Board of Directors

Current Board Members

Spencer Aitel - Member at Large Two Loons Farm 407 Vassalboro Road, South China, ME 04358 Phone: 207-441-4169 Fax: 207-445-3668 Spencer and partner Paige Tyson care for 150 registered Jerseys in China, Maine. The 65+ milkers help supply CROPP Coop with milk for Stoneyfield Farms Organic yogurts, and Organic Valley milk. Two Loons farm works cropland spread out over 400+ acres (not including rented land) which feeds the herd and supplies grain seed to FEDCO. The farm also sells a variety of agricultural products including hay, straw, veal and beef, eggs and turkeys. Long term interests in energy efficient construction, indoor air quality, and historic restoration continue to occupy a portion of their time.
Heather Albert-Knopp - President 146 Southern Bay Road, Penobscot, ME 04476 Phone: 207-326-4909 Heather grew up in Readfield and became actively involved in farming and food systems while a student at College of the Atlantic. She has worked at several small farms including Four Season Farm in Harborside, Beech Hill Farm in Mount Desert and Cate Farm in East Montpelier, Vermont. Heather now works as Director of Summer Programs at College of the Atlantic. She has also served as the college’s Food Systems Program Coordinator, and launched “Farm to School” efforts in eastern Maine through the Healthy Acadia Coalition. Heather lives and gardens in Penobscot with her husband Erich Reed, a high school librarian. Contact Heather.
Eli Berry - Liaison To The Low Impact Forestry Committee 246 Youngs Hill Rd, Washington, ME 04574 Eli Berry was born in 1970 and grew up in his father's hometown of Bowdoinham. He graduated from Bowdoin College with a self designed major in Anthropology, Architecture, and Environmental Studies and a focus on the maps and built landscape of the Merrymeeting Bay watershed from 1605-1990. Work after college for the LF Cattle Company in Augusta, Montana and the Olsen Family Potato Farm in Aladdin, Washington ( State ) sharpened his conviction that in small scale agriculture is the preservation of the world. Returning to Maine in 1995, he began work on his mother's then vacant childhood home in Washington, Maine where he now raises buildings, prunes trees, and picks up after four Dexter cattle. As a woodworker and landmanager he relishes the challenge of making the most out of muscle power, appropriately scaled tools, simple processes, and good timing. Raised on homegrown food and native sugar; with animals, family, and intimately known landscape as teachers throughout, he apprieciates a life locally lived. He considers sharing the skills, local knowledge, and stories that fit us into our natural place essential to individual well being, collective creativity & enterprise, and our very survival. Eli believes in leaving the soil better than you find it, that there's nothing more dangerous than a dull tool, and in cleaning his plate. He supports his local library, loves to travel under his own power, and measures good work by the pleasure in the doing as much as the results.
Sam Brown - Liaison To The Fair Steering Committee 443 Smart Road, Parkman, ME 04443 Phone: 207-277-4221 Sam was raised in Tacoma Washington. He moved to Cambridge, ME in 1974, and has dabbled in most of the Mother Earth News subjects at one time or another since then. Cows, logging with horses, onions, hay, butchering, alternative school, old tractors, country dances, apples, chickens, lumber, firewood. But once he became active in MOFGA, about fifteen years ago, specifically with the Low Impact Forestry Project, he has felt much more a part of Maine's farm and forest evolution. He's a licensed forester, is active on various Town committees (energy, planning, dam restoration), and thinks he's a pretty good crossword puzzler (his sons disagree). He is fascinated by the malleable organization of MOFGA at all levels, and how volunteers cooperate to accomplish goals. Contact Sam.
John Bunker - Liaison to the Fundraising Committee Super Chilly Farm 167 Turner Mill Pond Road, Palermo, ME 04354 Phone: 207-993-2837 John has lived in Palermo on Super Chilly Farm since 1972. He and Cammy Watts and an assortment of apprentices tend about 3 acres of vegetable gardens and orchards. Their collie, Scout, guards the gardens and trees and a flock of hens and roosters. John has worked for Fedco since 1981, currently coordinating nursery sales for Fedco Trees, which he organized in 1984. He has been plant exploring throughout Maine for many years, mostly searching for rare and endangered apple varieties. He conducts apple tastings, workshops and gives talks around New England. His daughter, Phoebe, lives and works in New York City. Contact John.
