CUESA Board of Directors

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Janet Griggs, President
Janet Griggs is co-owner of Taste Catering and Event Planning, a premier full-service off-premises catering company since 1978 whose client list ranges from the Fortune 500 to international dignitaries. Taste has long been a strong advocate for local purveyors of organic and sustainable food products, promoting the principles of sustainability to its clients and integrating these local products into its menu planning. As Vice President and CFO, Janet is responsible for strategic and financial planning, financial controls and administration of Taste. Janet also oversees the operations of the Teatro ZinZanni. She has a BA in Mathematics from Mills College and an MBA from Stanford University.

Karen Cook, Vice President
Karen Cook is the General Counsel of the Presidio Trust, which she joined in April, 1998. Prior to joining the Trust, she was a partner at Griffinger, Freed, Heinemann, Cook & Foreman and then at Landels, Ripley & Diamond, LLP, both San Francisco law firms. She has over 20 years of legal experience in the areas of real estate and environmental law. Karen received her BA from Stanford University and her juris doctorate from Stanford Law School.

Peggy Knickerbocker, Vice President
Peggy Knickerbocker is a freelance food and travel writer and author. A regular contributor to Saveur and Gourmet magazines. She developed her passion for writing about food after years as a cooking teacher, a caterer and a chef in her own restaurant, Pier 23 Café on the waterfront in San Francisco. In 1997 her book Olive Oil from Tree to Table was nominated best single subject cookbook of the year for the IACP Awards. She also wrote The Rose Pistola Cookbook. She frequently lectures on olive oil and gives cooking and food writing classes throughout the country. She has served on the boards of the Magic Theater, San Francisco Arts and Education Foundation, and the San Francisco Art Institute Art Council. She presently serves on the Board of the Chez Panisse Foundation. Her book Simple Soirees won the 2005 James Beard Award and the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook, co-written with Christopher Hirsheimer, was released Spring of 2006.

Ted Loewen, Secretary
Ted Loewen is a fruit grower whose grandparents had a cherry, peach, and apple orchard in Ohio. After practicing law for a number of years while living on his in- law's stone fruit farm in Fresno County, the lure of the fruit won out. When his father-in-law reached retirement age, Ted began converting a conventional, 50 acre farm into what is currently a 75-acre certified organic farm. Beginning with 20 varieties for the wholesale market, he now cultivates 150 varieties, mostly sold to niche markets. Ted graduated from Bethel College in Kansas with a degree in History and from UC Hastings College of the Law with a law degree. He has served on a number of boards including CAFF (Community Alliance with Family Farmers), the state Farmers' Market Advisory Board, Bethel College, Kings View (a regional provider of mental health and related services) and Sierra View (a local retirement community).

Kathy Yang, Treasurer
Kathy Yang is currently an independent consultant assisting corporate clients with accounting and audit projects. Prior to this, she served as Director of Finance at Business for Social Responsibility, a non-profit organization that helps companies design and implement successful, socially responsible business policies, practices and processes. She has also worked as a finance manager at Cisco Systems and a business process consultant with Arthur Andersen. Kathy holds a BA in Business Administration and a Master’s in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Bill Crepps
Bill Crepps is the owner-operator of Everything Under the Sun, growers of fruits and vegetables specializing in sun drying and dehydrating located in Winters. Bill earned both his BS in Renewable Natural Resources and his MS in Entomology from University of California-Davis. He is also a founding member of the UC Davis Experimental Farm. Bill has previously served on the Davis Audubon Society Education Committee, as a Dixon 4-H leader, and a Anderson Elementary Outdoors Adventures program leader.

John Dickman
John Dickman is the Global Food Service Manager for Google, Inc. John joined Google in 2005 with an objective to organize nine new onsite restaurants with additional new facilities in New York, Dublin, and Beijing. Prior to joining Google, John was a District Manager with Bon Appetit Management Company where his passion for artisan vendors, local farmers, organics and sustainability flourished. John earned his BA in Management from the McLaren School of Business at the University of San Francisco.

John Field
John Field is a retired founding principal of San Francisco's Field Paoli Architects. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. John is recognized as one of the country's premier designers of urban in-fill retail and mixed use projects. He has been a member of the Bay Conservation Development Corps' Design Review Board and has been Chairman of the American Institute of Architects Committee on Design. John’s projects include Stanford Shopping Center, Design of the Capital City for Alaska, Stonestown Galleria, Corte Madera Towne Center, Broadway Plaza Renovation in Walnut Creek, Towne Center Napa, Paseo Nuevo in Santa Barbara and many other retail and mixed use centers. John is also a filmmaker of note with two films about architecture shown on Public Television. He earned his BA and Master of Architecture degrees from Yale University.

