BOARD AND STAFF

Board of Directors

Becca Hanson / Chair

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio into a family that was one generation removed from the family farm, Becca grew up surrounded by people who prided themselves on their midwestern backyard tomatoes.

A 14-year stint of growing up in Europe seasoned her with a healthy respect for small farms, a clear vision of a walkable urban-agricultural boundary, and a love of good seasonal local food. A subsequent degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Washington, melded with a background in ecology, provided a solid foundation in design and seeing the built world differently.

Becca arrived on the Island in 1983 and spent most of her time raising two sons and growing an international practice in conservation-based zoo design with her husband. After moving the practice to the Island in 2003, time became available to begin to give back to the community. An opportunity to work with Bart Berg and the Board of Friends of the Farms satisfied her urge to dig in the dirt and grow things while working with amazing farmers and like-minded people, and protecting farmland and open spaces for future generations.

The list of things that inspire Becca is long, but working with FotF she’s thrilled to work towards supporting the Island’s farmers in keeping agriculture alive and flourishing; building on the Island’s resilience movement by creating a “food forest” on public land where the community can come together to enjoy picking and eating the fruits of our labors; protect and enhance watersheds; provide housing for farm interns and young farmers; and expand the amount of fresh, local food provided to the Island’s school children.

Tabitha Baker / Secretary

Bio coming soon…

Susie Bavo

Justin and Adrienne Domingus

Justin and Adrienne are beekeepers and first got involved with Friends of the Farms through invasive weed pulling parties. They moved to Bainbridge from West Seattle in 2020 and wanted to get more involved working with local farmers. They started a small side business to share their produce and honey with the community. They are excited to live in a place that values agriculture and demonstrates this through meaningful support of public farmland.

Karen Allston

Bio coming soon…

Connie Yenne / Treasurer

Bio coming soon…

Staff

Heather Burger | Executive Director

Chicago born and raised, Heather and her husband arrived on Bainbridge Island in 1996, having survived a cross-country move with 4 cats. As she says, “It took 4 days, but seemed much longer.” As Executive Director of Friends of the Farms Heather loves the opportunity to create connections between farmers, consumers, nonprofits, landowners, restaurateurs, educators, and more. Creating such a rich network allows FotF and the community to work collaboratively, striving towards solutions to problems in the local food system, and to explore innovative ideas for a thriving future for local agriculture.

Heather is working hard to expand opportunities for farmers and consumers here on Bainbridge, and is excited about one of the newest additions on the island: Vireo Farm. “The last memorably delicious thing I ate was fresh basil grown by Vireo Farm right here on Bainbridge Island in winter. Mark Taylor and Tracy Lang have a prototype in their home for an indoor, organic, hydroponic gardening system. They’re taking it to scale this year through a 21-year lease with Friends of the Farms at Johnson Farm (part of the 60+ acres of publicly owned and managed farmland on B.I.). Soon their spectacular locally grown fresh produce will be available year-round. It’s the best tasting basil I’ve ever had, grown with the smallest of carbon footprints.”

Marit Krueger - Program Manager

“I have always loved gardens and flowers”, admits Marit Krueger, the new Program Manager at Friends of the Farms. Growing up on a property that was packed with flowers and fruit trees, most of her earliest memories were picking one or the other, both for pleasure and for profit. As a little girl, in entrepreneurial bursts of energy, Marit & her big brother would pick crab apples or Italian plums, selling them to the local fruit market for summer spending money. They would devote hours to picking blackberries, making milkshakes to enjoy right away and freezing enough to relive the summer throughout the dark days of winter. She remembers with fondness a Saturday morning chore, picking hydrangeas, camellias, rhododendrons or whatever was in bloom to arrange in every room of the house, and learned early on that picking and arranging flowers was much better than scrubbing toilets so that became her chore of choice all year long! An influential role model, Marit’s Grandma Jo was an avid gardener and flower arranger and she encouraged Marit to surround one’s self with beauty for both self-enjoyment and the enjoyment of others, something that has been a motivator in Marit’s life ever since.

In 1987, Marit married her high school sweetheart, Jeffery Krueger and they both became teachers in the Seattle area. However, both dreamed of buying a home and raising a family with a top priority to find a place that had woods enough for exploration and the building of forts and land enough to surround their future children with the same flowers and fruit trees that had surrounded Marit as a little girl. Those dreams led them to Bainbridge Island and in 1990, they purchased their first, and only home with everything they’d hoped for and more. Marit and Jeff enjoyed raising two daughters on Bainbridge Island and both now married and one with a daughter of her own, are also proud to call this area home.

“Our roots go deep”, says Marit, “but we aren’t afraid to fly away and come back again.” For several years, the Krueger family called Kenya home, living, working, learning and serving community on a dairy farm in the middle of pastureland. Each member of the Krueger household embraced a farming lifestyle and brought home with them a shared passion for cultivating, supporting and encouraging local produce and helping to preserve farmland in our own communities. From raising backyard poultry and setting up beehives to encourage pollination to planting gardens, even if it meant containers on an urban porch, each has continued to find ways to keep farming a priority in their collective lives.

Marit believes that the opportunity to build human connections is what makes communities work and in her new role at FotF, she is excited to do just that–look for ways to help people connect with one another and connect to the land around them. In her own garden and small flower farm, Marit loves to grow dahlias, hydrangeas and other flowers that she sells at her roadside flower stand, Finn Hollow Flowers. She sees this as a small but important way to share beauty and infuse hope into her neighbors, or anyone else who happens by her stand.

Erica Pescha - Assistant Program Manager

Bio coming soon…