Zach Elfers, Processing Director:

Zach brings 15 years of horticultural experience to KTCC and is a founding member of the co-op, promoting its original ideas and recruiting others to assist in startup.  He is the owner/operator of Future Forest Plants, a small-scale native plant and tree crops nursery.  He is a Tree Crops historian and germplasm explorer/breeder, a research in the areas of botany and ethnobotany, and an aspiring writer.  Zach also serves on the board of the PA Nut Growers Association. He has been connected to the community of tree crops enthusiasts for a decade, from where he has learned a lot and found lots of inspiration.

Don English, Administrative Director

Don spent his working career as an economist, social scientist, and program manager for the USDA Forest Service.  He and his wife are transforming their Pennsylvania farm landscape into a blend of pollinator habitat and food forest, including several acres of Rutgers hazelnut varieties.

Andrea Ferich, Marketing Director

Andrea is a consulting forester, implements large-scale restoration and agroforestry projects focusing on sustainable food systems, water quality, and wildlife habitat conservation.  She has over 20 years of specialized experience in market research for tree crops and an academic background in forestry, human dimensions of natural resources, and ecological-economics.  Andrea was a founding member of the co-op, helping convene its initial steering team and shaping the co-op’s goals. She is currently President of the PA Native Plant Society organizing with nursery growers and consumers across the Commonwealth.

Matthew “Bern” Fagan, Membership Director

Fagan has over 20 years of experience working in the areas of agriculture, natural areas management, and landscaping.  His current position is as an agroforestry technician at Trees for Graziers.  He is also working on a graduate certificate in agroforestry at the University of Missouri.

Matt Grason, Secretary

Matt Grason brings to KTCC his 22 years of non-profit organizing and grant writing experience.  Grason owns and operates his own bare-root tree nursery, Hostile Takeover LLC, which focuses on native nut, fruit trees, and fodder.  He has extensive experience as a Board member for volunteer-run cooperative efforts, including an activist fossil fuel divestment campaign, an arts collective, and a tenants association. 

Ryan Kudasik, Networking Director

Ryan has his Master’s in Instructional Technology and has created training for many industries.  He has harvested and sold hickory nuts through hickoryNuts.com. He is on the board of the Adams County Farmers Markets in order to help strengthen the local food web. He has his Permaculture Design Certificate from David Holmgren.  He uses his 3.5 acre property in Adams County to help create a regenerative landscape of edible plants. He is working towards an Associates in GIS and mapping.

Brian Nana-Sinkam, Operations Director:

Here’s a little bit about some of our founding steering team!

Tracey Coulter

Tracey Coulter recently retired from Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources where she inaugurated an agroforestry program to promote the economic and ecological values of trees outside of forests. As an agroforestry coordinator, Tracey collaborated with foresters farmers, researchers and practitioners across the country to build knowledge and implementation of agroforestry practices in the Mid-Atlantic region. Tracey has a master’s degree in Forest Resources with a focus on Human Dimensions from Penn State.

Robbie Coville (KTCC Emeritus Director)/ Trees For Basic Needs

Robbie Coville is a tree crops enthusiast focused on mutually-beneficial relationships between humans and sources of our sustenance. His education includes an AAS in Environmental and Natural Resources Conservation and a BS in Natural Resources Management both from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and an MPS in Soil and Crop Sciences focused on agroforestry management planning from Cornell University. Robbie also has expertise in the science of tree benefits, having served as a Project Manager working on i-Tree Tools for over 6 years, where he led R&D and outreach about tree impacts on stormwater and air temperature. Throughout his work, Robbie has served as a liaison between numerous organizations. With his partner Naomi, Robbie operates a small tree nursery, grows hazelnuts, and advises on agroforestry near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.

Kendra Hoffman / LadyBug EarthCare

Kendra Hoffman owns and operates LadyBug EarthCare offering ecological design and stewardship guidance to local landowners, farmers and homesteaders. The purpose of this work is to restore habitat for wildlife, convert lawns to pollinator gardens, and create natural rainwater management systems in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed to protect the Chesapeake Bay. Tree crops are an essentially strategic and mutually beneficial aspect of this work. If there’s ever free time, Kendra is eager to jump in a canoe, explore islands, wander off trail, forage for wild edibles, cook over a campfire, mix medicinal cocktails and create goddess-style grazing tables for friends with local food and flowers. She is happily rooted by an artesian spring near several oak and walnut trees in Dillsburg, PA.

Matthew Holt / Stillwater Earthworks

Matthew Holt is a land and water steward residing in the Angelica Creek watershed with his wife and two children. As the owner and operator of Stillwater Earthworks, Matthew implements regenerative land use principles to install stormwater management systems, edible landscapes, and permaculture designs across the Mid-Atlantic. He also propagates a plethora of perennial, edible and medicinal plants.

Sallie McCann Tupper / Elder Oak Forest Farm

Sallie McCann Tupper resides on Elder Oak Forest Farm, 15 acres of maturing forest on Lenape land in Berks County. She and her partner are working to cultivate a food forest and tree nursery, while restoring ecological health and habitat. Sallie is a self-taught tree and plant enthusiast who started to identify, forage and otherwise work with plants in 2016. In 2020, she launched Lancaster Vegan Cheese Company and won 2nd place in ASSETS Lancaster’s Great Social Enterprise Pitch. She sold the company in 2021 (now Lancaster Vegan Deli) to another local vegan entrepreneur, in order to pursue her love of plants as a vocation. Sallie comes to KTCC with an enthusiasm for tree crops and other perennial foods, a background in vegan permaculture, and a desire to build ecological alternatives to monocrops and animal agriculture.

Olivia Patrick / Cafe Passerine

Olivia Patrick is a Chef+Baker and Marketing+Design Consultant. Presently, she heads the Pastry and Bread Programs, in addition to doing general creative and logistic direction, at the James Beard nominated farm-to-table restaurant Luca (Lancaster, PA). Previously, she was the Head Baker at K’far Cafe (Philadelphia, Pa), where she worked for the renowned CooknSolo organization under multiple-time James Beard Award winners Mike Solomov and Camille Cogswell. Additionally, Olivia is a consulting member of the Philadelphia based Creative and Marketing Firm Grayson Sky where she is called upon to navigate projects that involve the intersection of culture and agriculture - covering subjects from real estate development to food and beverage start-ups. Most proudly, she helps to steward Phoenix Farm, her family’s centennial farm deep in the hills of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Her life’s work is focused on deepening, broadening, and reimagining our regional foodways so that family farms and natural spaces are regenerative, community focused, and protected via their own profitability. 

Taran Rowles

Taran Rowles is a recent graduate of Penn State with a bachelors in Plant Science and minors in plant pathology and environmental soil science. He has experience in soil health and plant pathology research projects. He also has experience working on a sheep and vegetable farm. He is interested in utilizing his skills to help develop a strong agroforestry sector in Pennsylvania.

Ethan Strickler / Swallowtail Forest Farm

Ethan Strickler, along with his partner Anna, own and operate Swallowtail Forest Farm and Swallowtail Flowers located just outside of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Agroforestry and ecological design principles guide the general layout, crop selection, and land management on the farm, which includes forest farming of shiitake mushrooms, alley cropping of tree crops and specialty cut flowers, and multi-crop orcharding with a focus on chestnuts and pawpaws. In addition to the farm, Ethan has a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning, an off-farm career as a park and open space planner, and a strong commitment to helping others proliferate agroforestry and tree crops farming systems in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Many others not mentioned here have contributed to the co-op in various ways. Visit the “Our Thanks” page to learn about some of them.