Our Board
NOFA-NJ Board Officers:
President: Donna Drewes, Municipal Land Use Center at The College of New Jersey
Donna Drewes has a long history of supporting NOFA-NJ and as a current board member, is serving as the NOFA-NJ Board President. Donna is a professional planner with nearly 29 years’ experience in community and natural resource planning in New Jersey. Ms. Drewes has worked as a professional planning consultant in the private sector and for both public agencies and non-governmental organizations. Her experience includes extensive work in the development of master plan and conservation plan elements, background reports and ordinance drafting with an emphasis on community sustainability planning, as well as rural and environmental resource management issues. Ms. Drewes holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Soil Science and a Masters’ degree in City and Regional Planning, both from Rutgers University. Since 2004 Ms. Drewes has been a Community Planner with the Municipal Land Use Center (MLUC) at The College of New Jersey. Her work at the MLUC with municipalities in NJ currently focuses on sustainable development, natural resource management and food systems.
Vice-President: Stephanie Harris, Stonehedge Farm
Stephanie Harris has been farming in Hopewell, NJ, for 26 years, growing fruits and vegetables, and raising sheep, chickens, ducks, and bees. She is one of the founding members of NOFA-NJ, and has taken a particularly active role in running educational events, such as the Organic Country Fair, the Winter Conference, the Garden to Table Conference, and twilight meetings. Before moving to NJ, Stephanie worked in Washington, D.C. for Ralph Nader, and the Environmental Defense Fund on agricultural issues, focusing on the adverse health and environmental effects of pesticides.
Secretary:
Treasurer: Earling, Dave, Gravity Hill Farm
22 River Dr.Titusville, NJ 08560
Primary: 609-737-8860 Work: 609-737-8860
Email: dee@solecap.com
David Earling is the co-owner, along with his wife Maria Nicolo, of Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville, New Jersey. Gravity Hill is a certified organic farm with approximately 5 acres focused on a diverse range of organic produce and flowers. David and Maria are working to make the farm a center for community education and outreach regarding organic production, energy use, and food policy.
David is also currently a Partner and Managing Director of Solebury Capital, a capital markets and investor relations advisory firm. Prior to joining Solebury, he spent 16 years at Goldman, Sachs & Co and was a senior member of the equity capital markets group. He was also a Special Advisor to the Governor of New Jersey where he focused on financially-related assignments.
He received a B.A. in Economics from Dickinson College and an M.A. in International Affairs and Economics from the Johns Hopkins, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He and his family (Maria, John 7 and Rose 4) live in Titusville, NJ.
Board Members
Baki, Mike, Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm
41C Silver Lake Rd.
Blairstown NJ 07825
Primary: 908-362-7244 Work: 908-362-7486m Fax: 908-362-7244
Email: mikebaki@hotmail.com
Since 1995 Mike has been the head grower of the Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm, a 300+ member CSA in Warren County, NJ. One of the first in the country, beginning in 1988, the CSG grows diversified vegetables, soft fruit, tree fruit and grains on 20+ acres.
Mike is a graduate of Class III of the NJ Agricultural Leadership Development Program. He received a BA from the University of Notre Dame ’84. He lives with his wife, Carol Barnett and their two children, Al and Muriel in Hardwick, NJ.
Blackwell, Marcia, Blackwell's Organic® Gelato
Long Branch, NJ 07740
Primary: 732-229-8899 Fax: 732-876-0358
Email: marciablackwell@comcast.net
Marcia Blackwell is owner of Blackwell’s Organic Gelato, which manufactures certified organic dairy-free gelato and fruit sorbetto which is sold through specialty and natural food retailers and via an online store, GelatoByMail.com.
Blackwell’s Organic Gelato was launched as a result of Marcia’s passion for delicious and organic food. Her green, sustainable company reflects her own values and personal commitment to Fair Trade, conservation and the environment. Marcia combines her passion for business with her commitment to community service.
In addition to joining the board off NOFA-NJ, Marcia also serves on the Corporate Advisory Board of Earth Share NJ and the Board of the Friends of the Parks, the fundraising organization for the Monmouth County Park System. Marcia has close ties to the Monmouth County Park System, having met her husband Tom in 1998 while they were both leaders in the outdoor recreation department, teaching rock climbing classes.
Marcia is an active member of several business organizations, including the National Association of Women Business Owners, which awarded her the Emerging Business Woman of the Year Award in 2006. NJBIZ named Marcia one of NJ’s Best 50 Women in Business in 2009.As a Master Gardener, Marcia is trained to diagnose plant problems, identify insects, and provide environmentally sound remedies and solutions for the home gardener. She received her BA in cultural anthropology and archaeology from Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA. Her early career was spent in public relations and fundraising for several non-profit organizations including The Walter’s Art Museum, Baltimore, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, Princeton and the VNA of Central NJ, Red Bank.
