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.

Dan Schurman, Chief Executive Officer

Dan joined AIN in 2009 and heads our consulting services division as well as being 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.

Christy Yaeger, Financial Manager

Christy Yaeger joined AIN in January 2012 in the position of Financial Manager. Christy brings over 25 years of financial management and administration experience in community based non-profit social service agencies. She served as Financial Manager for Family Service Agency of Sonoma County for the previous six years. For the majority of her career she worked with Circuit Rider Productions, a multi service environmental restoration and human service organization, where she held the roles of Finance Director, Associate Director, and Executive Director. Christy is a Sonoma County native. She lives in Sebastopol with her husband. Their son attends UC Davis.

Katy Mamen, Director of Statewide Roundtables

Katy directs our California Roundtable on Agriculture and the Environment and the California Roundtable on Water and Food Supply. She also manages AIN’s role with the California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative. 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.

Miriam Volat, Director of Alliance Projects

Miriam joined AIN in 2009 and leads our multi-stakeholder Alliance project. 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.

Jessica Siegal, Director of 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.

Tim Griffin, Process Facilitator

Tim Griffin joined AIN in March 2012 and serves AIN a lead process facilitator supporting the Alliance project as well as other AIN engagements. Tim spent the last 5 years as an organizational change consultant supporting Fortune 500 companies including Walmart, Duke Energy, AT&T, and Johnson & Johnson deepen their sustainability and corporate social responsibility performance. Tim has a rich background in facilitation and training, ranging from organizing grassroots leadership networks to leading c-suite visioning sessions.

Keryna Johnson, Alliance Coordinator

Keryna joined AIN in May 2012 and serves as the coordinator for the San Diego Food System Alliance. She received her BA in Business Management from San Diego State University, and is in the process of completing a Master of City Planning degree, also from SDSU. Keryna’s experience enacting community-based change includes supporting non-profit organizations in the sectors of affordable housing, economic development, watershed restoration, healthy food access, wellness and nutrition education.

Eric Cárdenas, Alliance Coordinator

Eric joined the AIN team in 2010, and coordinates the Santa Barbara and Ventura Ag Futures Alliances. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998 with degrees in Political Science and Environmental Studies, and has dedicated his career to supporting environmental and community health and well-being.

Most recently, Eric worked for the Orfalea Foundations, serving as the s’Cool Food Initiative’s Agriculture and Infrastructure Manager responsible for developing farm-to-cafeteria programs in Santa Barbara County schools.

Helen McGrath, Alliance Program Assistant

Helen joined AIN in Feb. 2011 to support the Food System Alliance Program. She has worked in the Bay Area for over seven years supporting community-based programming in various capacities with organizations such as Streetside Stories, CELLspace and Pacific Coast Farmers’ Markets Association. She has also served as a board member of the Global Lives Project for the past 5 years. She moved to the East Coast before settling in the Bay Area in 2004. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a graduate of the International Honors Program: Global Ecology, 2001-2002.

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.

Idalia Pagán, Bookkeeper

Idalia joined AIN in May 2012 and serves as Bookkeeper. Idalia’s background is in bookkeeping and human resources and has worked with non-profits, consulting companies, and primary and post-secondary schools in this capacity. Idalia has also worked in academic fiscal services, including the College of Marin and Marin Education Fund (now 10,000 Degrees). Idalia is an English major at Dominican University working on her BA. She volunteers at local family homeless shelters, food banks, and literacy programs. Idalia is a California native and lives in Sonoma County with her husband, two sons and daughter.

Katherine Schugren Meyer, Intern

Katherine Schugren Meyer is excited to participate in AIN’s new internship program. After completing her bachelor’s degree in history and Latin American studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, she developed an interest in agriculture and food systems while studying for her Master’s in environment and sustainability at Lund University in Sweden. She interned with Community Alliance with Family Farmers’ local food systems program before joining AIN in March 2012

Jovita Pajarillo, Consultant

Jovita Pajarillo acts as a consultant on Ag Innovations Network’s regulatory programs. She is a newly minted retiree of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pacific Southwest Region, in San Francisco. This regional office includes the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Basin, and 144 federally recognized tribes.

As a manager in the Water Division, Jovita was responsible for the implementation of Clean Water Act programs specific to agriculture and water quality. She has been recognized for her ability to build bridges to, and foster partnerships with, the agriculture community to advance EPA’s mission.

Shelly Anderson, Consultant

A Senior Process Facilitator, Shelly is an AIN associate with more than 20 years’ experience working with leadership teams to successfully transform organizational performance. She is a thought partner, strategist, and facilitator for leaders seeking productive change and breakthrough results from their organizations. Shelly helps build leadership team capacity and muscle for true collaborative performance; she guides groups to sharpen and solidify a shared strategic direction and to engage and align their organization for successful execution and transformation.