Fork Farms is leading a Fresh Food for All revolution

Hunter is a former telecommunications designer specializing in fiber optic systems within existing and emerging markets. He initially worked for Fork Farms as a Marketing and Communications intern in 2019 and is overjoyed to rejoin the team as the Operations & Logistics Specialist. 

Hunter has had a passion for the environment since his collegiate days. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where he co-founded a student organization, Titan Students for a Cleaner Community. The group made it their mission to educate others about environmental issues and they engaged in direct action by collecting trash and refuse around the campus and surrounding areas. During his time at UWO, they removed 200 pounds of trash from the area. 

Hunter is a Wisconsin native who thoroughly enjoys guitar, woodworking, the Green Bay Packers, and brewing small-batch beer with his father.

Lalu has over 10 years of experience leveraging relationships, data and insights to build brands and value for her customers. Lalu has held roles in marketing, brand management, business development, financial analysis, and fundraising.

She holds a BsBA and BA in International Business and Spanish, respectively, from the University of Denver, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Inside and outside the workplace, Lalu is passionate about taking action to progress racial equity and justice. As a true lover of produce, she eats a primarily plant-based diet and even has a dog named Pickles.

Kevin’s roots hold true to Prairie Crossing, the small conservation community he grew up in in the far northern suburbs of Chicago. The fragility of our natural ecosystems and the cause & effect relationship of human impact on the planet was instilled at an early age.

With an itch for entrepreneurship, he ran his own landscaping business in high school and started a vintage Wisconsin apparel resale business in college. This itch ultimately led him to join Fork Farms in late 2020. Graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in ‘18 with a degree in Environmental Economics, Kevin was able to combine his eye for analytical thinking with his passion for the environment. He currently resides in Milwaukee with his girlfriend and Agility Aussie, Aspen.

Abby is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Science and she is passionate about building an equitable food landscape and youth nutrition education. With her 6.5 years of experience working in marketing and sales in the food manufacturing and consumer packaged goods industry, she is well equipped to marry her passion and education with her career at Fork Farms.

Abby resides in Waukesha County, Wisconsin with her family and enjoys attempting to save the small apple orchard her husband started. She is hoping within a few years her daughter will have healthy apple trees to climb.

Kit earned her B.S. in environmental studies and sustainability from Northern Michigan University in May of 2021. Fresh from her undergrad education, Kit has an intense passion for environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

She discovered Fork Farms when President Alex Tyink gave a guest lecture to one of her classes two months before graduation. After hearing his story and the mission of Fork Farms, she knew that this was the place for her. When she’s not tending to her Flex Farm, Kit is likely walking her Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy Phoebe, playing with her kitten Feyre, enjoying some time in her favorite place, Marquette, Michigan, or curled up on the couch with a good book.

Megan is the Market Strategy & Research Director at Fork Farms, where she uses her unique set of skills to accelerate the company mission of expanding fresh food access across the world.

She excels in research and data analysis, which she pairs with her passion for creating positive change in her community, with the ultimate goal of helping Fork Farms create a more equitable future for all. Megan brings a diverse background to the company, including grant writing, nonprofit work, and copy editing. She has a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies from the University of Minnesota with an emphasis on Environmental Sustainability and Intercultural Communication. 

Megan lives in Hobart with her husband and their two daughters. Her favorite hobby is thrifting and never paying retail price.

Jared has had exposure to a multitude of industries. Whether it was warehouse work with Weyco Group, ticket sales with the Lakeshore Chinooks Baseball Club, or serving tables at Toast Milwaukee, he has always been passionate about serving his community.

Due to his desire to join a mission-focused, impact-first organization, Jared jumped at the opportunity to join the Fork Farms Partnership Development team. He holds a B.S. in Business from Concordia University Wisconsin. 

Jared is a native of Milwaukee Wisconsin, and despite his 23 years in Milwaukee, he still enjoys finding new activities around the city. He enjoys every season the Midwest has to offer by partaking in activities from fishing to skiing, hiking to snowshoeing. 

Michael has 20 years of experience in the non-profit and education industry. He is as passionate about growing communities as he is about growing vegetables. Michael puts his skills and interests together as the Executive Vice President of Social Innovation, which has a primary focus on enabling Fork Farms’ partners to grow fresh food, nourish communities, and heal our planet.

