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Board of Directors

Like most boards of nonprofit organizations, MOFGA's board of directors sets the strategic direction, ensures the organization's financial security, and supervises the work of the executive director.

A formal process exists for being nominated for election to the MOFGA board. Those interested in joining the board should discuss their interests with a current board member (see board profiles below) or indicate their interest by filling out this form. You can learn more about the nominations process here.

MOFGA members are welcome to attend board meetings. Please contact Sarah Alexander, MOFGA Executive Director, if you’d like information on attending.

Stacy Brenner

Executive Committee
Year 2 of final term
(she/her/hers)

Sam Brown

Year 2 of final term

IMG_2774 (1)

Sikwani Dana

Executive Committee
Year 2 of first term (she/her/hers)

Patty Duffy

Patty Duffy

Treasurer, Executive Committee
Year 1 of first term

Rob Dumas

Year 1 of first term (he/him/his)

Margaret Hathaway

Year 1 of first term (she/her/hers)

Craig Hickman

Year 2 of first term (he/him/his)

Jo Ann Myers

Executive Committee
Year 3 of final term
(she/her/hers)

Beth Richardson

Secretary, Executive Committee
Year 1 of first term (she/her/hers)

Ellen Sabina

Vice President, Executive Committee
Year 2 of first term (she/her/hers)

Beth Schiller

Year 3 of final term (she/her/hers)

Anna Shapley-Quinn

Year 3 of first term (she/her/hers)

David Shipman

Year 1 of final term
(he/him/his)

Jessie Spector

Year 2 of first term
(she/her/hers)

Ben Tettlebaum

President, Executive Committee
Year 3 of second term (he/him/his)

Annie Watson

Year 3 of second term

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The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

Mailing Address:
PO Box 170
Unity, ME 04988
Physical Address:
294 Crosby Brook Road
Unity, ME 04988

Media Inquiries:
Contact Jennifer Wilhelm [email protected]

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Stacy Brenner lives, farms and flowers at Broadturn Farm in Scarborough with her husband, John Bliss and two daughters, Emma, age 21 and Flora, age 10. They raise vegetables and flowers, host weddings and operate a summer day camp that focuses on connecting a young community with where nutritious and sustainable food comes from. Stacy’s focus is on the flowers, which she arranges for weddings, special events, corporate accounts and wholesale customers. She also finds beauty in old wood, rusty metal, and all the fruits of her family’s labor. She’s devoted to understanding and improving farmland preservation, farmland tenancy arrangements and organic agriculture as an economic driver for the state of Maine. Her resume includes work as a barista, an orchid greenhouse caretaker, a cotton farmer and a nurse-midwife. She holds a BS in Agriculture from the University of Arizona, and BSN and an MSN in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania. Her best ideas come after coffee and before whiskey. She’s been settled in Maine since 2002.
Broadturn Farm
Sam was raised in Tacoma Washington. He moved to Cambridge, Maine 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, around the turn of the millenium, 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.
443 Smart, Parkman, ME 04443

Sikwani Dana is a high school science teacher and, with Nathan Dana, is creating the Dana Homestead in rural Maine. In 2018 Sikwani and Nathan purchased a hunting cabin in the woods, and they have been working to turn it into an off-grid homestead. Their house is completely run by solar power and heated by wood in the winter. They are building the soil in their garden and keeping bees. Sikwani is Penobscot, a tribe that is part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Many of the rural living skills that Sikwani and Nathan use at their homestead they learned from Sikwani’s parents, Barry and Lori. “It is because of them I have made my life as environmentally friendly and sustainable [as possible]”, says Sikwani. Sikwani’s father, Barry Dana, is a former chief of the Penobscot Tribe. “My dad has done an incredible amount of work towards educating the Wabanaki people of Maine about why to have a garden, how to have a garden, food sovereignty and the knowledge that has been passed down from our ancestors.”