Vicky Burwell - Executive Committee Liaison To The Fair Steering Committee PO Box 72, Thorndike, ME 04986 Phone: 207-568-3365 Vicky was raised in Unity and, after an absence of 30 years, lives with her husband, John Phelan, in Thorndike. She is a co-coordinator in the Common Ground Country Fair Folk Arts area, preparing bean-hole beans with a great group of volunteers. She is the incoming chair of the Fair Steering Committee for 2009-2010. Her checkered past includes careers as a social worker, cooking school, several positions in State government and returning to school "again", as her brother says. She works as a Speech - Language Pathologist in Waterville. The home garden is a work in progress. Contact Vicky.
Ben Campo - Member at Large Ben Campo is an attorney in Portland. Prior to entering law school, Ben was an advocate at the Disability Rights Center. Throughout this time Ben been organically farming and gardening. Ben co-managed a CSA and local producers market in South Windham named Deliberate Living. Ben has spread his love for organic gardening through teaching people with disabilities how to build and care for organic gardens. Ben lives in North Yarmouth with his wife Andrea, a massage therapist and herbalist, and two daughters who know where to walk in the garden. Contact Ben.
Barbara Damrosch - Executive Committee Member at Large Four Season Farm 609 Weir Cove Road, Harborside, ME 04642 Barbara Damrosch, with her husband Eliot Coleman, owns Four Season Farm in Harborside, ME, on Cape Rosier, which produces vegetables year round both outdoors and in unheated high tunnels. Since 2003 she has written a weekly column called “A Cook’s Garden” in The Washington Post. She is also the author of two books, The Garden Primer and Theme Gardens. She was a host on the PBS television show The Victory Garden, and co-hosted, with Eliot, the series Gardening Naturally on The Learning Channel. Before joining Eliot in Maine in 1991 she had a landscape design business in Washington, Connecticut. Her primary interest now is growing and cooking food. She is not a vegetarian. Contact Barbara.
Elizabeth Hart - Member at Large 96 Weston Road, Mount Vernon, ME 04352-9731 Phone: 207-293-2489 Prior to joining the MOFGA Board, Elizabeth was a longtime member of the Common Ground Country Fair Steering Committee, having served as its Chair, as a member of the Food Area sub-committee, and as a co-coordinator for both the Agricultural Demonstrations Area and the Social and Political Action Area. She enjoys the collaborative spirit and passionate commitment of the MOFGA community. She and her husband, Chris Coulling, feel blessed to live and garden organically in Mount Vernon. Elizabeth is a family physician who currently practices Hospice and Palliative Care with HealthReach Hospice, which serves the Waterville and Skowhegan areas. She is also the Medical Director of The Maine Hospice Council and Center for End-of-Life Care. She is committed to improving communication about each individual's personal goals when facing serious illness, helping people with life-limiting illnesses to live as fully and comfortably as possible, and bringing gentleness and human connectedness to the institutionalized practice of medicine. She has been a teacher of medical humanities, ethics, complementary medicine, and literature. She is the former Medical Director of the Maine Migrant Health Program, which provides care for Maine's sometimes invisible migrant farm workers. She believes deeply that sustainable agriculture is interdependent with sustainable community.
Sam Hayward - Executive Committee Member at Large PO Box 145, Bowdoinham, ME 04008 Phone: 207-775-2717 Sam is the Chef and a partner of Fore Street Restaurant in Portland. He began his cooking career as chef of the Shoals Marine Laboratory at the Isles of Shoals in the mid-seventies. He was formerly Chef-owner of Twenty-two Lincoln in Brunswick and Executive Chef of the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport. During the course of his cooking career, Sam has based his menus on the products of a growing community of Maine farmers, gardeners, and foragers.
Sam Hazlehurst - Liaison to MOFGA's Agricultural Services Committee Smith Farm, 105 Troy Center Rd, Troy, ME 04987 Phone: 460-7258 Sam runs an organic horse-powered farm in Troy, ME with his partner Rachel Katz. He does his best to run an integrated farm, aspiring to the best MOFGA ideals. He started his involvement with MOFGA as an apprentice in 2005, and still loves it seven years later. Contact Sam.
Logan Johnston - Member at Large Oaklands Farm PO Box 26, Gardiner, ME 04345 Phone: 207-582-2136 www.oaklands-farm.com
Kimberly Krejsa - Sagadahoc County Chapter Representative 52 Whites Lane, Wiscasset, ME 04578 Phone: 303-550-2624 Kimberly grew up in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California where she attended California Polytechnic University and studied Ornamental Horticulture. While still a student she started her own business in landscape design and maintenance. She loves to create beautiful gardens where her clients can relax and be refreshed by the beauty of nature right out their back door. After she married Joe, they moved to Colorado where she started another gardening/design business and revelled in another plant zone. After 17 years in beautiful Colorado she tired of the growing concrete, subdivisions and water restrictions. Following a dream of a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle she and her family chose Maine where she has found like-minded people. She is presently 'retired' and homeschooling her son while fixing up an old farm house in her spare time. She started a lovely vegetable garden where for the first time the cost of water did not exceed the harvest. They hope to buy a working farm someday where she can truly be a sustainable caretaker of the land. Contact Kimberly.
