Steve Bullock
Steve Bullock, who had previously served as the state’s attorney general, was elected Montana’s governor in 2012. Since taking office, Bullock has prioritized responsible fiscal management for Montana, while working to bring better jobs, better education, and a more effective government to the state. He’s reached across party lines to bolster the state’s public education system, cut taxes for businesses, and make Montana’s government more transparent and accessible. Bullock was born in Missoula and raised in Helena, where he graduated from Helena High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Claremont McKenna College and his law degree with honors from Columbia University Law School in New York. Bullock and his wife Lisa have three kids.
Frederick Kirschenmann
Frederick L. Kirschenmann is a longtime national and international leader in sustainable agriculture. He shares an appointment as Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and as President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. He also continues to manage his family’s 1,800-acre certified organic farm in south central North Dakota. On his farm, he developed a diverse crop rotation that has enabled him to farm productively without synthetic inputs (fertilizers or pesticides) while simultaneously improving the health of the soil. He converted the farm to a certified organic operation in 1976. Kirschenmann has written extensively about ethics and agriculture, with articles published in a number of books and professional journals. n 2014, he received the One World Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), a worldwide network of organic organizations. He was one of the first 10 recipients of the James F. Beard Foundation Leadership awards in 2011 and received the 2012 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award from Practical Farmers of Iowa.
Michael Shuman
Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur. He’s also an adjunct instructor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, a Fellow at Cutting Edge Capital and at the Post-Carbon Institute, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). He has authored, coauthored, or edited nine books. His most recent book, which was published by Chelsea Green in May 2015, is The Local Economy Solution: How Innovative, Self-Financing Pollinator Enterprises Can Grow Jobs and Prosperity. One of his previous books, The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006), received as bronze prize from the Independent Publishers Association for best business book of 2006. A prolific speaker, Shuman has given an average of more than one invited talk per week, mostly to local governments and universities, for the past 30 years. He has lectured in 47 U.S. states and eight countries. He blogs regularly at www.michaelhshuman.com.
Mary Stein
Mary Stein is the Program Leader of the Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems (SFBS) Program at Montana State University (MSU). She has over 25 years of experience working in the fields of human nutrition and food systems, in Montana and across the United States. Stein has served in a variety of roles at MSU, including the first statewide farm to school liaison within the Montana Team Nutrition Program; adviser to Montana producers on the development of value-added food products; and part of the team that launched the SFBS program in 2009. In 2011, she seized the opportunity to work nationally for a few years, serving as the Deputy Director of the National Farm to School Network. Stein returned to MSU and the SFBS Program in the summer of 2016 where she is teaching, advising, and providing coordinated leadership for this interdisciplinary program. She is also thrilled to be helping with the launch of a brand new Hospitality Management degree program at MSU, which will have its first cohort of students enrolled in the fall of 2017.