Patty lives in Belfast and has over 30 years of agricultural lending experience working with a wide range of farms. She moved to Maine in 2019 to assist in the creation Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union, the first credit union dedicated to financing farmers and food producers. Patty is an experienced ox teamster, operated a micro dairy & diversified livestock farms in VT and continues managing Vermont forestland she’s owned for 34 years. Finance work has been in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Other experiences include founding Board Member of VT CAN! (Low cost spay/neuter program), Excellence in Veterinary Nursing Award, Adjunct Professor at Vermont Technical College for agribusiness and veterinary technology, member of Vermont Meat Processing Task Force, Advisory Board member of The Carrot Project, Cornell Extension Service Clinton County Board Member and Treasurer and most recently Maine Beginning Farmer Advisory Council.  Passions include Reid State Park, the ocean, rowing on the Penobscot Bay in Cornish Pilot Gig Boats and wooden Dories, Maine seafood, local food, cooking, and traveling adventures with her dog Mia.

Rob Dumas is the food science innovation coordinator and facility manager for the School of Food and Agriculture based at the University of Maine’s Orono campus in Hitchner Hall. Dumas has a split appointment with the School of Food and Agriculture (SFA) and the Office of Innovation and Economic Development (OIED). In his role with SFA, he oversees the research and instruction that occurs in the Dr. Matthew Highlands Pilot Plant and the commercial kitchen. In his role with OIED, he works as a food system expert with connectivity to all aspects of Maine’s food system, from agriculture to food processing and retail foodservice. Dumas also leverages the pilot plant to serve industry in Maine by providing expertise in product development, process efficiency and capturing food waste. He is currently certified as an executive chef with the American Culinary Federation and serves as the chapter president for the Downeast region. 

Margaret Hathaway is a farmer, writer, and mother. She is the author of six books on food and farming, including the memoir, The Year of the Goat, which chronicles her journey from young adulthood in New York City to a family farm in Maine. A native of Kansas and a graduate of Wellesley College, since 2005 Margaret has lived with her husband, Karl Schatz, on Ten Apple Farm, their homestead and agritourism business in Gray. There, they raise three daughters, a small herd of dairy goats, pigs, miniature horses, and assorted poultry, tend a large garden and small orchard, lead goat hikes, teach workshops on basic homesteading skills, and operate a guest house. For the past two decades, Margaret has used her work to advocate for small scale, diversified agriculture, and for a return to life rooted in the land.

Ten Apple Farm, 241 Yarmouth Road, Gray, 04039 

Hickman is an organic farmer, small business owner, chef, poet and author. He is wrapping up his fourth term in the Maine Legislature where he has served as house chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. In his service as an elected official he has championed food sovereignty, food security, food freedom, food processing infrastructure investments and other efforts to protect Maine’s small family farms and promote rural economic development. Hickman has also served on numerous community organizations and, in 2011, received the Spirit of America Foundation Award for Community Service. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Hickman moved to New England to attend Harvard University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in government. He and his spouse, Jop Blom, live in Winthrop, where they own and operate Annabessacook Farm, a sustainable farm raising organic produce, dairy and livestock. They also host the Winthrop Community Gardens and a fresh food bank for anyone in need.

Wayne & Jo Ann Myers’ Beau Chemin Preservation Farm in Waldoboro was established in 1998, and certified organic for all crops and laying hens. Farm buildings date to the 1820’s. They operate a small visitor farm offering pick your own berries and small fruits, and endangered heritage breeds of livestock selling fiber and breeding stock. They find that one way to raise awareness about organic practices and biodiversity in our food 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. Maine is truly fortunate to be home to MOFGA, a vibrant and responsible organization and we are grateful to be involved.
Beau Chemin Preservation Farm
1749 Finntown Road, Waldoboro, ME 04572

Beth Richardson has 20 years of legal and corporate experience in the areas of organizational development and human resource management, and 15 years of academic and management experience in higher business education. Recently retired, Richardson was responsible for attorney engagement and program development for the Volunteer Lawyers Project of Maine (VLP) from 2018 to 2021 and conducted workplace training on the subject matters of unconscious bias, sexual harassment and the legal aspects of management. Prior to her role at VLP, Richardson was chair and associate professor of business administration at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, following 11 years as associate professor at St. Joseph’s College of Maine where she oversaw the human resource management major.

