hands — and one heck of a mind for problem
solving. He can create something from almost nothing: desks and boards out of plas-tic
bags; an oven out of insulation, metal, and heating elements; irrigation pumps out
of discarded PVC pipe, and more.
“He’s lived his whole life perfecting the art of creating abundance within scarcity,”
says Coulter, who calls Brandis the MacGyver of the organization. “He can always
just figure out the best way to get the most done with the smallest amount of money
or the smallest amount of resources.”
Brandis learned how to solve problems with scarce access to resources while being
raised on a farm in rural Canada.
“I got the mind for very simple solutions because you couldn’t just go to Lowes,
Come see how
we do things
Rick and Lee Anna Stoker
2750 Vance St., Wilmington, NC 28412
OFFICE HOURS: M-F 9 am–2 pm
910-794-9656
To receive a free bumper sticker or sponsorship information:
The Dove 89.7 FM
PO Box 957 • Wilmington, N.C. 28402
Tel: 910-763-2452 Fax: 910-763-6578
www.life905.com • life@life905.com
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WBM november 2017