Marcia resides in a 100% solar powered home in Long Branch, NJ with her husband, Tom, and their golden retrievers Emma and Tuesday. She is active in local government, serving on the Long Branch Zoning Board of Adjustment and the Long Branch Master Plan Committee, and is a supporter of many environmental causes.
William Bridgers, Zon Capital Partners
William D. Bridgers has held a long-term interest in farming and agriculture. In his younger days, he worked on farms in New Mexico and Israel. He was a founding member and part of the initial Core Group of the Watershed Organic Farm in Pennington, NJ, now Honey Brook Organic Farm, one of the largest CSAs in the U.S. with several thousand members. He is currently the Treasurer of NOFA-NJ and has been a board member for over 10 years.
Mr. Bridgers’ day job is as a General Partner and founding member of Zon Capital Partners, a venture fund located in Princeton, New Jersey, which manages investments in emerging information technology companies. Before forming Zon Capital, Mr. Bridgers was a partner and founder of Zon Partners an early stage investment and advisory company and the predecessor to the Fund. Prior to that, Mr. Bridgers helped start Technology Management & Funding in Princeton, New Jersey, an early stage investment company. He was the firm’s Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Bridgers also served with three international consulting firms, PA Consulting Services of London, England, A.T. Kearney based in Chicago, Illinois and Kline and Company of Fairfield, New Jersey.
Mr. Bridgers holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Duda, Doug, Demograph Corporation
3501 Lawrenceville Roadm Princeton NJ 08540
Primary: 609-497-9779 Fax: 609-497-1166
Email: taste4travel@aol.com
Chef-educator Doug Duda is the founding Executive Director of Astor Center, a new state-of-the-art food and beverage education and event space in New York City, where he works to identify, promote and present leading programs from around the world. Doug serves as a member of the board for the Northeast Organic Farming Association in New Jersey, and is an active chef educator in schoolyard gardens and farm-to-fork programs around the country.He is also a member of the team creating the country’s first green culinary program at Miami Dade College, the largest college in the United States, where a new building in downtown Miami will feature his design for a rooftop urban organic agricultural lab for chefs in training.
Doug is the creator and host of the A&E International television series, The Well-Seasoned Traveler, devoted to the exploration of world culture through food and drink. He also produces and hosts live culinary travel showcases for the Miami Herald, Boston Globe and Atlanta Constitution, as well as Taste Of The World, the country’s largest culinary travel showcase, for The New York Times.
Doug’s culinary stations include the Spiral Restaurant in Miami (1972), the Pato Rojo in Punta Umbria, Spain (1975), and the original Legal Seafoods in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1978). He was a personal chef during graduate school (1983-85) and created and ran The Bee, a prototype food service for residential communities, in Miami Beach (1997).
He received a law degree at Boston University and an MBA at Harvard Business School, and his food-focused consulting practice has performed work for Food Network, Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, Wild Thymes specialty foods, Astor Wine & Spirits, and a number of venture capital firms seeking advice on food and beverage industry investments.
Esposito, Al; Poplarwood Farm, LLC
P.O. Box 213, Port Murray, NJ 07865
Primary: 908-689-8736; Work: 908-689-8736
Email: poplarwood.al@comcast.net
Alfred Esposito spent much of his youth working with his family in the businesses that his parents operated. It was here that his outstanding work ethic and moral values were formed. Always one to gravitate towards the natural world around him Al felt that he was born with a love of agriculture and rural life. As a teen he worked in a friend’s floral shop as an apprentice. During this time Al decided to pursue a career in the floral industry and attend floral design school. He opened his own florist in Montclair NJ a few years later. While operating the florist business, his interest for growing and gardening continued and he completed the Rutgers Master Gardeners Course in Essex County. At that time he also began to offer garden design and installations through his shop in Montclair.
After reading an article in The New Yorker magazine in the late 1980's about an organic farm on Long Island, he visited the farm and a decision was made to begin an organic farm. Al also became involved with NOFA-NJ eventually serving on its certification committee. Moving his young family from Montclair to Warren County coincided with the farming venture and they were now living in the countryside. The farming venture lasted three years. After that Al worked in a garden center for a few years learning more about ornamental plants and landscaping. That was followed by a move to a large diverse conventional farm where he ran a range of greenhouses growing both ornamental plants and the vegetable transplants to be used on the farm. That move expanded his understanding of the many aspects of farming and presented him with the opportunity to apply to the NJ Agriculture Leadership Development Program Class 3.
