Franz Galler (age 51) comes from the Bavarian community of Ainring and is the founder of the regional currency initiative Sterntaler and the cooperative RegioSTAR eG. As a trained bank manager he worked in the banking business for over 25 years and is now an independent wealth advisor. In 2010 he founded the ‘Office for sustainable regional development’, through which he organized a new course called ‘Sustainable economy in rural areas’ in the Technical University in Munich in 2011. Galler is a strong advocate of regional autonomy and living civic participation instead of dependence on the state or the global economy. He pursues the way back to a human scale through concrete projects. The cooperative RegioSTAR eG runs its own village shop, permaculture projects and above all a service-backed regional currency to complement the Euro, all of which can serve as a safety net in the case of possible currency crises. In his public talks he demonstrates new regional ways out of the ‘mental prison of money’ and gives practical examples for a different relationship to money. He propagates solutions based on regionality instead of globalisation, on cooperation instead of competition and on sustainability instead of on growth and environmental destruction.

www.regiostar.com (cooperative and business vehicle for the Sterntaler)

www.nachhaltige-region.de (office for sustainable regional development)

Information on the training program „Nachhaltige Ökonomie in ländlichen Räumen” at the Technical University (Hochschule) München: Info-Flyer (pdf, 468 kb) Referenten-Liste (pdf, 229 kb)