Bonnie Fisher
Bonnie Fisher is a landscape architect and Principal of ROMA Design Group, urban designers, architects and landscape architects located in San Francisco. Over the past twenty years, Bonnie has played an important role in the planning and design of the San Francisco waterfront, including the planning for the South Beach neighborhood, the Embarcadero Boulevard, the Mid-Embarcadero Transportation and Open Space Project, the Downtown Ferry Terminal Project and Pier 7. She has authored numerous articles and contributed to books on the topic of urban waterfront revitalization. In addition, she has undertaken open space design, planning and landscape preservation projects throughout the west coast and currently is the Landscape Principal for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial to be located on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Bonnie grew up on a third generation family farm along the Colorado River in California and was educated in forestry, environmental planning and landscape architecture at the University of California and Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Desmond Jolly
Desmond Jolly is the former Director of the statewide University of California Small Farm Program. He has served as co-chair of the Roots of Change Council, a San Francisco based consortium of funders and agricultural leaders organized to facilitate the transition to more sustainable food and farming systems. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, as well as the National Advisory Council for the UC Santa Cruz Agroecology Program. After receiving his undergraduate degree in Economics, Desmond earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Oregon.

Thomas McNamee
Tom is the author of The Grizzly Bear (Knopf, 1984), Nature First: Keeping Our Wild Places and Wild Creatures Wild (Roberts Rinehart, 1987), A Story of Deep Delight (Viking, 1990), and The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone (Holt, 1997), which is listed by Amazon.com as one of the twelve best nature books ever written. His latest book, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a  Food Revolution, will be published in March 2007 by The Penguin Press. His essays, poems, reporting, and reviews have appeared in Audubon, The New Yorker, Natural History, High Country News, Town & Country, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Saveur. He wrote the PBS "American Masters" documentary Alexander Calder, which won a Peabody Award and an Emmy. Tom has served on the board of directors of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and as its chairperson. He has also been a director of Rare, an international conservation group.

Mary Powell
Mary Powell has been the Director of Development for the San Francisco Opera since 2003. Previously she applied her extensive experience in private and government funding development, and management and marketing skills in the health care industry, working with such industry leaders as California Pacific Medical Center, California Healthcare System, Sutter Health and UCSF/Stanford Health Care. She currently serves on several nonprofit boards and continues to serve as advisor for several community programs. Mary has been an avid Ferry Plaza Farmers Market shopper since the market’s inception.

Stephen Revetria
Stephen Revetria is responsible for developing and implementing sales and marketing plans for hospitality events at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. His duties include managing the use of the park for corporate meetings and conventions as well as producing special events, concerts and sporting events. Stephen is the past-president of the International Special Events Society of Northern California. He is an involved member in the hospitality community, including the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, Meeting Professionals International, the Society of Incentive Travel Executives and the Professional Convention Management Association. He is a member of The Olympic Club, Rotary International, the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association and current president of the Guardsmen.

Joel Schirmer
In 1997, Joel Schirmer began working for Dirty Girl Produce and in 1991 he took the helm from the original “dirty girls” who started the farm in 1995. Joe graduated from the UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden apprenticeship program with a certificate in ecological horticulture. Inspired by the French Intensive gardening method, he has adapted tractor farming to incorporate its principles. Dirty Girl Produce has been CCOF Certified Organic since 1995.

Susan Walter
Susan Walter is a chef with 25 years experience as a cookbook author, caterer, restaurateur and culinary consultant. Currently she divides her time between working as a private chef for a Woodside family, consulting for commodity boards and restaurants and event planning. For ten years Susan was a partner in the acclaimed Ristorante Ecco in San Francisco and Cheese Please Catering on the Peninsula. She wrote two cookbooks for the prestigious California Culinary Academy series, Seasonal Vegetarian Cooking and Entertaining Made Easy, a James Beard Book Award nominee. She developed recipes for the award-winning food encyclopedia, Cooking A to Z. Susan served on the board of the San Francisco Professional Food Society for ten years, twice as President, and is a Founding Board Member of the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. She currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Wine & Food, a national culinary and viticultural educational organization founded by Julia Child, Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff.

Warren Weber
Warren Weber grew up in Missouri and Connecticut, taking summer farm jobs from the age of 15. After receiving an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Economics and a PhD in English Literature, Warren began farming organically in Bolinas in 1974. He eventually expanded his Star Route Farms to southern California as well. He has served as President of CCOF and co-founded the Organic Farming Research Foundation. He served on the steering committee of the California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (now California Food and Farming) and received the “Susty” award from the Committee for Sustainable Agriculture. He also serves on the boards of Marin Agricultural Land Trust and Marin Organic. Warren was instrumental in the creation of Marin Organic Certified Agriculture, one of the first county government certifiers in the country, and he is now the president.

