The MSU Student Organic Farm and programs are managed and coordinated by the SOF Steering Team with input from the farm staff, students and other faculty. Steering Team members and SOF staff bring a variety of backgrounds and experience to the SOF. They all have made a personal commitment to student learning and organic farming.
Steering Team Members
John Biernbaum - Professor Department of Horticulture and Faculty Coordinator
Email: biernbau@msu.edu phone: 517-355-5191 ext 1419
John is a professor in the Horticulture Department and, along with the original group of students, is one of the founders of the SOF. He has worked with students, staff and faculty since the farm’s inception to secure funding, coordinate special topic classes, and help develop the site and facilities, the CSA and SOF teaching programs. John also initiated the SOF Outreach Program now coordinated by Adam Montri. John teaches courses in greenhouse management, organic farming principles and practices, compost production and use, transplant production, organic certification, culinary and medicinal herbs, and has taught vegetable crop and cutflower production. He does research on year-round diversified organic farming with emphasis on the PSGH. John has also coordinated the certification of the 5 acre MSU CHES Organic Apple Research Plot by OCIA and OGM. He has developed and taught courses on organic transplant production, compost production and use, and winter greenhouse vegetable production for the MOSES Organic University and is currently working on developing on-line courses for these topics. In 2004 he was recognized by the Michigan Organic Food and Farming Alliance (MOFFA) with their Public Service Award and he is currently a member of the MOFFA Board of Directors.
Laurie Thorp - Coordinator of the RISE Specialization
Email: thorpl@msu.edu phone: 517-432-4944
Laurie has worked with students, staff and faculty since the start of the SOF to secure initial funding and to help guide programs and initiate new activities. Her RISE seminar class was the first to use the SOF as a classroom and RISE student projects include blue bird boxes, laying hens and the Bee-Team for honey production. Laurie’s diverse background in horticulture (MSU undergrad), leadership development and experiential education has provided the guidance for the teaching efforts at the SOF to incorporate the most current academic concepts around effective student learning. Her leadership in the MSU Campus Sustainability programs and the new Sustainability Specialization has connected the SOF to the larger MSU community and food related initiatives.
Jeremy Moghtader - Program Coordinator and Lead Instructor
Jeremy has been managing the SOF and its 48 week CSA since August of 2004 and teaching in the certificate program since 2007 when it first began. He along with Corie Pierce (now teaching at Sterling College in VT) and others at the SOF designed the curriculum and program for the Organic Farmer Training Program. Prior to joining the SOF, Jeremy was a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment where his researched focused on Agroecology.
He has studied and worked at the Evergreen State College Organic Farm in Olympia Washington, and worked at several organic farms including the Mountain School educational farm in Vermont. Jeremy is also very involved in food and farm system education and activism. He serves on the founding board of directors for the Agrarian Adventure, a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting K-12 students to the source of their food through experiential food and agriculture education. He also serves on the leadership team of the Food System Economic Partnership of SE Michigan where he chaired the Farm to School Committee for 3 years, working to increase consumption of healthy locally produced food in school meals.
Adam Montri – SOF Outreach Coordinator
Email: admontri@msu.edu phone: 517-355-5191 ext 1407
Adam Montri coordinates the SOF outreach efforts around passive solar green houses and does outreach work with both urban and rural growers across the state of MI. Adam was one of the original student organic farmers while an undergraduate at MSU. He then went on to get his master's degree in Horticulture at Penn State University where he had an emphasis on organic hightunnel tomato production and taught a vegetable production laboratory course. He returned to MSU and the SOF in the summer of 2006 as both the on-farm hightunnel construction and operation coordinator for a research project including hightunnels on 12 farms and as the hoophouse program leader funded by the USDA Risk Management Community Partnership Program. In 2009 Adam continues supporting farmers around the state including urban agriculture related programs in Flint and Detroit as an outreach academic specialist in the Horticulture Department.
Additional SOF Staff
Tomm Becker - SOF Production Manager
Tomm has been SOF Production Manager since spring of 2007 where he handles the day to day operations of the farm and manages the undergraduate farm crew and volunteers. He oversees crop production, equipment and maintenance of farm infrastructure; keeping the farm running while facilitating student learning of the farms production methods, tools, and techniques. Prior to becoming the SOF production Manager Tomm was one of the early student organic farmers, working at the farm for 3 years while an undergraduate at MSU earning his BA in English. Tomm has also farmed for several seasons at Owosso Organics in Owosso, Michigan.
Farm Stand Manager and OFTP Assistant Instructor - Rachel Beyer
In January of 2009, Rachel gratefully transplanted to this Michigan farming family from the rolling woods of Southern Indiana. She came to the SOF and the Organic Farming Certificate Program direct from completing her BA in Sociology and International Studies at Indiana University, where she ached for exposure to practical, hands-on learning. Her vision of sustainable food production as a tool for positive social and environmental change comes from many experiences: growing up in a rural community, work running the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program in her home town, months interning for a school feeding program in West Africa, and sitting down every night with her family to eat dinner. She LOVES good food, driving the tractor, dancing outside, and all the hard working folks at the SOF. In 2010, Rachel is honored to get to spend a second year here as Farm Stand Manager and OFTP assistant instructor.
CSA Manager and OFTP Assistant Instructor - Rebecca Bloomfield
Rebecca was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. While volunteering on an organic farm in Sicily after university, she was inspired to pursue work that involved making connections between what we eat and where it comes from. She participated in Adamah—an organic farming, sustainable living, and Jewish learning fellowship in the Connecticut Berkshires. After this, she moved to Berkeley, California, to teach gardening for two years at The Edible Schoolyard. With a desire to learn more about how to produce organic food on a larger-than-garden scale, she enrolled in the Organic Farming Certificate Program at the SOF, where she learned just how much more there is to learn. Rebecca is currently the CSA Manager and an assistant instructor for the Organic Farmer Training Program. She loves to grow, harvest, cook, and eat delicious produce with intention and with community.
Denae Friedheim - CSA Member Services Coordinator and OFTP Recruitment Assistant
Hailing originally from Dallas, Texas, Denae is a current student in the certificate program. After completing her bachelor's degree in biology and sociology in 2005, she moved to Chicago where she worked for three years in public health research. Her interests in health behavior and preventive medicine are closely tied to her farming interests: community food, food access and urban agriculture. It was through the SOF that this southerner found her one hope of survival during the brutal Michigan winters: passive-solar greenhouses! She believes there is incredible potential in the Lansing area for urban agriculture and four-season growing and hopes to work with local organizations to transform vacant land into community farms. On the side she enjoys biking, cooking, building things, music, reading and exploring beautiful Michigan!
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