About Us
Ag Innovations Network (AIN) was founded in 2000 to build a better future for farmers, consumers, and communities. In the years since we have worked across California and across the United States to bring together unusual partners to support change in the food system. We are a 501( c)(3) not-for-profit California corporation.
AIN STAFF
Joseph McIntyre, President
Joseph leads the Ag Innovations Network team. As a trusted neutral facilitator, Joseph has led hundreds of critical dialogues between farmers, environmentalists, community leaders, workers, and consumers. Joseph joined AIN in 2001 as a facilitator on our Santa Barbara County Technical Advisory Committee for Rural Resource Protection project. From there Joseph’s role expanded until he became the lead facilitator for the Ag Futures Alliance project and senior consultant for strategic planning and organization change. In 2006 he took on the Executive Director role.
Joseph brings a diverse background to AIN, which includes holding leadership positions in business, not-for-profit organizations, and academia. Originally trained as an economist (MA, Economics, University of Rhode Island), he has taught environmental economics at New College of California and history of economic thought at University of Rhode Island. His early business career has focused primarily in marketing, management, and conference development. He is an experienced nonprofit organization manager, having spent 7 years as Executive Director of Resources for Creativity, an organization that trained group facilitators. He also holds a MA in Psychology, Organization Development focus, from Sonoma State University, which he uses extensively in his facilitation and managed change work for AIN.
Joseph came early to sustainability through his interest in systems thinking and steady-state economics cultivated as an interdisciplinary studies student at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California (BA in Liberal Arts with Honors). Living in Stockton placed him in the heart of California Delta agriculture and left an indelible impression of the bounties and the risks of the current food system. He lives in Sonoma County, is the parent to two daughters, and is an avid bike rider.
You can email Joseph at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Dan Schurman, Chief Executive Officer
Dan joined AIN in 2009 and heads our consulting services division and is responsible for AIN operations.
Dan is a deeply skilled not-for-profit organization leader with almost thirty years of executive experience leading a variety of not-for-profit organizations. He has served as Executive Director for the San Mateo County Food Bank, the Sonoma Land Trust, the Sonoma County Bar Association, and most recently at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, an organization dedicated to taking a multi-stakeholder collaborative approach to restoring a critical Northern California environmental resource.
Dan grew up in the Sacramento Valley, literally at the urban-rural edge with dairy cows grazing next door to his family’s suburban neighborhood home. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University with an honors degree in Political Science and a minor in Economics. He also holds a Masters degree with honors in Nonprofit Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. He lives in Sonoma County with his wife and teenage daughter (after sending her older sister off to college), and is an avid gardener.
Dan can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Katy Mamen, Director of Statewide Roundtables
Katy directs our California Roundtable on Agriculture and the Environment, the California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative, and the newly forming roundtable on agriculture and water. Prior to joining Ag Innovations Network, Katy was a consultant to various food and agriculture organizations around California and previously coordinated the US Local Food Program at the International Society for Ecology and Culture. Katy is a Fellow of the Oakland Institute, and has authored numerous works and public education tools promoting healthy food and agriculture systems. Katy has worked with farmers in Europe, Latin America and Asia to promote farmers’ rights and agricultural viability. Katy lives with her husband and daughter in an intentional community in rural Sonoma County, a site which is also home to the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.
Katy holds a BS in Physical Geography from McGill University in Montreal, and an MS in Holistic Science from Schumacher College in the UK, a groundbreaking international program that focuses on understanding and working with complex systems.
You can contact Katy at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Miriam Volat, Director of Alliance Projects
Miriam joined AIN in 2009 and leads our multi-stakeholder collaboration projects. Miriam is one of a few people working in this field that has an equally deep background in agriculture, farming, and food systems as in facilitation, team building, and group problem-solving. She has designed and facilitated leadership, communication, and team-building trainings in the business and non-profit sectors for 15 years. She has facilitated planning and coordination and educational processes for many agricultural system organizations, such as Food Matters, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Land Paths and UC Cooperative Extension. She has ten years experience teaching food systems and hands-on production (gardening and small scale farming) at the community and university level, most recently at Dominican University of California. She has an M.S. in Vegetable Crops from UC Davis with an emphasis in soil biology and nutrient cycling and a B.A. in International Relations and Environmental Studies. Her technical research includes reducing nitrogen pollution from non-point agricultural sources. Miriam lives in Sonoma County with her daughter, where she grew up and started a three acre CSA with former students.
