Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is responsible for the vision, strategic plans and policies that guide Food Alliance. This includes ultimate responsibility for standards, criteria, policies and procedures governing the Food Alliance certification program. The board also has fiscal responsibility for the organization and reviews and approves all budgets and financial reports.

Board Members:

Peter Bloome, Ph.D. (Chair)
Emeritus Professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering
Oregon State University

Maisie Greenawalt
Vice President, Bon Appétit Management Company

John W. Haines (Vice-Chair)
Executive Director, Mercy Corps Northwest

Rick Jacobson
Retired President and CEO of NORPAC Foods, Inc.

Karen Karp
President, Karp Resources

Jennifer Maxwell-Muir
Founder and President, Maxwell PR

Kenneth M. Odza (Secretary)
Stoel Rives, LLP

Mellie Pullman (Treasurer)
Associate Professor of Operations Management, Portland State University

Larry Yee
Director Emeritus,  Ventura County Cooperative Extension, University of California

Peter Bloome, Ph.D. (Chair)

Peter is Emeritus Professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University.  His has served in the positions of Extension Agricultural Engineer at Oklahoma State University, Assistant Director of Extension and Agriculture Program Leader at the University of Illinois, and Associate Director of Extension at Oregon State University.  He has international work experience in Australia, New Zealand, and Pakistan.  Since retirement in 2002, Peter has provided leadership and organizational development training to leaders of non-profit organizations.  Client organizations have included member societies of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology and the agricultural client base of the Institute for Conservation Leadership.  He has served on the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the Board of Directors of the Oregon Environmental Council, and as project leader of two Oregon Solutions projects serving agriculture.  Peter holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Agricultural Engineering awarded by the University of Illinois.

Maisie Greenawalt

Maisie Greenawalt joined Bon Appétit Management Company in 1994 and has since been instrumental in shaping the company’s overall strategic direction. Maisie oversees Bon Appétit’s culinary development and purchasing policy efforts, and leads Bon Appétit’s marketing and communications initiatives. Additionally, Maisie is president of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, whose mission is to educate people about how their food choices affect the global environment and local economies.  In 1999, Maisie helped to develop the Farm to Fork program, a groundbreaking company-wide initiative to buy locally. Maisie works with chefs around the country to create positive changes in the local food economy by sourcing and using seasonal and regional ingredients from within a 150-mile radius of each café. Since the program’s inception, Bon Appétit has spent tens of millions of dollars on local food, thereby supporting local farmers and their surrounding communities. Over the last decade, she has continued to be the primary architect of a number of Bon Appétit’s equally progressive sustainable initiatives.  Maisie graduated from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. In previous roles, she worked on behalf of a number of national food brands and ran a hospitality training company.

John W. Haines (Vice-Chair)

John has served as the Executive Director for Mercy Enterprise Corporation/Mercy Corps Northwest since December 2002. From 1998-2002, he was Vice President and Commercial Lender for ShoreBank Pacific, a start-up community and sustainable development bank in Portland, Oregon. In 1996-97 he was Senior Finance Advisor to the Czech National Environmental Fund in Prague, working under assistance provided by USAID to improve environmental health conditions in the Czech Republic’s transition to a market economy. In 1994-95 he started and was Executive Director of Trenton Business Assistance Corporation, an economic development fund in Trenton, NJ. From 1986-1991 he worked in various corporate banking and commercial lending positions with First Interstate Bank of Oregon. He is a board member of Food Alliance, Mercy Corps Northwest, Willamette Riverkeeper and Our United Villages/The Rebuilding Center. In 1991-1992, he did the first continuous descent of the Niger River in West Africa, traveling by sea kayak and native pirogue. He is a graduate of the University of Wyoming and native of Laramie, Wyoming.

Rick Jacobson

Rick is a retired President and CEO of NORPAC Foods, Inc.and has served cooperatives in a leadership capacity for over 30 years. He has Chaired the Board of the American Frozen Food Institute and served on the Boards of the Agricultural Cooperative Council Of Oregon and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. Rick was also a founding member of Farmers Ending Hunger, a farmer organization that brings food industry partners together to grow process and package food to be donated to the Oregon Food Bank. A 1967 Graduate of Eastern Oregon University, Rick continues to serve the interests of Agriculture as a board member on the Oregon Business Council, Oregonians for Food and Shelter, as a member of Northwest Food Processors Association’s Government affairs Council and he continues as a member of the Board of Farmers Ending Hunger. Rick recently served on the search committee for the Dean of the Oregon State University College of Agriculture. In 2009 Rick received the Jerry Tippens Advocacy Award for his work with the Oregon Food Bank both as a contributor and member of the Board. He was inducted into the Oregon Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2006 for his contributions to the successful building and operation of Oregon Agricultural Cooperatives. In 2007 he proudly received the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Distinguished Service Award for his individual contributions to the agricultural industry. Rick and his wife Gayle currently reside in Bend, Oregon. They have one daughter, Kirstan, who resides with her husband Mark in Snohomish, Washington.

