Here’s a little bit about some of our founding steering team. Stay tuned for more information as we introduce our board of directors and open pathways for new member-owners!

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 / 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.

Zach Elfers / Future Forest Plants, Nomad Seed Project

Zach Elfers is a land steward in the peavine woodlands, along the Lower Susequehanna River. He grows with and works with nuts, fruits, and roots of the bioregion. 

Don English / Happy Hollow Farm

Don English is an economist with the USDA Forest Service.  For over 35 years, his research and scientific leadership has focused on measuring the volume of outdoor recreation visitation on National Forests and Grasslands and quantifying the market and non-market benefits of those visits. He holds a BS degree from the University of Pennsylvania, MS from Penn State University, and a PhD from the University of Georgia.  

With his wife Ann, a registered landscape architect, they are working to transform a small family farm in southern PA into an environmentally diverse and productive example of perennial agriculture.  A first step in that journey was a 4-acre multifunctional riparian buffer installed in 2011. Species were grouped by plant communities. Included in the planting mix: hazelnut, butternut, aronia, serviceberry, pawpaw, persimmon, hickory and 8 types of oaks.  The planting design and installation won a statewide award of environmental excellence in 2018.  Their facebook page (happyhollowfarmPA) documents progress on their project.

Andrea Ferich / Ironwood Forestry

Andrea Ferich is a consulting forester and owner of Ironwood Forestry focusing on the implementation of agroforestry opportunities with private landowners across Pennsylvania. She is VP of the PA Native Plant Society and is part of the PA DCNR Riparian Buffer Advisory Committee.  Ferich was previously the Executive Director for the Penns Valley Conservation Association. Her most recent writing  demonstrates and assesses the economic opportunities for multifunctional riparian forest buffers through agroforestry in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Her farm and nursery are located along Elk Creek in Coburn, PA

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.

More experts and enthusiasts are collaborating with us as well - farmers, landscapers, and others from across PA. Maybe you will someday become a cooperative member-owner too!