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Meet the Board
KIRSTEN MILLER (she/her)
President
Kirsten Miller co-founded the School Garden Network in 2003, connecting and supporting school garden teachers to each other, curriculum, best practices, and funding. She was most passionate about seeing students that often struggled in the classroom, shine in the garden and eat foods that they grew with their own hands. When her family moved to Corvallis in 2017, volunteering at Sunbow Farms led to a friendship with the farmers and an introduction to TRFW. She feels it’s a deep honor to work with the land, producers, and eaters, and invites you to come to reach out with ideas or suggestions.
GABRIELLE ROESCH-MCNALLY (she/her)
Vice President
Gabrielle Roesch-McNally has a PhD in sociology and sustainable agriculture and has been working in food systems and agriculture for 20+ years. In her day job, she directs the Women for the Land program at American Farmland Trust. Much of her work is at the intersection of climate, social change, and equity. She lives in Albany with her family and on a small suburban homestead. She loves local food, from growing, to cooking, to preserving and sharing.
MARK LUTERRA (he/him)
Treasurer
Raised on a rural homestead in Minnesota, Mark is passionate about de-commodifying our lifestyles and especially our food systems, restoring an element of human relationship and reciprocity. He has a PhD in Biological and Ecological Engineering from Oregon State. Mark has served as editor for the Corvallis Garden Resource Guide since 2011 and has coordinated the Ten Rivers Food Web Soil Amendment Sale since 2019. He is part of the team at Wild Garden Seed, where he developed a novel winnowing machine that he now manufactures for small-scale seed producers around the country while also making it available to local seed, grain, and dry bean growers.
Mark recently launched Luterra Enterprises to share that invention and other farm innovations in an open-source format. Mark and his partner Elizabeth tend a 3500-square-foot garden that produces more vegetables and small grains than they can eat, along with a young orchard and several colonies of honeybees. His other hobbies include mead- and cidermaking, meteorology, folk singing, astronomy, hiking, and travel by train.
AMY HOOVER (she/her)
Secretary
Amy is a longstanding local food enthusiast. In her day job, she is an estate planning attorney at Smith, Davison & Brasier, PC, in Corvallis. Throughout her career, she has worked to support local food systems — as a community organizer and grant writer addressing rural and farm issues, as a cook and intern instructor in restaurant kitchens, and more. In college and law school, she studied food at every opportunity. Amy is the first to admit she is not very good at growing food, but she has managed to keep almost all of her fruit trees alive at her Corvallis home. Amy’s favorite days involve shopping at the Corvallis Saturday farmers market, making too-many-course meals, and singing in the kitchen.
KAT WALTER (she/her)
Board Member
Kat moved to Corvallis in 2023 from Yellow Springs, Ohio, to live more closely Oregon's natural spaces and to engage with the development of regional, resilient food systems. Kat has extensive experience in the nonprofit world, most recently as the program and operations director at the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, where she worked closely with local nonprofits, donors, and community members. She has led best practices training for nonprofit boards and staff and convened collaborations to create new programs based on community need. She has also been a community organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and a high-school English teacher. In all of her work, community, individual, and ecosystem vitality have been essential.
Kat's board experiences include serving as development committee chair at the Glen Helen Association during their $4.25m capital campaign and as board president of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, now Agraria, when it purchased a 128-acre farm to practice regenerative agriculture. Other volunteer experiences include creating programs for the gift economy, for reducing our carbon footprint, and more broadly, for strengthening community resilience. Kat is excited to bring her experiences and her interest in regional food resilience, systems thinking, and network-building to regional food-system work. To her, food is at the crossroads of soil and community. Kat currently consults with nonprofits to assist with development.
ASHER WHITNEY (they/he)
Board Member
Asher has a dual Bachelor's degree in Horticulture and Environmental Sciences from Oregon State University, with long-term plans of pursuing a Ph.D. in Horticulture or a related field. He joined the TRFW board in September 2022 as a student board member and became a full member upon graduation in 2023. Through most of his undergraduate training, he was a research assistant focusing on agricultural extension and education. He is passionate about promoting local food security and propagating knowledge in this and related fields. He currently works at Plato al Pueblo in Corvallis, Oregon.
Asher grew up in Salem, Oregon, and has been a member of the Corvallis community since 2018. He spent his childhood in the kitchen with his parents where he developed a love of cooking and sharing food with friends and family. In his free time, Asher heads outdoors to hike and bike or to the farmer's market and kitchen to prepare and share delicious food.
SOPHIA NOWERS (she/her)
Student Board Member
Sophia Nowers is a third-year student in Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University, focusing on agricultural and environmental policy. She is passionate about issues of environmental sustainability, food insecurity, and building a global food system that works for everyone, from food producers to eaters. At OSU, she is deeply involved in the Associated Students of OSU (ASOSU), the recognized student government, where she focuses on student needs such as food and housing insecurity and advocates for the involvement of students in the broader Corvallis community.
Sophia grew up in Palmer, Alaska, where she became involved in agriculture through her local FFA chapter. She has lived in Corvallis for the past three years and loves the long growing season and variety of crops that can be found. In her free time, you can find her hiking and running in the great outdoors, going to the farmers market, and crocheting.
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