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Board of Directors

Vote for the 2021 proposed roster of MOFGA board members here

Meet the Nominees for the 2021 MOFGA Board
Beth Boepple
Boepple works for BCM Environmental & Land Law practicing real estate and land use, corporate, commercial and banking, and farm and food law with clients in farming and food production businesses throughout New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. Boepple recently served as the chair on the City of Portland Planning Board and currently serves on the board of Community Housing of Maine. Boepple has also served for 10 years on the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont and her Juris Doctor degree from Vermont Law School. Boepple originally hails from the Green Mountain State where she owned and operated a successful restaurant in the mid-1980s into the early 1990s.
Sikwani Dana
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.”
Jessie Spector
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.
Craig Hickman
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.
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 in 2021 should discuss their interests with a current board member (see board profiles below) or indicate their interest by filling out this form. MOFGA members are welcome to attend board meetings. Please contact Sarah Alexander, MOFGA Executive Director, if you’d like information on attending.

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 in 2021 should discuss their interests with a current board member (see board profiles below) or indicate their interest by filling out this form. MOFGA members are welcome to attend board meetings. Please contact Sarah Alexander, MOFGA Executive Director, if you’d like information on attending.

Eli Berry

Executive Committee
Year 3 of final term

Jeremy Blaiklock

Year 2 of second term

Beth Boepple

Year 1 of first term

Stacy Brenner

Board Vice President, Executive Committee
Year 1 of final term

Sam Brown

Year 1 of final term

Sikwani Dana

Year 1 of first term

Melissa Emerson

Year 2 of first term

Craig Hickman

Year 1 of first term

Todd Little-Siebold

Year 3 of second term

Sam May

Executive Committee
Year 3 of second term

Jo Ann Myers

Secretary, Executive Committee
Year 2 of final term

Ellen Sabina

Year 1 of first term

Beth Schiller

President, Executive Committee
Year 2 of final term

Anna Shapley-Quinn

Year 2 of first term

David Shipman

Executive Committee
Year 3 of second term

Jessie Spector

Year 1 of first term

Ben Tettlebaum

Year 2 of second term

Annie Watson

Year 2 of second term

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The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

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

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Eli Berry grew up in Bowdoinham and lives in Washington where he keeps a few Dexter cattle, works the family woodlot, and grows trees, shrubs, and perennials that best support our native birds, bees, and other critical beneficals. He operates Human Powered Forestry Tools, selling innovative wheeled log arches, pruning saws, and specialty hand tools. An educator, consultant, and practitioner of low impact forestry and positive impact land stewardship, Eli has worked with MOFGA, Tanglewood 4H Camp, Small Woodlot Owners of Maine, Unity Barn Raisers, Hidden Valley Nature Center, and countless individuals to inspire, instruct, and equip the next generation of landowners. As a woodworker, teacher, and land manager, he relishes the challenge of making the most 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, he appreciates 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 and enterprise, and our very survival. Eli believes in leaving the soil better than you found 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.
246 Youngs Hill Road, Washington 04574
From Arrowsic. Jeremy grew up on a small organic farm in Arrowsic, where he was regularly dragged to Sagadahoc MOFGA chapter meetings. He has a degree in Environmental Studies from Allegheny College and spent 9 years at an organic landscaping company in Pittsburg PA, before returning to Arrowsic in 2002. He owns Seaflower Garden & Design, a design/ build landscaping company. When not gardening or helping out on the family farm, Jeremy can be found volunteering as a firefighter or helping to build Virginia, a replica of Maine’s first ship.
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
A Portland native, Melissa Emerson brings a deep commitment to fostering economic viability and growth of our local food systems. As the owner of Pinetree Garden Seeds in New Gloucester, she offers a pragmatic, fiscally minded perspective, which is buoyed by her enthusiasm for, and commitment to, supporting local farmers and food producers. She currently serves as the Vice President of the Portland Food Co-op and was previously on the Good Food Council of Lewiston Auburn, which works to make quality food readily available to the full community through education, coordination, and policy work. Melissa has a passion for meaningful conversation and cooperative problem solving as well as the added perspective that comes from years skillfully managing, and controlling the day to day operations of a successful company. Melissa looks forward to serving with care and commitment.
PO Box 300
New Gloucester ME 04260
Todd is a professor of history and Latin American studies at College of the Atlantic. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, he grew up in a family where gardening, greenhouses, and the beauty of plants were just part of the deal. He came to Maine eighteen years ago to teach at the College, and has lived in Ellsworth on the old Pioneer Farm for much of that time. Over a decade working away at the restoration of the original farmhouse from the 1770s has provided him ample time to reflect about past inhabitants and farmers whose haunts these were. This slowly grew into an interest in the history of local agriculture and the history of heirloom fruit. Over the last eight years he has worked closely with John Bunker to help track down and preserve the region’s forgotten fruit. He is currently involved in the Maine Heritage Orchard at MOFGA’s Unity Fairgrounds as well as a similar community heritage orchard on the College’s farms and campus. He teaches classes on the history of apples as well as one called Corn and Coffee, about the history of subsistence and commodity agriculture.
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. Most recently he co-founded and is now board chair of the Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union. 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.
100 Vaughan Street, Portland, ME 04102
Little Spruce Head Island Farm, Hancock County, Penobscot Bay
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
Ellen brings her love for rural communities, good food, and compelling communication into all aspects of her work and life. After graduating from Bates College with a degree in History and several summers of farming and fisheries work under her belt, Ellen 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 Maine Farmland Trust, where she now serves as the Outreach & Communications Director. When not amplifying the stories Maine farms, Ellen can be found in the garden, exploring Maine’s mountains and coastlines, or in the fields of Half Hitch Flowers, the tiny flower farm she co-owns near her home in Morrill.
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

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