John Krueger - Liaison to Buildings & Grounds Committee and to MOFGA Certification Services, LLC Phone: 207-338-8676 John has a background in management and science. He directed the State of Maine Public Health Laboratory that performed clinical microbiological, environmental, chemical, and forensic testing in a wide range of samples. He continues several of his interests as a laboratory informatics consultant to public health practitioners. His past includes 23 years as Selectman for Liberty, a term on the SAD #34 School Board, and broad participation in local and state environmental groups and land trusts. He lives with his wife Wendy and dog blue on 33 acres in Northport, on the Belfast line, where they garden and manage a woodlot. Fond hopes as a board member include helping to disseminate the effects of chemicals and additives to the food supply and also to help make Maine a more self-sufficient state. Through connections with farmers and gardeners that advocate Maine’s unique brand of “natural” organic and sustainable agricultural practices, MOFGA has an important place in an ever changing world. Contact John.
Adrienne Lee - Liaison to MOFGA's Educational Programs Committee New Beat Farm 55 Morse Road, Knox, ME 04986 Adrienne has worked her way through MOFGA’s education programs from apprentice, to Journeyperson and now as a farmer participant in MOFGA’s Apprenticeship Program, helping to train the next generation of farmers. She started New Beat Farm with her partner Ken Lamson in 2008. They are a horse-powerd farm, growing MOFGA certified organic produce, flowers and herbs for their 75 member CSA and farmers' markets in Belfast and Orono. Adrienne aspires to build as close as she can to a self-sustaining agroecosystem, which produces not only healthy and nutrient rich crops, but healthy soils and a vibrant farm ecosystem. She hopes that her work on the MOFGA board helps to build local food security, conscientious land stewardship, and promote healthy self-sufficient communities here in her home state of Maine. When Adrienne doesn’t have her hands in the dirt she enjoys dancing, biking, x-country skiing , and hiking through the mountains of New England. Contact Adrienne.
Paul Lorrain - Member at Large Sunset Farm Organics 31 Ledgewood Ln, Lyman, ME 04002 Cell: 207-423-9348 Work: 207-499-7639 Paul owns and operates Sunset Farm Organics in Lyman, where he grows winter greens in greenhouses for local restaurants in the Portland area. During the warmer months, Paul operates an organic landscaping business for folks in southern Maine. Contact Paul.
Sam May - Member At Large 100 Vaughan Street, Portland, ME 04102 Phone: 207-518-9087 Cell: 207-653-2260 Little Spruce Island Farm, Hancock County, Penobscot Bay Sam grew up on Rockport harbor in the 50s and 60s and worked from an early age at Alexander’s Egg Farm and Cripps Dairy in Simonton’s Corner. As a young boy, he helped take the insulated truck to the ice factory to load block ice before delivering the just bottled milk. By the age of 13 he was driving from farm to field hauling manure, hay and animals. He remembers the day Chet Cripps decided to let his cows go and cater to golfers and the following summer he spent picking rocks out of cow pasture to make Goose River Golf Course. Sam helped his brother Keith start Peter Ott’s Restaurant in Camden in 1974. After college he started Smith and May Masonry with Sam Smith. In 1988 he joined the board of WERU to help grow the station beyond its roots on Blue Hill peninsula. In 1990 Sam left Maine to earn an MBA in International Business and launch a career as a stock analyst and international banker in Silicon Valley and Hong Kong. Sam and his family share two islands in Penobscot Bay bought by his wife’s great, great grandmother in 1904. Over the last 12 years Sam, his family and partners have developed an island farm on 44-acre Little Spruce Head Island. In his interest in global trends he has developed an understanding of organic food’s critical place at the heart of health, environment, culture and community. Sam is deeply honored to join the board of MOFGA. Contact Sam.