Michael has extensive fundraising and philanthropic experience, including having raised over $3.5M to install interactive LED lights on Milwaukee's iconic Hoan Bridge. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife, pup, and many plants.

Alex came to Fork Farms to work with good people, represent a product with an impact, and live out an authentic mission. Fork Farms is the company he was looking for, and now his work is truly about helping people access fresh food.

Alex has worked in the software and professional training industries as a sales manager and sales producer. His primary focus was on team-building and helping others grow professionally, skills which he now brings to the Fork Farms team as a Partnership Development Director.

Alex lives in Milwaukee with his golden retriever, Rizzo, and recently became a first-time uncle to his nephew Jack.

Josh has a passion for innovative design, experiential learning, sustainability, and health. Prior to joining Fork Farms, Josh managed laboratory, facility identification, and water filtration product lines for Brady Corporation and Pentair. Josh became passionate about food issues when he was awarded an “Indians for Collective Action Scholarship” to support the Self Employed Women’s Association in Ahmedabad India, where he spent one month developing a business plan for environmentally responsible solar cookstoves. This experience fundamentally impacted his perspective on food production and distribution systems.

After a few health scares of his own and growing awareness of the critical flaws in our food distribution system, Fork Farms became the perfect path to meld these passions into a personal and professional lifestyle that creates change.

Josh is a Milwaukee native, first-time father to an amazing little boy, a creative writer, wilderness camper, Big Brother, and a very average accordion player. You will often find him with a good bourbon arguing the merits of Tolkien’s works around a campfire.

Sam is an avid outdoorsman with a deep background in biology and plant diseases, which brought him to take an early interest in Fork Farms. While Sam had Fork Farms in mind as an employer, he gained work experience as a former Senior Territory manager for a Fortune 100 CPG company, in addition to other work in Product Safety Science at Kimberly Clark, and lab work involving environmental analytics.

Sam joined the Fork Farms team in 2022 and is now the company’s New England Partnership Development Director working out of Concord, New Hampshire. He is beyond excited to be a part of an organization that perfectly aligns with his interests, education, professional experience, and most importantly; his values.

Originally from Wisconsin, Sam met his wife while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2019. This is also when they fell in love and knew New England would be their future home. He is passionate about hunting, fishing, conservation, camping, music, and spending time with friends and family.

Shannon has a diverse background in finance, data analysis, and operations, including most recently: non-profit administration and buy-side M&A. She most recently worked at ThedaCare as the Director of Foundation Operations and Analytics. She holds a BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Shannon has been intrigued by Fork Farms for a few years, and was excited when she was invited to join the team and the mission! Nutritional equality and education, especially for children, is very important her. She also serves her local school district as a board member for the Howard-Suamico Education Foundation.

She calls the Green Bay area home with her husband, Jon, three kids, Arlo, Avery and Hadley, and two cats, Izzy and Gracie. Shannon loves watching sports, reading, and going on warm weather getaways during Wisconsin winters. In the summertime, you will find her camping with her family or tending meticulously to her outdoor flowers.

Darann has a degree in Dietetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She spent the last 25 years working in foodservice, with the majority of it working within schools. 

She believes students deserve access to the very best food possible, and now working for Fork Farms, she can make that a reality. Darann is focused on helping students cultivate a relationship between growing and eating healthy foods.

Originally from Nebraska, Darann will always be a Husker fan! She has three daughters and enjoys hanging out with her family,  backpacking, camping, hiking, kayaking, baking, and knitting.

Dan is a cowboy at heart, being born into the world of agriculture as a Pacific Northwest legacy cattle farmer and broker. While his love of land and cattle were at the forefront, he worked as a sales leader and team leader in the MedTech industry for the last 12 years.

As he was looking to leave the healthcare industry, Dan was looking for a place he could give back to his community, but through his family’s roots in agriculture. He strived to join a company that had a mission-aligned focus with education, health, and giving at its core. His love of people, community, and food was met full circle by Fork Farms.

Dan is a hunter, music enthusiast, fisherman, and admirer of the great outdoors. He, his wife, and his daughter live in the PNW but frequently travel throughout the western states.

Megan brings a diverse background in nonprofit work and a passion for creating meaningful connections through food. 

