The main purpose of the Board of Directors is to facilitate and guide all the work of the Portland Food Co-operative in accordance to the by-laws. Its goals include:
a) Providing the governance and policies for the PFC
b) Keeping the PFC Incorporation up to date
c) Abiding by the PFC by-laws
d) Facilitating the yearly elections of the PFC Board of Directors
e) Updating the PFC business plan to accurately reflect future projections.
f) Overseeing the management of PFC Operations and the PFC Committees, including, but not limited to: Finances, Communications, Outreach, Resources, Administration, Membership, and Space.
Board meetings are typically held at the Portland Food Co-op, 56 Hampshire Street on the first Tuesday of each month, from 7-9 p.m. If you have questions, please contact us at board@portlandfoodcoop.org.
Our current 2011-12 Board Members are:
Sean Cooper has worked for eight years as a tech support specialist, and occasional freelance video producer and aspiring small business owner. He has a History and Theater Degree from University of Maine, and a Master’s Degree in Visual and Media Arts from Emerson College. Eating healthy and eating local have gone from casual virtues to near obsessions for Sean over the last two years, and is very proud of the work he is doing with the PFC.
Rachelle Curran has been in the leadership of the Portland Food Co-op since 2007 and a member of other food co-ops for years. She coordinators work shifts for the co-op, helping new member-owners find a shift that uses their skills to meet the needs of the co-op. She currently works for the Environmental Health Strategy Center as the Development and Marketing Associate. In 2005, she received a masters in Environment and Community and passionately puts that education into action by helping to create a cooperative that provides sustainable local food options through a shared community experience. Rachelle lives in Portland on the East End and grew up in Gorham.
Claire Houston is a native of New Hampshire, and was a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, NY for four years. She came to Portland in 2008 to study documentary photography at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, and realized soon after arriving that she’d prefer to live in this beautiful, coastal New England town. She discovered that the Portland Food Co-op was already in progress in the form of a buying club and joined right away. Claire is currently employed at a non-profit in Portland and spends her free time photographing the people and landscape of Maine, cooking and gardening, and reading up on issues of natural health and the environment. She lives in Portland with her cat, Bunny.
Anna Kent is an entrepreneur looking for her next great project: something to do with textile arts; accounting and financial management; marketing and communications; dog behavior; and/or food. In past lives, she worked as a union organizer, family chef, house painter, and bookkeeper, and she’s held leadership positions, paid and unpaid, in nonprofit organizations since 1989. She is currently studying accounting at USM. The PFC is her first food co-op experience, and she’s been a member-owner since late 2009.
Tim McLain first connected with the PFC in 2007 and since moving back to Maine in the fall of 2008, has become increasingly more involved with the group. He is the coordinator of Crown o’ Maine, which brings food to the member-ownership from producers around this state. Tim is excited to see the collective volunteering and purchasing systems working so well with this group, which has enabled a transition from a buying club to member-ownership of a cooperative. Tim lives in the East End and is a massage therapist in downtown Portland.
Bragita Noreen grew up ordering from a buying club in rural Maine and she was happy to find a budding food co-op in Portland. She is excited to contribute her skills to the development of an economically sustainable PFC. Bragita is passionate about food and wants others to share the benefits of a healthy community connected to our rich local food system.
Amy Simpson is a social worker by day and a passionate cook and gardener by night. She received her bachelor’s degree in Ethnography from Hampshire College, and her Master’s in Social Work from USM. She grew up in The Other Maine, where she and her family practiced second-shift farming. Amy is currently a reluctant city dweller, whose long-term goal is to purchase land and get back to her true passions of growing things and living amongst trees. Amy has been a member-owner of the co-op since its buying club infancy and is as pleased as punch to watch the organization and the community it fosters grow and flourish.
Katie Mae Simpson serves as Executive Director of Emerge Maine, and is thrilled to be combining her passions – women’s issues and progressive politics – by recruiting, training, and inspiring Democratic women to run for public office. She grew up in eastern Maine, where her family grew much of their own food, made maple syrup, raised chickens for eggs and meat, and hunted for deer. Now back in Maine after years of playing politics in Boston, Katie Mae is excited to plug back into the thriving local food movement, of which the PFC is an integral part. When she’s not engaged in progressive activism or working on political campaigns, Katie Mae spends time growing and canning her own food, running, doing yoga, and renovating her newly purchased house. She sometimes even gets to spend time with her partner, Zach.
Daniel Ungier has been a member-owner and member-worker at two other established co-ops from past homes in Corvallis, OR, and St. Paul, MN, and believes strongly that the way a community chooses to purchase its food is an important measure of the strength of that community. A recent resident of the state, he has been drawn to Maine’s commitment to local agriculture since stumbling across the Common Ground Country Fair during a road trip seven years ago. Currently, Daniel is the Program Director for the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project, a program based out of Cultivating Community, Portland’s premiere grass-roots, food-based non-profit. The program provides training and support to recently resettled refugees and immigrants looking to make a livelihood of agriculture in their new homes in Maine. Daniel also enjoys kayaking, skiing, and hiking in Maine’s outdoors.