Karen Karp

Karen Karp, a respected entrepreneur, project manager and food business consultant, founded Karp Resources in 1990. As President of the company, she brings over 25 years of specialty food retail, agriculture, and restaurant experience to Karp Resources. Karen began her career as General Manager for a highly innovative restaurant group in NYC. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design (1982) and a Masters Degree from the University of Bath School of Management’s Responsibility and Business Practice program (2001), winning honors for her thesis How Does Food Sustain Us? Karen co-wrote the curriculum in Culinary Entrepreneurship for Mississippi University for Women (MUW), now a minor degree at the university, as well as the book, Gourmet to Go: A Guide to Owning and Operating a Specialty Food Store. She also provides an annual scholarship for a promising MUW culinary student. Ms. Karp was the winner of the 2008 Enterprising Woman Award, is a member of Women President’s Organization. Karen farms oysters near her home in Southold, New York, USA.

Jennifer Maxwell-Muir

Jennifer is the founder and President of Maxwell PR. Jennifer oversees operations, and provides strategic counsel and mentorship for staff and clients.  She also spearheads the agency’s public awareness efforts for a variety of Oregon’s sustainable industry efforts, from the Office of Sustainable Development recycling programs and ENERGY STAR Homes, to ShoreBank Pacific’s community banking commitment and Kettle Foods all-natural food products. Among her career achievements include award-winning work for Washington Mutual, U.S. Bancorp, Nextel Partners, Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, the Oregon Tourism Commission, and One Economy Corporation. Throughout her career, Jennifer has led a number of effective state, regional and national communications programs for technology companies such as Nextel and HP, and consumer product companies such as Flowerbud and Stahlbush Island Farms. She is a board member of New Avenues for Youth, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Portland homeless youth permanently exit street life.  She received Portland Monthly’s Light of Fire community involvement award in 2005 for her pro bono commitment to New Avenues for Youth’s Ben & Jerry’s Partnershop.  In 2002 she was named to The (Portland) Business Journal’s “40 under 40” list of community leaders and Oregon Business Magazine’s “50 Leaders to Follow.”

Ken Odza (Secretary)

Ken is the founder and principal author of the nation’s first legal blog targeted at the food industry – www.foodliabilitylaw.com.  He is a frequent lecturer at food industry and food law conferences.  Reaching across the aisle, he is the co-organizer with Bill Marler of the biennial conference “Who’s Minding the Store?  The Current State of Food Safety and How It Can Be Improved.” Ken is a trial lawyer with unique experience helping food businesses prevent and respond to lawsuits involving novel and emerging food pathogens.  Ken is one of only a few lawyers to be involved with an outbreak of non-O157 strains of shiga toxin producing strains of E. coli (STEC).  He has also defended the first claims in the United States alleging exposure to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).  As an experienced litigator, Ken has defended and prosecuted a wide range of complex toxic tort, products liability, commercial, environmental and civil rights cases.  Ken has lead Stoel’s firm-wide products liability initiative.  Ken works with each of his clients to develop a litigation strategy and a litigation prevention strategy tailored to the client’s goals.  Ken understands that for companies with a strong brand and deep consumer trust, the outcome of litigation may be secondary to a larger business strategy.  While an aggressive litigator, his clients benefit from his style of building relationships and credibility with other parties and the court.  Ken has extensive experience with experts and regulators.  He works with nationally and internationally renowned experts in microbiology, epidemiology, nephrology, neuroscience, veterinary medicine and food handling, to name a few.

Mellie Pullman (Treasurer)

Mellie is an associate professor of operations management at Portland State University. She earned her Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Utah in 1997. She has previously taught in Graduate and Executive programs at Cornell University, London Business School, Southern Methodist University, CSU, CU, and University of Utah. Her major research interests include regional and sustainable food supply chain issues, new product and service design, recreation and experience design, and operations/marketing interdisciplinary issues. Her articles have appeared in various journals including Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Service Research, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Omega, and Journal of Product Innovation Management.

Larry Yee

Larry Yee is a director emeritus of the Ventura County office of the University of California Cooperative Extension.  He also directs the UC Hansen Trust, a special UC endowment, which he founded in 1993.  The Trust operates the UC Hansen Agricultural Center at the historic Faulkner Farm near Santa Paula, CA. Larry is the co-founder of the Association of Family Farms and is the co-chair of the national board.  He is also the co-chair of the Roots of Change (ROC) Council of California and a board member of the Food Alliance in the Pacific Northwest. Larry recently became a principal at the Fairhaven Strategy Group.  He has an MBA in agribusiness from the University of Santa Clara, was a Kellogg Fellow at the Resources for the Future Institute, and from 2003-04 was on a special assignment at USDA working on innovative marketing strategies for sustainable food systems.
Larry lives in Ojai, CA and on most Sundays volunteers at the Ojai Farmers Market.