Meet the Santa Fe Farmers' Market Institute Board of Directors


Bob Ross, President
Bob Ross is a landscape architect and consults through Santa Fe Greenhouses. He was raised in Iowa and got his degree from Iowa State University in Landscape Architecture, and attended Harvard University as a Loeb Fellow at the graduate school of design. For many years, Bob served as the Chief Landscape Architect for the US Forest Service, which included several assignments in Europe and Northern Africa. He first came to Santa Fe 23 years ago after a day trip down from a Taos Ski Valley vacation. He immediately knew that Santa Fe would eventually become his home. His connection to the Santa Fe Farmers' Market started almost two years ago when he was asked by KSFR Radio to do a show on gardening, but Bob said his passion was really food, so the program Gardens, Food and Santa Fe was born, which is broadcast live from the Market every Saturday morning at 11 am. Through his volunteer broadcasts, Bob has developed a love of all things related to the Market: the food, the people and the vendors.
Loretta McGrath, Vice President
Loretta McGrath moves into the vice presidency following her service as the Institute's treasurer and secretary for the last three years. Loretta is a sustainability and educational development consultant who works with organizations on holistic planning and implementation, strategic research and program development. Over the last five years, she has focused on non-profits on issues such as sustainable agriculture, food policy, systems-thinking and renewable energy issues to build local, community-based food and energy systems. She has taught and lectured in the field of sustainability and intercultural communication since 1993 at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado and Santa Fe Community College. After more than a decade of designing organic flower and vegetable gardens, she currently practices beekeeping in Santa Fe though her business, Bee Genius.

Jill Markstein, Treasurer
Jill comes to the Institute with a wealth of experience in natural foods. In 1982, Jill was one of the founders of the MarketPlace Natural Grocery. As CEO and owner, Jill, along with co-owner Judith Sedlow and staff, was able to build a sustainable and thriving business committed to buying from local farmers and producers and educating the community about the value of buying locally. As a result (with the big box stores on their heels), a flourishing community resource for natural and organic foods, healthy living, conservation and sustainability was created. In 2005, the MarketPlace became La Montanita Co-op, which continues the full cycle of community involvement Jill worked so hard to achieve. Jill has served on The Santa Fe Children's Museum Board, Kitchen Angels Board, and the Santa Fe Public Schools Food Program, Advisory Committee. She continues to deliver food for Kitchen Angels as she has for the last twelve years.
Erin English, Secretary
Erin is currently working as a project engineer with Natural Systems International in Santa Fe, a cutting-edge firm that integrates sustainable practices into the collection, treatment and reuse of storm and wastewater. She is in the process of obtaining her Professional Engineering (PE) license, as well as becoming a LEED-Accredited Professional. Erin is an avid gardener and was the co-coordinator of Sustainable Santa Fe: A Resource Guide. She helped to bring the wildly popular tribal rock group, Kan'Nal, to Santa Fe last September as a fundraiser for the Institute.
Kristen Davenport
Many of you know Kristen Davenport from her byline at the Santa Fe New Mexican, where she worked as a reporter for five years. Today she has her hands full as a mother of two young children, a freelance journalist and a farmer. She now writes for newspapers and magazines locally and nationally, with a focus on agriculture and environmental issues. She also covers the New Mexico legislature for several newspapers, and, most recently, worked as an editor and analyst for New Mexico Legislative Reports. Her husband, Avram Katz, teaches high school in Penasco. Together, Kristen and Avram, with a little help from their two young children, work a 32-acre farm, growing garlic, potatoes and other crops that can withstand the 8,100 foot elevation climate in rural Taos County. They've been selling as Boxcar Farm at the Market since 1995. They would like to be able to farm full time in the future, but for now have off-farm jobs to keep house and home together. Kristen is excited to serve on the Institute board. "Now that my youngest can start kindergarten, I'm ready to become more active in supporting the agricultural producers of northern New Mexico. I feel my background in media and the government will serve us well."