A lifelong organic gardener of vegetables, fruits and herbs, Richardson has been a Master Gardener since 1993 and a Master Food Preserver since 2009. As a master preserver, she has conducted numerous workshops for adults and children on preserving the harvest for the Cooperative Extension, Wolfe’s Neck Center and others. In 1998 she published the book “Gardening with Children,” and she authored a “Family in the Garden” column for the Boston Globe Sunday Edition during 1999 and 2000. A Maine native, she is a graduate of Bowdoin College and the American University Washington College of Law and holds a certificate in social entrepreneurship from the University of Oxford. She lives in Kennebunkport with her husband, Peter, a Master Beekeeper, where they keep several hives, a dozen chickens, a small orchard and an ever-expanding vegetable garden.

Sabina serves as outreach and communications director at Maine Farmland Trust (MFT). After graduating from Bates College with a degree in history, and with several summers of farming and fisheries work under her belt, Sabina spent years away from Maine, working for food- and farm-related businesses and nonprofits in Vermont and Washington. She moved back to her home state in 2013 to work with MFT and lives in the small town of Morrill. When not amplifying the stories of MFT’s work and of Maine farms, Sabina can be found in the garden, exploring Maine’s mountains and coastlines, or in the fields of the tiny flower farm she co-owns, Half Hitch Flowers.

Beth owns and operates Dandelion Spring Farm, a small MOFGA-certified organic operation raising seven acres of mixed vegetables in Bowdoinham. The farm’s products can be found at farmers’ markets in Rockland and Portland, and at many natural food stores and restaurants along the coast from Camden south to Scarborough.
Dandelion Spring Farm, 961 Ridge Rd
Bowdoinham, ME 04008
Anna Shapley-Quinn is a farmer, mother and lifelong environmental and social justice activist. She was born and raised in central North Carolina and has been farming since the age of 16. From her first farm internship in high school with NC’s organic farming association, to work on farms and academic study of sustainable agriculture in college, to full-fledged commercial farming, Anna was drawn to farming by a deep love for the outdoors, food, manual labor and communal work. In 2009, Anna co-founded North Branch Farm, a MOFGA-certified organic farm in Monroe, Maine (Waldo county) with Seth and Tyler Yentes. Currently, they produce nursery stock, fruit, hay, grass-fed beef and forest products. Anna believes that MOFGA and its members have important roles to play in the face of the climate crisis: to lead in building rural, agrarian unity and resilience as well as modeling how organic farms can act as carbon sinks and centers of ecological renewal. She thrives on working to re-stabilize the planet so that humans, plants and animals can all live good, full lives.
120 Stream Rd
Monroe, ME
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.
94 Maple Ridge Road, China, ME 04358

Spector lives on a small farm in Jefferson with her husband and baby. She works as a fundraiser and donor organizer at Thousand Currents, a small foundation supporting work at the intersections of climate justice, food sovereignty and building alternative economies. Prior to moving to Maine, Jessie was the executive director at a national non-profit focused on racial and economic justice and continues to serve as a consultant for organizations working to integrate a stronger framework and practice of equity and justice. She has served on the boards of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Markham-Nathan Fund for Justice.

Ben grew up on a small farm in central Missouri. They raised beef cattle and grew corn and soybeans. That hilly, forested land of brush and trouble instilled in him a lifelong love of the outdoors. Currently, Ben works as senior staff attorney for The Wilderness Society and also runs a boutique law practice specializing in risk management. Formerly, he practiced law at the Maine Advocacy Center of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) focusing on agriculture, climate change, and clean energy policy and litigation. He launched CLF’s Legal Food Hub in Maine in 2015 offering pro bono legal assistance to income-eligible farmers, food entrepreneurs, and food-related organizations and hosting dozens of legal workshops for the agricultural community. As he has for the past 20+ years, Ben stays connected to the field of experiential education, teaching emergency medical courses for remote environments with NOLS Wilderness Medicine. He lives in New Gloucester, serves on several nonprofit boards around Maine, and is humbled to work with the dedicated people at MOFGA.

Annie Watson and her husband Michael Moody are co-owners of Sheepscot Valley Farm, a MOFGA certified organic dairy farm located on the beautiful Townhouse Road in Whitefield. She is a 2005 graduate of Brown University, where she received her B.A. in Theater Arts. When she isn’t covered in cow manure, Annie is also owner and operator of A. Watson Design, a boutique event design firm. She and Michael live on the farm with their one-year old son, Oliver, their tiny farm-dog, Otis, and their herd of Holstein ladies.
Sheepscot Valley Farm
163 Townhouse Road, Whitefield, ME 04353
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