CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS:
Stephen Clifford – President
Term: through 2011Scotland Willis – Vice President
Term: through 2012Elizabeth Levy - Treasurer
Term: through 2011Christina Lively — Secretary
Term: through 2011Matthew Altman
Term: through 2010Rebecca Nemec
Term: through 2012Andrew Kessel
Term: through 2010Megan Amundson
Term: through 2010Jessica Hiemenz
Term: through 2010Jessie Grogan
Term: through 2010
Meet the BoD:
(for bios and additional photos, please check back later)
Matthew Altman has been a member at Harvest since 2004. He has spent several years involved in medical research of nutrition in cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
He is currently a medical student in clinical training at the Brigham and Women's hospital. He has a deep interest in local sustainable food systems, and promoting healthy food options (fruits and vegetables) in urban environments.
Matt volunteers regularly at the Food Project, a local nonprofit committed to creating a community that works towards a sustainable food system.
He also volunteers at the Greater Boston Food Bank.
Megan Amundson
Megan has been shopping at Harvest since moving to Cambridge in 2000.
She is the Political Director for the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters and has been a voice on environmental policy in Massachusetts since moving to the area. She is also active in local political campaigns across the state and works to elect women to political office.
Stephen Clifford has been a member at Harvest since 2005.
He first served on the Membership and Social Concerns Committee before joining the Board in 2006.
He previously provided assistance and consulting services to employee-owned businesses for ten years before using the same skills in the financial services industry.
A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Stephen worked in Cleveland, Ohio in community and labor organizing to prevent the loss of manufacturing jobs. T
his led to his commitment to collective, local ownership of important community institutions.
Stephen also volunteers at a program feeding the hungry and homeless in downtown Boston.
Elizabeth Levy
Liz is an Equity Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Winslow Management Company, a green investing firm focused on environmental technologies and solutions.
Prior to Winslow, she worked as a Research Associate for Tellus Institute, an environmental research organization, focusing on environmental accounting and corporate environmental reporting.
She holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary.
She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Social Investment Research Analyst Network and a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society and its Socially Responsible Investing Subcommittee.
Jessie Grogan
Jessie has been a member at Harvest since she first moved to Boston and took a job there as a cashier in 2004.
She moved on professionally, but remained involved, as a member-worker and then a member of the Membership and Social Concerns Committee. She finally joined the Board in 2007.Currently, Jessie works as a regional planner for the greater Boston region and helping communities work together to share resources and plan for the future.
She is particularly interested in the intersection of planning and public health.
Raised as a dedicated city person in Washington, DC, Jessie somehow ended up at Simon's Rock College, a tiny Liberal Arts college in the Berkshires, and discovered that she loved to farm.
She spent her college years helping get the school's community garden off the ground, working at a variety of farms, and doing other outdoorsy, foody activities.In what little spare time she currently has, Jessie loves to cook and throw dinner parties. This summer, she swears she will finally plant a garden.
Jessica Hiemenz
Jessica currently works for a nonprofit in Boston that is the nation's expert in consumer law.
She formerly worked for Equal Exchange, a coffee cooperative, for four years. "While at Equal Exchange I learned more about the natural foods market and the importance of local co-ops. I also became more active in supporting local farms through CSAs and farmers markets.
My undergraduate degree was in Environmental Policy and Planning and I learned a lot about environmental degradation from big corporations and also with our daily consuming.
It has influenced me to want to support the real green companies that are actually making a difference and doing good things in our community.
I also have a master's degree in Community Economic Development with a concentration in Credit Unions and Cooperative Management. I took a lot of cooperative accounting, financial planning, organizing, management, and leadership classes. I feel that the next few years will bring some interesting issues that Harvest will need to work around. The natural foods market is changing with bigger companies getting involved, green washing and organic and fair trade loosing their real values."
Andrew Kessel
Andrew has been a member at Harvest since the beginning of 2007. He first got involved with Harvest by joining the Harvest Membership and Social Concerns Committee (MSCC) a few months after becoming a member and joined the board in December 2009.
Andrew graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota where he majored in Economics and minored in French.
Since moving to Boston Andrew has become a worker-owner at Equal Exchange, a local Fair Trade and organic food company, where he works in sales with natural food stores and food co-ops in the Mid-Atlantic and South-East.
Andrew has a deep interest in cooperatives and promoting social entrepreneurship. Some of his hobbies include: playing soccer and tennis among other sports, musical instruments such as the piano and bagpipes, and traveling internationally. His work with Equal Exchange and social justice led to a connection with Harvest Co-op.
Andrew is also a committee member with the Boston CISPES chapter (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) and he volunteers at Catholic Charities as an assistant English as-a-second-language-teacher with Catholic Charities in Dorchester.
Christina Lively
Christina Lively works as a Research Associate in public health.
She also performs music around the Northeast (solo and with the duo Chris & Meredith Thompson).
She has volunteered in educational settings with Cambridge School Volunteers, Cyclekids, the Bridge Program, and The Food Project.
Rebecca Nemec
Rebecca is Operations Manager for Canto 6 bakery in Jamaica Plain.
In her former job as a Policy Analyst for The Food Project, Rebecca Nemec headed up policy efforts on issues of school-food reform, Food Policy Council development, sustainable agriculture, community food security, and farm-to-school program development in the Boston Public Schools.
She authored reports, grant proposals, and articles, including a report titled, Reinventing the School Lunch Line in the Boston Public Schools: Assessing the Feasibility of a Farm-to-School Program in the Boston Public Schools.
She was a panel speaker at several agricultural forums, most notably the panel series for the Yale Sustainable Food Project.
"I am very committed to working on issues related to the sustainable food movement," she says. "That said, I wanted to gain experience in the food industry, to understand it more fully. I am also very passionate about reforming the school food system in the United States, and I thought working in a small food business would be a great start to understanding how the school food system works".
Scotland Willis
Mr. Willis provides management consulting services that range from colleges, to community supported housing (CSH in Connecticut), working with for profits and non-profits. He is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Northeastern University and a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society with a degree in sociology and anthropology.
He is a Board member of the Harvest Co-op where he is also VP on the Executive Committee; Mr Willis is on the Board of United South End Settlement, where he sits on three committees(Strategic Planning, Finance, and Governance). He was strategic director and is part of the planning committee for Boston GreenFest.
He is a Board member of a Boston Public Library branch and is Vice Chair of Help-a-Poor-Child. His community commitments range from master planning projects to project review committees including Roxbury Neighborhood Council. Mr. Willis made the ballot for Boston Council running a sustainable campaign. He was a Cambridge Sister City Delegate to El Salvador. Mr. Willis is working on an environmental literacy project and serves as a motivational speaker(guest panelist Green For All, with Van Jones] and New England Sustainable Energy Association;) he's served a management consultant for large and small organizations, including The Food Project . His businesses experience includes a non-profit start up, as well as restaurant ownership. He now heads up Boston Green Scene blending environmental needs with business development. His favorite sustainable activities include sailing, hiking, diving, cycling, and reading . He single parented for 15 years and is currently a Big Brother in Boston as of 2010.
