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Board Members
Stephen Harris, President has been a licensed attorney in Colorado Springs for fifteen years and currently works for the law firm Alpern Myers Stuart LLC in an of counsel capacity. Steve's practice emphasizes environmental, natural resources and government accountability law. He has also had the privilege of teaching eight courses at Colorado College as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and one course at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Steve has served on numerous civic and non-profit boards including the Colorado Farm & Art Market Cooperative and the Palmer Land Trust. Among other things, Steve enjoys all genres of roots music, hiking, and cooking with his wife Michele Mukatis, owner of Cultivate Health, a business promoting health through nutrition and gardening, and their two dogs, Hops and Barley, also avid hikers and foodies.
Beth Benjamin, Secretary co-founded Camp Joy Garden in 1971, a continuously operating CA 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is a demonstration garden and teaching center for organic, small-scale, diversified agriculture in the model of the gardens she helped to build at UCSC with Alan Chadwick. From 1986-2007, she worked for Shepherd's Garden Seeds catalog, and then Renee's Garden Seeds, which provides seeds and support to home gardeners and garden centers nationwide and in Canada.She continues to do horticultural consulting for Renee's Garden, while serving on the boards of Camp Joy, the Valley Women's Club (a local environmental organization in the San Lorenzo Valley), the First Five Commission of Santa Cruz County and the Organic Seed Alliance, based in Port Townsend, WA, She is a part-time supervisor's analyst for Mark Stone, 5th District supervisor for Santa Cruz County.Her hope for her three granddaughters is that they grow up to learn and work in a peaceful world that is sustainable, compassionate and cares for all beings; and that they love flowers and enjoy their vegetables.
Zea Sonnabend, Treasurer, has been an organic farmer, gardener, inspector, educator, policy analyst, organizer, and consumer or the past thirty years. She grew older, wiser, and organic figs in Tehama County, CA from 1982 - 1989. She is currently an organic farm inspector and materials policy advisor for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), and coordinates the Ecological Farming Conference at Asilomar, CA every January. She helped write the first certification handbook and materials list for organic farming in California, is a founder of the Organic Materials Review Institute, and has worked for the USDA and NOSB as a contractor to develop the National List. She is a lifetime member of the Seed Saver's Exchange and has taught classes in Seed Saving at the UC Davis Student Farm and at the UCSC Farm and Garden since 1986. She has a Masters of Science in Plant Breeding from Cornell University.
Jim Gerritsen, along with his wife Megan, has owned and operated Wood Prairie Farm in northern Maine for over thirty years. Wood Prairie Farm has been a MOFGA-certified organic farm since 1982. The Gerritsens are focused on the production of organic early generation Maine Certified Seed Potatoes, seed crops, vegetables and grain. Their seed potatoes are sold retail through their mail order catalog and web business. Additionally, they wholesale to several national mail order seed houses. They are active in the organic community. Jim has served on the Certification Committee of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association for over 20 years. Jim is Vice President of Organic Seed Growers and Trade Assn (OSGATA) and is on the Board of Directors of the Mailorder Gardening Assn (MGA). He serves on the Steering Committee of the USDA St John Aroostook RC & D and is co-leader of Slow Food Aroostook. The Gerritsens farm and reside in the Aroostook County town of Bridgewater with their four children.
Frederick L. Kirschenmann, Ph.D. a longtime leader in national and international sustainable agriculture, is Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. From July 2000 to November 2005, he served as the Center's second director since its creation in 1987. Kirschenmann came to the Center from south central North Dakota where he operated his family's 3,500-acre certified organic farm. Kirschenmann holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and has written extensively about ethics and agriculture. He has held national and international appointments, including the USDA's National Organic Standards Board. He also is a board member for the Food Alliance, Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, The Nature Institute, and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the Rockefeller Center in New York. He chairs and is a charter member of the Whiterock Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that manages a 1,300-acre conservation area in west-central Iowa.
Frank Stonaker: Inspired by Woody Guthrie's song "Inch By Inch", Frank Stonaker and friends started an organic market garden on the family farm near Fort Collins, CO in 1980. Inch By Inch Vegetables expanded into culinary greenhouse herb production where Frank developed a curiosity about biological control, which led him back to graduate study in entomology. After working as a pollination and pest management advisor for several years, and doing some native plant nursery management and large scale organic farm management along the way, he found his way back to CSU where he has directed the Specialty Crops Program and initiated the Rocky Mountain Small Organic Farm Project. Now he is teaching and working with students in CSU's new interdisciplinary organic agriculture program, doing applied organic production research, working with farmers, and trying his damndest to finish that dissertation by the end of the year!
Ira Wallace is a worker/owner of the cooperatively managed Southern Exposure Seed Exchange where she coordinates variety selection and seed grower contracts. She is committed to increasing the number of small organic seed growers and supporting the formation of a southeastern seed growers cooperative. Ira is a member of Acorn Community which farms over 60 acres of certified organic land in Central Virginia, growing seeds, alliums, hay, and conducting variety trials for Southern Exposure. She is also a principal organizer of the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, was involved with the SARE-sponsored Saving Our Seeds Project and organizes and presents at events sponsored by the Virginia Association of Biological Farmers (VABF), Virginia Master Gardeners, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), and Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG).
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