Miriam can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Jessica Siegal, Director of the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
Jessica Siegal is the program director for the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops, a multi-stakeholder initiative to develop a system for measuring sustainable performance throughout the specialty crop supply chain. The project seeks to offer a suite of outcomes-based metrics to enable operators at any point along the supply chain to benchmark, compare, and communicate their own performance.
Jessica’s background includes six years with Rainforest Alliance in New York City, where she served as the major gifts and board-relations manager. In this role, she worked with many of the business and thought leaders on the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture. She relished her first taste of farming and raising livestock as an apprentice with Glynwood Farm, a non-profit farm in the Hudson River Valley of New York. Other meaningful experience includes farm-based education with the Yale Sustainable Food Project and a number farmland preservation and agricultural business development projects throughout the New England farming community. She holds a bachelors degree in Political Science and Sociology from Boston University, and a masters degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with a focus on food systems. A native of New Haven, Connecticut, she recently fulfilled a 8-year-long dream by relocating to Sonoma County.
Jessica can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Serena Coltrane-Briscoe, Program Assistant
Serena joined AIN in 2010. In addition to providing program support, she manages office communications, accounts, and purchasing.
Serena comes to AIN with a background in food systems and architectural design. After receiving an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies and Economics, she went on to coordinate the Farm-to-School program for Community Alliance with Family Farmers’ Central Coast region. For over two years, she worked to forge fruitful relationships between school food service programs and local, family farms, while educating children about food, farms, and nutrition. Serena then decided to pursue another passion of hers and attended the University of Oregon, graduating with a Master of Architecture in 2009. A native of Sonoma County, Serena moved home in October 2009. She has enjoyed combining her dual passions by applying her design education to food system-related projects.
Serena can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
AIN BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Nicole Mason, President
Nicole has worked in agriculture and sustainable food systems both nationally and abroad for over a decade. Nicole currently works at Veritable Vegetable, the nation’s oldest organic distribution company where she works in sales and fulfills the company’s communication needs. Prior to joining Veritable Vegetable, Nicole spent five years at Roots of Change, directing programs aimed at transforming California’s food system to a sustainable food system by the year 2030. Before moving to California, Nicole served as program director for an environmental organization focused on local, sustainable agriculture and cuisine. In this role, Nicole managed programs that connected local farmers to markets in New York City. She also worked at the New York Botanical Garden and taught classes in plant science and botany.
Nicole received a Bachelor’s degree in International Agriculture and Development at Cornell University. Following her undergraduate studies, Nicole received a prestigious graduate-level research fellowship to research organic cropping systems in New Zealand for one year. Nicole is one of the bright young lights in the sustainable food movement and her insight and enthusiasm is an ideal fit for Ag Innovations Network.
Paul Martin, Secretary
Paul is Director of Environmental Services for Western United Dairymen, a leader in advocacy for the California Dairy Industry. Paul received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Davis, his Masters Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies- Environmental Policy from Sonoma State University, and is a member of Class X of the California Agricultural Leadership Program. Paul is a leader in finding opportunities for mainstream agriculture to work with environmental and community allies to fin win-win solutions for the future of dairying in California. He is a member of AIN’s California Roundtable on Agriculture and the Environment and resident of Petaluma, California.
Marissa Guggiana, Treasurer
Marissa Guggiana is President of Sonoma Direct Sustainable Meats since 2005. She is also a co-founder of Secret Eating Society and a 2007 fellow with Roots of Change. She curated the Charcuterie Pavilion for Slow Food Nation’s inaugural gathering in 2008. Marissa is an editor with Meatpaper Magazine, a regular contributor to “Saveur:http://www.saveur.com/ and Edible communities and currently working on her first book, Primal Cuts: Cooking With America’s Best Butchers due out in October, 2010.
Martha Guzman Aceves, Member
Martha is an attorney and advocate with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a nonprofit legal services and advocacy organization founded in 1981 to improve rights and opportunities for California’s immigrants, their families and communities. Martha has been a leader at finding productive ways to work with the farming community to both improve conditions for workers and recognize and promote best practices on California’s farms and ranches.
Governance Documents
Ag Innovations Network is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization incorporated in California, USA. You can download official documents relating to our organization and governance below:
- Our Internal Revenue Service non-profit organization determination letter, dated February 22, 2005.
- Our 2007 Federal Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Tax.
- Our 2006 Federal Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Tax.