Our Founders are:
Kevin Lehman, CEO and Co-Founder: Kevin first got involved in the sustainable food movement more than a decade ago when he completed an apprenticeship at the Intervale Community Farm, the oldest and largest CSA in the Vermont. He has also worked with both growers and eaters at the Middlebury Natural Foods Coop and now works at the “systems level” as a member of the state-wide Farm to Plate Network, on the board the Middlebury Natural Foods Coop, and formally on the board of the Acorn Network.
Kevin has also spent over 10 years in the world of business, first for his family’s business in Ohio (Lehmans), then for Country Home Products in Vermont. In 2011 he received his MBA in Sustainability from the Marlboro College Graduate School, where his final capstone project was the genesis for Three Revolutions. He is excited about bringing his experience in all three areas — food, business and the web — to a start-up he believes will help to revolutionize the food system.
Besides good food, Kevin enjoys hiking, biking, skiing, photography and travel.
Chris Lindgren, Co-Founder: Chris’s earliest memories include bagging bulk foodstuffs at the budding Coop in Plainfield, Vermont, in the early 1970s. Since then Chris has actively supported natural and organic farming enterprises and food purveyors. Chris attended high school on a farm in Andover, Vermont. There he milked cows, made cheese, grew food, learning much about small diversified farms and the community needed to support them. Chris helped organize the West River Coop, a food-buying club serving the Mountain Valley region around Weston, VT.
Chris is thrilled to see growing energy and interest about where our food comes from and how we get it to the table. Chris lives in Weston, on the edge of Terrible Mountain with his wife, Nathalie, their children Isabella and Gabriel and two cats, Midnight and Gigi. Together they grow food and keep chickens. Chris is a mapmaker, a small business operator and financial manager, completing an MBA at Marlboro College Graduate School. Chris has focused his studies on finance and has had the pleasure of interning with Stakeholders Capital and working with The Carrot Project. Chris loves the woods, enjoying tending his 250 tap maple sugar bush and hiking the hills around his house with Nathalie, Bella, and Gabe.
Our Advisers are:
Michael H. Shuman, Cutting Edge Capital: Michael is an economist, attorney, author, entrepreneur, and Director of Research and Marketing for Cutting Edge Capital. He has authored, coauthored, or edited eight books. His most recent book, just published by Chelsea Green, is Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity. His previous book, The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006), received as bronze prize from the Independent Publishers Association for best business book of 2006. He helped co-found BALLE, which represents 22,000 local businesses in North America in 80 communities, and is now a Fellow there. He is also a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute. At Cutting Edge Capital, a consulting firm that helps communities and businesses solving finance challenges, he manages its economic-development initiatives. A prolific speaker, Shuman has given an average of more than one invited talk per week, mostly to local governments and universities, for the past 30 years. He has lectured in almost every U.S. state and eight countries.
Janice St. Onge, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund: Janice is the President of the VSJF Flexible Capital Fund, L3C (the “Flex Fund”) and Deputy Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF). The Flex Fund provides flexible risk capital to growing businesses in Vermont’s agricultural, forestry and clean technology businesses. The VSJF is a not-for-profit whose mission is toaccelerate the development of Vermont’s green economy by providing grants and technical assistance to Vermont’s natural resource, agricultural and clean technology businesses. Janice brings economic development and financial expertise to the VSJF, having served in the technology and banking industries, higher education and state government sectors during her 25-year career. Janice is on the board of the Vermont Investors Forum, advisory boards for both the Vermont Small Business Development Center and True Body Products, and is a founding member of the Stowe Energy and Climate Action Network. Janice graduated in 1986 from University of Utah with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and a minor in French, and is a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute. Janice is a former International Ski Federation Freestyle Skiing judge and resides in Stowe, Vermont.
Bonnie Rukin, Slow Money Maine: Bonnie is a social change activist from Camden, Maine. She has worked as a teacher, organic farmer, lay homeopath and non-profit leader at varied times in the past several decades. Her values and community actions have focused on sustainability in organizations and their related missions in the areas of health, philanthropy, education, social justice, agriculture and the environment.
Since January 2010 Bonnie has been the Coordinator of Slow Money Maine, happily finding a match for her skills, interests and life experiences in leading a diverse and inclusive network of over 400 people actively engaged in varied forms of investing in local sustainable food systems.
Scott Beatty, Entrepreneur: Scott is a serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Trajectory, a Cambridge, MA based technology and marketing oriented publishing company that collaborates with leading authors, artists, and traditional publishers. Trajectory has over 130 eBooks and apps in distribution. Scott also worked on the StoreCHK platform which provides market-level intelligence for the natural and organic product sector. Scott was the Founder of Treedia Labs and an Angel Investor in three wireless start-ups. He was a founding partner and Vice-President in Information Please LLC, formed in 1997 and acquired by Pearson (PSO). The site was in the Internet Top 400 and won numerous awards for style, content and utility.
Scott holds a bachelor's degree from Macalester College and has attended the Marlboro College Graduate School, the New York University Film School, The School for Visual Arts.
Will Keyser, Consultant: Will is a veteran entrepreneur, professor of MBA entrepreneurship, and the son of a British farmer. He helps people start businesses across the US through his company Venture Founders LLC, based in Putney, Vermont. He has been a startup adviser at Community Capital of Vermont and is on the Board of the Brattleboro Food Coop. He has been a board member of a regional venture capital company in France, has been a consultant to major food manufacturers and has advised agripreneur students at Marlboro College Graduate School, in Brattleboro, Vermont. His company is a founder B Corporation.