Prior to Fork Farms, Megan founded and managed an organic community garden at a Florida nonprofit, promoting sustainability and educating individuals about fresh produce. When she returned to Wisconsin, she led a grants program at Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin addressing food insecurity and connecting organizations and communities to innovative programs and resources. She obtained her MBA from St. Norbert College in 2018. 

Megan's commitment to learning through shared food experiences drives her as a brand content director. She combines marketing strategy expertise with her passion for food to develop compelling narratives that inspire action. She is thrilled to create a learning community with Fork Farms and its partners. 

Within the first 30 minutes of meeting, you should expect her to offer to make you food (in the form of a homemade pasta dish) and tell you all about her passion for horses. 

Anne’s first job at a family-run farm at age 14 and the neat rows of beautiful veggies in her family’s garden sparked an early love of farming, and she has always found ways to grow her own food ever since. Her love of growing food made her a natural fit for the Fork Farms team, which she now represents as a Partnership Development Director, based in Ohio.

Anne has over 15 years of experience leading interdisciplinary teams and implementing federally-funded research projects. She founded and directed a company in the apparel industry for which she oversaw product design, manufacturing, web development, fulfillment, and business and financial management.

Stepping into the world of green things, indoors and out, puts her to rights, and her tiny yard is packed with native pollinator-friendly and edible plants. She built a monarch butterfly enclosure where neighbors can peer in on caterpillars and chrysalides in all their stages and release monarchs to begin their journey to Mexico.

If “Foodie” was a professional title, it’s what would be on Roberto’s business cards. From operating a food truck while in college to selling produce to local restaurants, his career has always centered around food. 

While working for a global food manufacturer, Roberto gained valuable experience and knowledge about the operations and challenges of the food industry. He joined Fork Farms to help address one of the challenges the planet is facing; providing sustainable and healthy food to a growing population.

Roberto was thrilled to join the team and solve this problem when he learned about the impact Fork Farms is starting to achieve across the globe. As someone who loves to cook and promote healthy eating, he is excited to expand his influence for the greater good.

Roberto is a denim "connoisseur” and genuinely shocks people when they learn he only washes his denim (jeans) once a year. 

Alyssa is a dairy farm-raised Wisconsinite with a passion for growing vegetables and sharing them with others. Her love of agriculture and feeding people nutritious food made Fork Farms the solution to combine her interests and professional experience to make an impact on hunger relief around the world.

Alyssa began her career as a newspaper reporter in Northeast Wisconsin with the USA Today Network, where she covered topics including, agriculture, business, and local government. After three years, she pivoted to corporate marketing for H.J. Martin and Son, where she gained further communications and project management skills. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Alyssa and her husband live in Oconto County, Wisconsin with their daughter and two dogs. When she’s not photographing her garden, you will find her reading fantasy novels, spending time outside with her family, or enjoying a plate of tacos while watching The Office.

Gil is a self-proclaimed recovering attorney with more than three decades of management, partnership development and hydroponics experience.

Hailing from the Southwest, Gil farmed and gardened in the Arizona Highlands for over 30 years. He says he primarily started gardening to keep his sanity while practicing law.

Kim co-founded Northern Michigan University's Indoor Agriculture program and served as the core faculty member and program coordinator. She has an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Central Michigan University, with her research focusing on plant biology education and women’s experiences in the newly emerging STEM field of indoor agriculture. Kim has taught biology and science education and served as a STEM education consultant for the Glenn T. Seaborg Math and Science Center. She also owned a specialty cut flower farm and flower shop.

Kim is passionate about addressing food insecurity and increasing health and well-being by empowering people to grow their own food and localizing food sourcing community by community. Before joining the team, Kim worked with the Fork Farms team as an educational institution partner for two years. The Flex Farm provided students in her labs with their culminating commercial crop production experience. Kim believes all people benefit from working directly with plants.

Kim embraces any time spent with family, friends, and in the outdoors. She loves gardening, hiking, snorkeling, playing tennis, doing artwork, reading, cooking, playing euchre, and traveling. She married her husband, Michael, in her favorite place, Hawaii, and has two grown children, Abby and Seth. A fun fact is that Kim has been practicing yoga for 35 years.