Successfully completing the NJALDP and garnering more knowledge and contacts in the agricultural community as a result was pivotal in the decision to begin a new venture. The business Poplar Wood Farm, LLC began as a backyard ornamental plant nursery has now branched out to encompass high end landscape design, installation, maintenance, & ornamental greenhouse production. Field production of woody ornamentals was begun two years ago and this is an area that we plan to focus more of our time and resources on. While not certified organic, organic growing methods are used in the nursery fields and in the greenhouses. Al lives In Mansfield NJ (Warren County) in an 1850's farmhouse with his wife Madeline, a painter who loves to capture the surrounding rural scenes. Their son, Claude, is a junior studying business at Lehigh University.
Flory, Pam
P.O. Box 85, Hopewell NJ 08525
Primary: 609-466-4217 Work: 609-466-4217
Email: pamelaflory@gmail.com
Pam is a farmer, educator, wife, and mother of 2. Pam has been involved with agriculture in NJ for the last 21 years, starting at the Howell Living History Farm in Titusville, then co-managing and managing organic vegetable farms in central NJ. She now spends her time educating both adults and children through Agricultural courses and school gardens.
Hamill, Natalie
Muth, Robert , Muth Family Farm
51 E. Woodland Ave. Pitman NJ 08071
Primary: 856-582-0363 Work: 856-582-0363; Cell: 856-340-8543; Fax: 856-218-4474
Email: ledamuth@go.com
Bob Muth grew up on a farm, raising crops with his father while holding a second job. Bob left New Jersey after college to work as a cooperative extension agent in South Carolina. After three years few years he returned to his home state of New Jersey to work on his Master's Degree.
"One day, I looked out the window and realized I'd rather be sitting on a tractor seat than working in a lab, and I've never been back." In 1990, Bob returned to farming full time, and has never looked back.
"I hear all this gloom and doom about farming, but I like where I am and I wouldn't change a thing about how I got here." It is truly a labor of love.Through the years, Muth Farm has gained recognition as one of the leading regional farmers in areas of sustainable agriculture, soil development, community supported agriculture and organic farming. Muth Farm recently received the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Master Farmer Award for his work in these areas and more.
Sciarappa, Bill, Rutgers Cooperative Extension
88 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8525
Work: 732-431-7260; Fax: 732-409-4813
Email: sciarappa@njaes.rutgers.edu
Bill is currently employed at Rutgers University as an Associate Professor, Agriculture & Resource Management Agent. His technical responsibilities center on the field production, marketing and informational needs of agricultural clients; primarily in commercial vegetable crops, field crops, small fruit and equine pasture. Outreach programming is developed for specific crop production areas, farming cultures, soil fertility and agricultural issues. Additional activities involve other organizations – natural resource, environmental and educational – on county, state, national and international levels. He served as National Chair of the Organic Horticulture Committee of the American Society of Horticultural Scientists and produced a publication surveying the Organic and Sustainable Degrees offered by American Land-grant Universities.
Bill’s graduate studies were completed at Rutgers in the Department of Entomology and Economic Zoology concentrating in bio-control and agricultural pest management. He currently teaches Organic Farming and Gardening at Cook Campus where his class has grown from 10 students per semester to over 100 in the last 5 years. His Book Chapter on Organic Blueberry Production has significantly stimulated worldwide cultivation. Much of what he learned was as a child watching his grandfather, an Italian immigrant farmer, work in the large family garden.
Weiss, Rick , Viocare Technologies, Inc.
90 Shady Brook Ln., Princeton NJ 08540
Primary: 609-924-9539; Work: 609-497-4600
Email: weiss@viocare.com
Rick Weiss is the President and Founder of Viocare, Inc., a healthcare software company that develops innovative and scientifically-proven dietary and physical activity assessment and behavioral change systems for researchers, clinicians, and wellness counselors. Mr. Weiss has been the Principal Investigator on 17 National Institutes of Health grants and contracts, valued at over $8 million. These projects have formed the basis of Viocare’s product line including a wellness program for counselors, VioWell; an electronic dietary history questionnaire, VioScreen; and a community wellness portal, Princeton Living Well (PLW). One aspect of PLW is an incentive system that rewards consumers for their wellness efforts with products and services from local businesses. Viocare’s systems have been used in support of four clinical drug trials and by major research and clinical organizations such as Mayo Clinic, Harvard, FDA, USDA, and NIH. Mr. Weiss has been awarded two New Jersey Small Business Development Center Success Awards (1998, 2005) and has presented at major healthcare conferences and published in peer review journals about new techniques for dietary assessments.
He received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Math from Carnegie Mellon and a MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University. Rick started his career working at Bell Labs and held management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, and Squibb.
