Certification creates transparency around social and environmental responsibility
Featured Inspectors
Claudia Ingham
Claudia Ingham, PhD is a Senior Instructor II in the Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences at Oregon State University. In addition to teaching, Claudia is an active member of the Society for Range Management. She served on the board of the Pacific Northwest Section and is past Chair of the SRM Targeted Grazing Committee.
She led an international team to establish Targeted Grazier Certification which endorses the knowledge and skills of livestock managers who apply best practices in the use of grazing as part of integrated pest management, fire risk reduction and wildlife habitat enhancement. Her research using goats to control English ivy and Himalaya blackberry is published in Invasive Plant Science and Management.
Claudia earned life-long certification with the American Riding Instructors Association for eventing, dressage and recreational riding and consults with small farm owners for pasture management.
Bobbi Hudson
Bobbi Hudson is the Executive Director of the Pacific Shellfish Institute a non-profit research organization providing shellfish producers and resource managers with practical tools and information to support healthy shellfish populations. Bobbi oversees a diverse research portfolio of biological, oceanographic, and social science projects along the U.S. west coast. She grew up in a commercial fishing family, seasonally living aboard a 90-ft wooden schooner built in 1926 as a salmon trap tender.
Bobbi completed B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Environmental Science from The Evergreen State College. She worked on a mussel farm in south Puget Sound and as a fisheries technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Grand Canyon. Bobbi serves on various state and regional working groups related to marine water quality and shellfish production, and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Expert Working Group on Ecological Carrying Capacity in Aquaculture (WGECCA). Bobbi splits her time between Olympia, Washington, SE Alaska, and Vancouver Island, BC.
Mark Amara
Mark Amara worked in a variety of positions for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as a Soil Scientist, (Supervisory) Soil Conservationist, and District Conservationist at field and area offices in Washington and Oregon for 30 years until he retired. He helped prepare soil survey publications for Grant County and Clallam County, Washington and Coos County, Oregon and worked with farmers and ranchers on conservation planning and application in both Washington and Oregon. Since retiring from NRCS, he has worked as a consultant for several conservation districts in Washington state. Amara is also a Washington State University Master Gardener/ Program Co-Coordinator in Grant-Adams Counties, Washington. He has been a Food Alliance inspector since 2007 focusing on dryland and irrigated row crops. He co-authored a regional eastern Washington geology book, and has written several pamphlets, articles, scientific papers and posters on sustainable farming/gardening practices and on Washington geology and archaeology.