Donald Emery
Co- founder and CEO of 20/80 Ideas - a web marketing services company, Donald brings many years of technical business experience with a focus in marketing, sales, strategic planning, technology and reference publishing and e-commerce as a result of professional experience with Smartforce, Novell Corporation, WordPerfect Corporation and Reference Software International. Don earned a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Donald is an Emeritus Professor of Marketing at San Francisco State University and an avid organic gardener.
Lisa Fox
Lisa Fox is a vendor at the Market. She makes Southwest Chutney and has worked with many local farmers for the last six years who grow the food for her product. She also hosts a radio show, "Farming through the Seasons," which features Agriculture Culture in the upper Rio Grande region and has been broadcast regionally for four years. It was from her radio show that she gleaned the content of her new book, Artisan Farming, published in 2008 by GibbsSmith Publishing. Co-author Richard Harris started the idea for Artisan Farming when he found Lisa at the Market after listening to her monthly radio show. Lisa has lived in New Mexico for 14 years and lives near the Colorado border just north of Questa with her partner Pete Mellen. Her certified kitchen is in Costilla, New Mexico. Before becoming an artisan agricultural producer, she had retail stores, was a musician, and participated in political theater. When she lived in upstate New York, Lisa saw how the Green Market saved many farms. She wants to see the Santa Fe Farmers' Market prosper in its new venue and is excited to use her passion to help agriculture thrive and to save farmland for future generations. Lisa's son, Kurt, and his new wife, Jennie, live in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.
Lisa Olson
Lisa Magli came to New Mexico five years ago from northern California. She has a background in both business and ornamental horticulture. She sold starter plants and has a keen interest in container gardening and food growing. In addition to horticulture, she's worked in the hospitality industry, then in retail and real estate and would like to move into human resources in the near future. Lisa is currently a senior sales manager at the Marriot Courtyard in Santa Fe. She also works for Borders as a contingent book seller, but previously was a general manager of a Borders store. She wants to be involved in a nonprofit that helps the community and supports farmers in their efforts. She was formerly on the Wildlife Center board of directors, seeing them through the opening of their new center.

Erica Peters
Erica Peters was born and raised in Santa Fe, and has been farming nearby and selling organic vegetables at the Market with her brother, Soren, since she was 16 years old. She has served as the director of the New Mexico Organic Commodity Commission. As a Western Culinary Institute (Le Cordon Bleu) graduate, Erica is also a chef offering fine organic cuisine through her business, Contoured Cooking. She is excited to become a member of the Institute to continue her work to promote organic farming and eating in northern New Mexico.

Matt Romero
Romero Farms, Embudo, NM. A native of Espanola, Matt and his family farm a very productive few acres near Dixon and Alcalde. Matt also has a gourmet restaurant background as a line chef with Coyote Café in Santa Fe and in the development of four restaurants in Denver, Colorado.

Loretta Acuna Sandoval
Loretta Acuna Sandoval is the owner of Zulu's Petals and Canoncito Certified Organic Nursery. She has worked with Mary Campbell of Rancho Arco Iris for the last four years, farming two and a half acres together to bring the public good produce while educating the customers about whatever they sell. She also grows on a half acre for research purposes, studying the landraces peppers that have grown here for centuries. Loretta got her undergraduate degree in Chemistry/Biology, her Master's in Applied Science, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Nutrition, all from Colorado State University. She is particularly interested in stabilizing the diet of her customers to reduce the incidence of Type II diabetes by offering native foods and helping people learn to grow their own small gardens. As a grower, both of produce and nursery starts, a former chemist, who has worked for many pharmaceutical companies, a nutritionist and a researcher, Loretta brings a wide variety of expertise to the Institute board. "I'd love to help vendors write grants," she said, "to help them build the skills and knowledge we all need to move our businesses forward. And," she adds, "I want to educate our customers about how to eat better and grow their own food, so they can be empowered to be more healthy."

Julia Valdez
Julia Valdez is the director of government affairs for the American Heart Association, Pacific/Mountain region. Her work with the Institute supports important facets in the American Heart Association's 2010 goals, which include supporting healthy food choices, quality physical activity, strong nutrition policies and programs and further research to effectively treat and prevent obesity, a major risk factor of heart disease and stroke. Trained at the Midwest Academy and a 2002 Advocacy Institute Fellow graduate, she began her work in Tobacco Control by working on the ASSIST Project (American Stop Smoking Intervention Study) at the Santa Fe Community Partnership for Substance Abuse Prevention. As chair for the Santa Fe Tobacco Free coalition, she became the Campaign Manager for their Clean Indoor Air campaign. During that time, she also was the chair for the statewide coalition, New Mexicans Concerned About Tobacco. In 1999, the first Santa Fe Smoking Pollution Control ordinance passed. In 2006 the Santa Fe ordinance was strengthened to include bars and patios. Most recently, Julia worked on the successful effort to ban indoor smoking statewide. Julia lives in Santa Fe with two cats and husband/playwright Oscar Rodriguez.
Sarah Noss, Executive Director
Sarah Noss is a native of Santa Fe. After graduating from Stanford University, she returned to Santa Fe, where she worked for many years in advertising as vice president of Creative Images. After a brief stint in Paris, she ended up in Chicago for almost a decade where she worked in advertising and promotions in the publishing industry. She returned to Santa Fe in the early 90s and started working for a variety of nonprofits as a writer, consultant, fundraiser and grant writer. Formerly, she was the interim director and grant writer at the St. Vincent Hospital Foundation and was responsible for raising the money for the Healing Garden at the Cancer Treatment Center and for creating and funding the Doula Program of childbirth assistants. She helped to fund the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner unit at the hospital and worked on the capital campaign for the renovation of the OB/GYN unit. After the hospital, Sarah was the development director at Cornerstones Community Partnerships, an historic preservation nonprofit that worked in small villages and pueblos throughout New Mexico, and since July 2005 has been the executive director of the Santa Fe Farmers' Market Institute.
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