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Meet the Board
MARY CARMAN (she/her)
President
Mary is a graduate of Oregon State University, having received a post-baccalaureate degree in Sustainability and the undergraduate certificate Food in Culture & Social Justice, where she focused on food justice, indigenous food sovereignty, and sustainable food systems. She is a Contracts & Community Experience Specialist at Oregon Food Bank, where she works indepartmentally and with regional food banks and partner agencies to ensure clients receive fresh, nutritious, culturally relevant food. Mary is the Outreach Committee lead and is responsible for the new website and Instagram account, both unveiled in 2022.
A long-time Oregonian, she enjoys gardening, hiking, listening to podcasts, cooking, watching movies, and playing board/card games.
KIRSTEN MILLER (she/her)
Vice President
Kirsten Miller started off her career in corporate marketing, but quickly made her way to the non-profit realm. In 2003, she co-founded the School Garden Network, 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, but wouldn’t touch from a grocery store.
Most recently, she did fundraising for the Jewish Community Foundation in the Bay Area before moving to Corvallis in 2017. When her dream property fell through and home-steading was no longer in the cards, she decided to devote her efforts to bettering the local food system. Volunteering at Sunbow Farms led to a friendship with the farmers, followed by joining the board in June 2018. She feels it’s a deep honor to work with the land, farmers, eaters, and everyone and everything in between, and invites you to come to an event or reach out with ideas or suggestions.
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.
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AMANDA MCBRIDE (she/her)
Board Member
Amanda hails from lower latitudes such as California, Texas, and Costa Rica, but has been in Corvallis for the last 9 years. She is the STEM Teacher at Linus Pauling Middle School and has been working in education for the last 15 years. Her interest in learning about and then joining the TRFW Board comes from her passion in non-traditional education and hands-on experiences for all. She is interested in guiding the youth towards more exposure in agricultural sciences and helping them get their hands dirty while expanding their experiences and knowledge for the area in their own backyards. As a member of the board, Amanda hopes to further ingrain herself in the Ten Rivers community and she looks forward to learning more about her local food web and her role in it. Outside of teaching and learning, Amanda loves to get her hands dirty with her small boys in their backyard, enjoys family bike rides, and dreaming about a future urban homestead with her husband.
ASHER WHITNEY (he/they)
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. 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 Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, 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.
DIEGO NIETO (he/him)
Board Member
Diego Nieto is the Healthy Communities Coordinator for the Linn County Health Department, where he works to strengthen local food systems and access across the county. He came to food systems work through a deep love for cooking delicious food, having grown up in a Spanish-Italian family that loves to eat, and working in restaurant kitchens for nearly 10 years. He has participated in several urban farming and mutual aid projects in Chicago and Corvallis, including Growing Ancestral Roots and Stop the Sweeps. Diego sees regenerative food production and community-centered distribution as integral to creating an equitable society, stewarding our land and water, and combating the alienation and isolation that capitalism engenders. In his time away from work and organizing, Diego enjoys making pottery, learning buddhist philosophy, and playing basketball.
GABRIELLE ROESCH-MCNALLY (she/her)
Board Member
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.
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