Abigail worked in the mental health field for three years post-college as a Mental Health Rehab Worker (MHRW) and then in an Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services (ARMHS) position. In 2020 her family started a Flex Farm-only hydroponic farm known as KAIROS Indoor Ag and she functioned as the operations director for a little over a year.

While working at her family's hydroponic farm, Abigail fell in love with the Flex Farm's capacity to grow food and transform communities as it had done in her community. Her family worked closely with the Fork Farms team and she was lucky enough to share many dinners with them in her home. When she began considering a position with them she knew she’d have phenomenal coworkers; which made her decision even easier.

Abigail is likely to be found hiking with her dogs, tending to her plants; indoor and outdoor, reading, or in pursuit of a chai latte.

Andy is the Chief Operating Officer of Fork Farms and is responsible for worldwide operations, including end-to-end management of the Fork Farms supply chain and fulfillment, product development, technology, and other organizational administration functions.

Before joining Fork Farms, Andy spent over 20 years leading operations, driving innovation, and executing technology solutions for start-up and mature organizations. He spent many years in the financial services industry in multiple leadership roles, including operations, technology, continuous improvement, and project management. With an eye for aligning strategy and execution, he is an architect for emerging business needs and a catalyst for customer value.

Andy has a long-time passion for sustainable agriculture and locally sourced food. He has done business consulting and volunteering for local farms and is using his broad business experience to help drive the Fork Farms mission forward. Andy is originally from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area but has called Wisconsin home for over 20 years. He lives with his wife and two sons and is an outdoor enthusiast and avid home gardener.

Alex is the co-founder of Fork Farms and the inventor of its farming technology and methods. He is a former opera singer with 10 years of leadership experience in the social service sector, who works to inspire vast food system change across communities.

He began his urban agriculture career in Brooklyn, New York where he first worked on rooftop gardens and then started building indoor growing systems of his own for educational and food security purposes. This eventually led to the development of Fork Farms intellectual property, and the rest is history.

After relocating back to Wisconsin, Alex continued his work as program director at Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin and as director of innovation and programs for Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. In 2018, he was a Fox Cities Future 15 winner and featured as Fox Cities Magazine’s ‘Big Idea’.

Alex currently lives in Appleton, Wisconsin with his wife, son and their dog Maya.

Steve is widely known for his work with experience-based design methodology and for creating thought-leading, innovative customer experiences in a wide variety of industries. After 35 years in the business world, Steve saw the light and the need for fresh food in communities across the world and joined Fork Farms as one of the Partnership Development Directors. His role positions him to act on his personal beliefs, that everyone should have access to fresh food and the ability to live a balanced life.

His professional experience includes vice president of business innovation at Miron Construction, founder of Attach (a nationally recognized industrial design firm), vice president of Saturn operations and leadership development with Bergstrom Corporation, and general manager of numerous private country clubs.

Steve is an Appleton, Wis. native, husband, and grandfather. He loves the outdoors and anything to do with his kids and grandkids.

Terry has more than 20 years of rewarding experience in the education profession as a teacher and administrator at various districts in Northeastern Wisconsin. When he left his teaching career at the end of the 2022 school year, he was looking for a new challenge and specifically wanted to be part of a value-driven company with a positive culture. Fork Farms and its mission and connection to TitletownTech proved to be the perfect fit for him.

Terry taught business subjects including business management, finance, and economics, and also taught college-level courses to high school students through the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Terry enjoys outdoor activities including kayaking, winter camping, hiking, and running. He also has been a track and cross country coach and has worked with many incredible young athletes.

Kat has a background in financial services and insurance, with specialties in leadership, process improvements, data analytics, and strategy planning. Kat is a Lean Six Sigma black belt with a passion for ops.

Kat personally experienced the healing power of food when she woke up with peripheral neuropathy in their right foot in 2016. Using food to reduce inflammation in their body, she amazed the doctors with their healing. Kat believes that everyone deserves access to fresh nutritious food, and loves the sense of community that hyper-localized food creates. Kat’s family has been a member of community-supported agriculture (CSA) with Park Ridge Organics for more than a decade and they do most of their shopping and eating at locally-owned and operated establishments.

Kat is married and has a teenage daughter. True to her roots, Kat loves spending time with her family and handsome dog Jack camping in the woods up north. Kat has many hobbies, but her favorites involve plants, primarily gardening and cooking plant-based meals.