Heather Spalding, NOC President & Board Member
(sher/her)
Deputy Director, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
Heather Spalding works as deputy director and senior policy director for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). She started with MOFGA in 1997, after ten years working in Washington, DC - first for the National Wildlife Federation, then the Sierra Club, and then Greenpeace International where she served as Publications Coordinator for the International Toxics Campaign. Heather’s introduction to MOFGA came during a summer 1996 sabbatical from Greenpeace, when she volunteered as an apprentice on New Leaf Farm in Durham, ME. Wanting to settle in her home state of Maine, Heather then accepted a job offer to coordinate MOFGA’s signature event, the Common Ground Country Fair. After several years focusing on the Fair, Heather changed her focus and worked on MOFGA’s organizational administration and development. She now works primarily on Public Policy initiatives at the state and national level. She lives in the town of Palermo, ME with her family.
Jay Feldman, NOC Secretary & Board Member
(he/him)
Executive Director, Beyond Pesticides
Jay is a cofounder of Beyond Pesticides and has served as its director since 1981. Jay dedicated himself to finding solutions to pesticide problems after working with farmworkers and small farmers through an EPA grant in 1978 to the national advocacy organization Rural America (1977-1981), where he helped to develop the first EPA worker protection standard. Since that time, Jay has coordinated the building of Beyond Pesticides' capacity to assist local groups and impact national and state pesticide and organic policy. He has tracked specific chemical effects, regulatory actions, pesticide law, and organic standards and policy, including allowable materials in organic-certified and labeled food production and processing. He participated in the drafting of the Organic Farming Act, then the Agricultural Productivity Act (established USDA’s Low-Input Agriculture program, now the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program), as well as the Organic Foods Production Act (established the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) and the USDA organic certification program).
Ed Maltby, NOC Treasurer & Board Member
(he/him)
Executive Director, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA)
Ed Maltby is a producer with over 45 years experience managing conventional and organic dairy, beef, sheep and vegetable enterprises on a variety of different farms in Europe and the United States. For the past twenty years, Ed has worked with regional farms to cooperatively market their products into mainstream markets, ranging from direct marketing of lambs and organic produce, to establishing a cooperative of dairy farmers who direct market their own brand of milk in Western Massachusetts.
Maddie Kempner, Board Member
(she/her)
Policy Director, Northeast Organic Farmers Association - Vermont (NOFA-VT)
Maddie Kempner has led NOFA-VT's policy work since 2015. She is passionate about supporting farmers and advocating for a vibrant, equitable, ecologically resilient food system. Maddie grew up in Vermont and spent five years working in outdoor education and on farms in Utah and Colorado. Working on farms in the west inspired her to dig into food systems and farm policy and advocate for change to help farms be more economically viable and climate-resilient. Maddie has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont and a Master of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law and Graduate School. Her work at NOFA-VT covers a range of agriculture and food system issues at the state and federal levels including organic integrity, farm viability, land access, soil health, conservation programs, climate change, and more.
Allie Mentzer, Board Member
(she/her/hers, ze/zir/zirs)
Senior Director of Advocacy and Sustainability, National Co+op Grocers (NCG)
Since 2013, Allie has worked for National Co+op Grocers (NCG) and now serves as Senior Director of Advocacy and Sustainability, reporting directly to the CEO. Prior to that, she was a cashier and produce buyer at a retail food co-op as well as at a conventional chain store for eight years, and still draws on her experience problem-solving with shoppers, local farmers and fellow grocery staff. She also worked for Sandy Fisher at Brookview Farm – one of Virginia’s first Certified Organic farms – where they raised grass-fed beef, organic market crops, cut flowers, organic eggs and hosted not only a weekly farmers market, but also the state’s largest compost pile. Her responsibilities include facilitating NCG’s efforts to build a more inclusive culture and improve racial equity, both internally and among NCG’s co-ops.
Rebecca Spector, Board Member
(she/her)
Nonprofit executive and leader, fundraiser, policy advocate
Rebecca Spector joined CFS in 2000 and has been instrumental in growing the organization and creating its West Coast Regional Office in San Francisco. As CFS’s West Coast Director, she champions policy initiatives at the state and federal level and coordinates public outreach campaigns to promote healthy, safe and sustainable food systems. She has been working in the environmental and agricultural sector for more than 20 years, and her experience includes establishing regulations to limit the production of genetically engineered (GE) fish in California, and writing and sponsoring numerous legislative initiatives including state bills to require labeling of GE foods, labeling of GE fish, labeling of food from cloned animals, and farmer protections from GMO contamination. For ten years, Rebecca was co-owner of the first certified organic farm in Half Moon Bay, California, and created its community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers’ market programs that served hundreds of families in the Bay Area.
Brise Tencer, Board Member
(she/her)
Executive Director, Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF)
Brise Tencer brings 20 years of leadership experience working on organic food policy, farming, and research issues to OFRF. Brise previously served as Director of Policy and Programs for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), served as lead lobbyist on food and agriculture issues for the Union of Concerned Scientists, worked as Acting Policy Program Director and later as Legislative Coordinator for The Organic Farming Research Foundation. Brise has served on the boards of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, the California Climate and Agricultural Network, and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. She holds a B.A. in Community Studies from University of California, Santa Cruz and received both a Certificate in Conflict Resolution and a M.A. in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.