Kim Michel - Liaison to the El Salvador Sistering Committee PO Box 311, Damariscotta, ME 04543 After working on farms in Maryland and New York State, Kim moved to Maine in March 2006 to apprentice on King Hill Farm in Penobscot. Since 2007, she's been working, living, and gardening in Lincoln County. She joined the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee in 2006 and went with their delegation to El Salvador in January 2007. This year, Kim is super excited to be starting her own business growing and selling fresh-cut flowers in the Damariscotta area.
Jo Ann Myers - Recording Secretary, Executive Committee, and Liaison to the Public Policy Committee Beau Chemin Preservation Farm 1749 Finntown Road, Waldoboro, ME 04572 Phone: 207-832-5789; 207-691-8164 (cell) Wayne & Jo Ann Myers’ Beau Chemin Preservation Farm, begun in 1998, is in Waldoboro. The farm itself is very old. All things that grow from the soil for livestock or human consumption are certified organic as are the laying hens. They operate a small visitor farm and we pick/you-pick farmstand with an emphasis on heirloom vegetables and flowers, endangered heritage breeds of livestock and wool from their heritage breeds of sheep. They find that one way to raise awareness about organic practices and biodiversity in vegetables and livestock is by opening the farm to visitors and talking with people. Pre-farm, Jo & Wayne worked on developing & sustaining rural health care. Wayne continues this as a volunteer and consultant with a broader view to general rural policy here and overseas. Jo is on the local planning board, and the Medomak Valley Land Trust Board. They believe that maintaining a sustainable (not there yet) farm operation is one way to contribute to rural community viability. They are excited to get more involved in MOFGA, and believe that Maine is so fortunate to have such a vibrant and responsible organization. Contact Jo Ann.
Alice Percy - Vice President, Executive Committee Treble Ridge Farm 528 E River Rd Whitefield, ME 04353 Alice grew up on a dairy goat farm in Whitefield, which she and her husband Rufus have now transformed into a diversified organic farm. They have succumbed to a common disease among organic farmers called "Chronic Enterprise Addiction"; in addition to their original farrow-to-finish hog operation, they also make hay, grow grain, raise over an acre of vegetables, produce an ever-expanding array of fruit, do a little maple sugaring in the spring, and keep a family cow. Alice is a 2005 graduate of Colby College, with a degree in Environmental Science. She is especially interested in an ecosystems approach to agriculture, in expanding the availability of local grains to local livestock farmers, and in integrating fuel and food production through oilseeds. In addition to the livestock, the Percys live with two dogs, a handful of cats, and above all else their beloved sons: Calvin (age four), Lowell (age two), and baby Silas. Contact Alice.
Beth Schiller - Member At Large Dandelion Spring Farm 30 Brick Hill Rd, Newcastle, ME 04553 Phone: 207-380-4199 Beth owns and operates Dandelion Spring Farm, a small MOFGA-certified organic operation in Newcastle. The farm lives in tandeem with Straw Farm, which long-time MOFGA farmer Lee Straw started. Beth and Lee spend every day hoping for more hours to do the work they enjoy. Beth specializes in mixed salad greens of many types, but enjoys the full compliment of vegetable crops, growing most everything you can think of except corn. She gets sparkly eyed over heirloom varieties and other unusual types of seed stock, although she also relies on a hearty list of hybrid favorites to assure a good harvest of melons, beans, etc. in this challenging garden climate. Beth is very interested in Biodynamic methods, and is slowly working toward incorporating more of them into the practice. Beth and Lee have a significant livestock operation as well, raising sheep, pigs, chickens and a herd of Jersey dairy cows.
David Shipman - Treasurer, Executive Committee 94 Maple Ridge Road, China, ME 04358 Phone: 207-923-3114 David and his wife Susan Kiralis moved to China in 1987. Their garden plot has been in cultivation for about two hundred years. David has coordinated Fedco's Organic Growers Supply division since 1995. Through OGS, he works with Spencer Aitel to provide Maine-grown organic and certified cover-crop and forage seeds. Contact David.
Lee Stover - Liaison to the Waldo Organic Growers Chapter 15 E Waldo Rd, Waldo, ME 04915 Phone: 207-323-1367 Following a 25-year career as a forester for a large paper company in Washington County, Lee moved to a 110-acre woodlot in Waldo in 1999. With help from others, he cleared land for a large garden, lumber and equipment sheds, and lumber drying piles. Using a 35-horsepower 4-wheel drive tractor and a portable bandsaw sawmill, he manages the woodlot, cuts trees and saws them into lumber, which he drys and sells. The woodlot is now a certified tree farm - certified and and inspected for long-term sustainability and environmental stewardship by the American Tree Farm System - a national education and certification organization for family-owned forests.