Advisory Commitee

Fitzgerald Kelly
Fitzgerald Kelly was raised in Davis and graduated from Santa Clara University. He entered the Teacher Corps, which placed him in an internship in a rural Tulare County High School. After four years in the education field, including a summer in the Forest Service and running an adult school, Fitz stumbled into farming in 1972 when he bought 20 acres of tree fruit and raisin grapes in adjoining Fresno County. Over the next 12 years, he experimented with various farming techniques, stopped the traditional heavy reliance on pesticides in 1984, and now farms 35 acres of fruit trees. He was one of the first farmers to plant many of the varieties now so popular, such as white peaches and nectarines, low acid yellow fruits, pluots and plumcots. Fitz believes he uses the most sustainable methods possible to grow all 146 of his stone fruit varieties. Over the years, Fitz has also spent several terms on the California Farmers’ Market Advisory Committee.

Beverly Mills
Beverly Mills is a founding member and past president of CUESA. She is an artist and civic activist. Her career has included managing a marketing and business development department for a major corporation and directing the creation of the corporate museum. She also worked as a consultant, specializing in strategic planning for midsize companies reorganizing or merging operations. She has served as president of SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research), Friends of the Port of San Francisco and Russian Hill Neighbors. She was a member of Leadership San Francisco and served as Vice President of the San Francisco Planning Commimssion. She has a degree in Political Science.

Lawrie Mott
Lawrie is a consultant specializing in environmental health issues. She is a scientist, with a MS in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and until 2001 was a senior scientist in the San Francisco office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. After nearly a decade of work on pesticide issues at both state and national levels, Lawrie launched a new project to safeguard children from environmental health threats. She has authored and coauthored several books and reports. She has served on many government advisory committees and nonprofit boards. Lawrie currently is on the boards of the Marin Horizon School and Resource Media. Her past memberships include the US EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, Statewide Advisory Committee of California’s Comparative Risk Ranking Project, US EPA Administrator’s Pesticide Advisory Committee, UC’s Advisory Committee for Public Education on Food Safety, and the Board of the Children’s Environmental Health Network.

Michael Pollan
Michael is a Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley and a contributing editor to the New York Times Magazine. His extensive journalistic experience includes work as the Executive Editor for Harper’s Magazine and series editor for Modern Library Garden Series. In addition to many articles and speeches, he has published four books – Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma. He has a Masters degree from Columbia University and his professional affiliations include the Stegner Circle of advisors for the Trust for Public Land.

Sean Swezey
Sean is a senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, where he teaches organic agriculture and integrated pest management. He also has a research appointment as Specialist, Farming Systems Research and Extension, at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research emphasizes on-farm trials for improvement of pest management methods in organic strawberries, apples, artichokes, and cotton. He is a Technical Representative to the California Organic Products Advisory Committee, and past president and current board member and trustee of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. He has a PhD in Entomological Sciences, UC Berkeley and has received many academic honors, fellowships and grants.

Patricia Unterman
Patricia has been a restaurant critic and food writer in San Francisco for over 30 years. She currently writes restaurant reviews and food columns for the San Francisco Examiner and articles for Gourmet, Food and Wine and Bon Appetit magazines and other publications. The fourth edition of her highly popular San Francisco Food Lovers Guide was released in March, 2005. She also publishes a bi-monthly newsletter called Unterman on Food. Wearing a second hat, Patty is chef and co-owner of the Hayes Street Grill in San Francisco, now celebrating its 26th anniversary. Vicolo Pizzeria has been in operation since 1984. Patty grew up in Evanston, Illinois and graduated from Stanford University. She attended the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Alice Waters
Alice Waters, chef, author, and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California, pioneered a culinary philosophy based on using only the freshest local, organic products, picked in season. Chez Panisse was named best restaurant in the country by Gourmet Magazine. In 1995, Alice founded The Edible Schoolyard, a one-acre garden and kitchen classroom, which incorporates her ideas about food and culture into the core public school curriculum. The School Lunch Initiative, a landmark agreement between The Berkeley Unified School District and The Chez Panisse Foundation, will be responsible for the district-wide expansion of this program, with the goal of bringing children into a new relationship to food. Alice is also Vice President of Slow Food International, a non-profit organization that promotes and celebrates local, artisanal food traditions with members in over 100 countries.

Peter Wilson
Peter Wilson is an architect. Working with his brother Anthony and sister Sara, he developed and continues to expand the Rockridge Market Hall, which opened in 1986. The Rockridge Market Hall was inspired by the European food hall experience of shopping daily for fresh ingredients purchased from individual purveyors. As the design principal of Wilson Associates, Peter has designed and developed a number of other food-related projects in the East Bay, including Cactus Restaurants, Uzen Restaurant, and the Pasta Shop in the Fourth Street retail complex. Early in his career, he established his architectural office in New York, after graduating from UC Berkeley with a Masters in Architecture. He has taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and in 1981 was selected for the New York Architectural League's Young Architects Program. His Peitzke House was published and exhibited in the United States and Europe and was selected as an Architectural Record 1982 House of the Year. Peter grew up in Wellington, New Zealand.