2010 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Kay Branz, President

Kay Branz is Vice President, Communications and Marketing for the American College of Healthcare Executives.  She has expertise in all aspects of marketing, strategic planning and implementation, and in building new organizations. Her career has spanned diverse industries such as healthcare, professional associations, advertising and two non-profit start-ups. Kay is the sixth generation and final member of her family to be born on a Midwestern farm.  However, she has sustained the family farming gene as a dedicated backyard organic gardener.  Kay holds an MBA in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a B.A. in sociology from Smith College. 

Jeff Merrell, Vice President/Secretary

Jeff Merrell is Associate Director of the Master's Program in Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University and Principal Consultant of Purple Line Associates, a learning and knowledge management consulting and research firm.

Patsy Benveniste, Treasurer

Patsy is the Vice President of Community Education Programs at the Chicago Botanic Garden, overseeing the Center for Teaching and Learning (K-12 and teacher professional development) and its programs in Horticultural Therapy and Community Gardening.  Her major personal and professional areas of interest include the Green Youth Farm project, a youth leadership development initiative for underserved teens based on organic gardening and entrepreneurship and Windy City Harvest, a social enterprise in Chicago that provides City College certificate training in urban agriculture as well as internship and employment opportunities for adults.

Max Grebenschikov

Debbie Hillman

Debbie is the Co-Chair of the Evanston Food Policy Council, Board member of The Land Connection, Coordinator of the Illinois Local & Organic Food & Farm Task Force and Co-Chair of the Evanston Food Policy Council. Debbie retired in 2006 from a 25-year organic gardening career, designing, installing, and maintaining residential gardens, all the while educating clients about why they should pay attention to the weather and to the soil.

Leigha Kinnear

Leigha Kinnear’s interest in environmental sustainability began thirty years ago as an undergrad at Beloit College while studying environmental biology and working as a naturalist instructor with children at an outdoor environmental education program in New Hampshire.  She has recently channeled her passions for sustainability and nutritious, delicious food through organic gardening courses at the Chicago Botanic Garden and Angelic Organics and successfully planted her first organic balcony garden. Leigha attended the American Gardening Association conference in Atlanta in 2009 and found the urban agriculture movement to be taking root nationwide.  She is excited about helping to spark the joy of growing one’s own healthy, nutritious food and contributing to bringing urban agriculture to her local community.  Leigha has devoted her professional career to workplace education and currently serves as the Manager of Learning & Organization Development at Northwestern University.

Linda Kruhmin
Linda is on the steering committee of the Network for Evanston’s Future and co-chair of the Evanston Food Policy Council. She grew up on a family dairy farm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and has long studied green and sustainability issues. She also previously served as Operations Administrator at The Land Connection, another Evanston nonprofit focusing on local farming and food issues.

Ena Kumar

Ena Kumar has been working on issues related to sustainability, urban agriculture, and community development in the Chicago area since 2007.  Currently, she serves as a Program Facilitator at the Chicago Park District, managing a children's gardening program in 16 of Chicago’s parks. Ms. Kumar also actively works with the Evanston Food Policy Council, the Fulton Street Community Garden, Neighborspace, and will be involved over the summer with adult education at a local job-training program.  Previously, she has worked with the Openlands Project, the Chicagoland Humanities Festival, and has conducted energy audits in Evanston.

William Moss

William Moss completed the Chicago Master Gardeners program and joined the Department of Environment to help promote one of the “greenest” cities in America. He supervised and trained landscape crews through the installation of community gardens on Chicago’s southside. William continued to fine tune his horticulture and landscaping expertise while on staff at the Chicago Botanic Garden, where he helped develop and manage new programs for youth, teens, and adults. William’s venture into television began with Discovery’s Rally Round the House, teaching America about gardening, landscape construction, and the ‘plant-O-the-show’. William continues to promote education, natural sciences, and gardening with his captivating and entertaining style. He provides landscape consultation and may also be heard dispensing design and gardening advice at trade shows, symposia, and continuing educations forums. He has made regular appearances on CNN’s Weekend Live and Chicagoland news programs. On TLC’s Town Haul William enjoys helping the townspeople create artistic yet functional landscapes that get people outside.

Karen Terry

Karen Terry is an award-winning independent writer with three decades of experience as a professional communicator. The published author of more than 150 articles in publications that include the Chicago Tribune and United Airline’s in-flight magazine, Karen also has experience crafting video scripts, Web content, brochures, newsletters, press releases and more for clients ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to the Chicago Public Schools. As a member of the award-winning creative staff at one of Chicago’s leading B-to-B integrated marketing communications agencies, Karen wrote about nutrition, health, food product development and the dairy industry for several years.

Carolyn E. Zezima

Carolyn was the founding president of The Talking Farm and an active member of the Evanston Food Policy Council, where the notion of growing food on a meaningful scale within Evanston’s city’s limits as an obvious and key component of a healthy local food system began. Before spearheading The Talking Farm, she was the Administrative Director of Chicago’s Green City Market, a nonprofit sustainable farmers’ market comprised of exclusively local farmers and producers.  She is a former chef and practicing attorney in New York and California and currently serves as the organization's board counsel. 

STAFF

 Judy Mendel, Administrative Manager

Judy has been involved in sustainability issues for years. She is involved with Community-Sponsored Agriculture (CSA), habitat restoration, the Network for Evanston’s Future, and the Environmental Concerns Task Force of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, the first house of worship in the world to achieve LEED platinum status.