Staff directory
Click on the links below for staff biographies and contact information.
- Ron Doetch, Executive Director
- Bill Barber, Lab Technician
- Nate Chappell, Enterprise Development Coordinator
- Shirley Fox, Building Custodian
- Janet Gamble, Garden Student Program Director
- Walter Goldstein, Research Program Director
- Brian Gifford, Youth Education Coordinator
- Ginger Goral, Bookstore Manager
- John Hall, Farming Systems Outreach and Education Director
- Margaret Krome, Policy Program Director
- Jeanne Merrill, Associate Policy Director
- Estaban Miramontes, Grounds and Maintenance Specialist
- Flora Nietfeldt, Human Resources and Bookkeeping
- Les Niles, Vegetable Production Specialist
- Therese Philipp, Registrar and Executive Secretary
- Sue Ristow, Chief Financial Officer
- Dori Sorensen, Education Coordinator
- Anne Sylvan, Vegetable Production Technician
- Christine Wills, Vegetable Production Technician
Ron Doetch, Executive Director
Ron Doetch began as Executive Director of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute on the first of April, 2003. He has worked with the food division of Itochu, a large Japanese trading company, for the past 8 years designing origination programs to connect the Japanese consumer to the American farmer. This "expansion" plan involved both organic and commercial grain.
Ron has been directly involved in four sustainable agriculture projects since 1996 that focused on using a small grain crop to address grain quality, grower profitability and reduce negative impacts to the environment. These efforts have resulted in a significant increase of small grains production in the upper Midwest, mainly hard red winter wheat.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext 5
E-mail: rdoetch@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Bill Barber, Lab Technician
Bill Barber, staff ecologist and naturalist, collects and records field data for the research projects at MFAI. He has worked at Retzer Nature Center in Waukesha County as a volunteer teacher/ naturalist and in a group that teaches natural landscaping and seeks to increase interest in such practices in nurseries and parklands. He has more than 25 years of gardening experience using organic methods. His specialties include prairie restoration, insect and other animal habitat, orchard crops and other nature studies. He has a B.S. degree in natural resource management from the UW-Stevens Point.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 107
E-mail: bbarber@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Shirley Fox, Building Custodian
Phone: (262) 642-5554
Janet Gamble, Garden Student Program Director
Janet Gamble provides the primary instruction of the Garden students and manages Stella Gardens, a working subscription and market garden of 100 varieties of vegetables raised organically in a hands-on educational setting. She is a Sterling College Grassroots Program graduate, and she has more than 20 years experience in organic and biodynamic gardening. She is on an advisory committee to the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference; helped implement an on-site garden program for Walworth County Jail and has been active in formation of the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 127
E-mail: jgamble@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Brian Gifford, Youth Educator and Educational Tour Guide
Brian comes to Michael Fields Agricultural Institute from Nature's Classroom Institute of Wisconsin, where he managed a small-scale, educational farm and served as education director. Prior to starting with Nature's Classroom in 2004, Brian worked as a Government Relations Specialist with the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and, also, as an environmental advocate for the New Mexico Public Interest Research Group in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Brian has a Bachelor of Science degree in Forest Science with an option in Watershed Management from Pennsylvania State University.
E-mail: bgifford@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Walter Goldstein, Research Program Director
Walter Goldstein has a Ph.D. in agronomy. He has worked at the institute since 1986, conducting studies of biodynamic, conventional and organic farming; breeding and developing an open-pollinated corn; and leading or assisting in instructional projects for farm planning, biodynamics, soil fertility management and dryland farming. With soil scientist Chris Koopmans, he helped develop an organic matter budgetor, which is the subject of several multi-year projects MFAI is conducting in on-farm and systems trials with farmers and other collaborators in Illinois and Wisconsin. He has been on the technical committee of OFPANA and IFOAM. He was a Midwestern LISA/SARE committee member for 3 years and has served as technical committee chair. He has been an outside evaluator in the USDA/ARS sustainable agricultural focus review process; helped review the NRI by LISA/SARE scientists; and instructed agricultural interns, farmers and growers in sustainable agricultural and organic practices in workshops, series, schools and projects at MFAI. He manages his own small farm, grazing sheep, tending fruit trees and raising herbs.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 112
E-mail: wgoldstein@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Ginger Goral, Bookstore Manager
Ginger is the Bookstore Manager. Books are available for purchase at the Institute, via mail order, and at conferences throughout the Midwest. We have over 2000 books on organic farming and gardening, sustainable agriculture, biodynamics, animal care, grass farming and other related topics including children's books and cookbooks. We also have our BOOKS Provider Service. If you are holding a workshop, session, or seminar and want to offer or provide your attendees with books, just contact Ginger and she will arrange it all for you.
Ginger, her husband Mike and their 3 children have a small farm with chickens and Sheltand sheep. They grow vegetable and berries organically. She provides 24 families with fresh organic produce throughout the winter months. Their home is a drop site for Stella Gardens CSA in the summer. She enjoys cooking, reading, oil painting and knitting.
Phone: (262) 965-5833
E-mail: goralfamily@centurytel.net
John Hall, Farming Systems Agronomist
John has been a farming systems agronomist at the institute since 1988 and served as its Executive Director from 1996 until spring of 2003. He obtained B.S. and master's degrees in agronomy from Montana State University in 1981 and 1983. He studied plant breeding and genetics at Washington State University from 1984 to 1988. He was strongly involved in development of the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial and the Lakeland Agricultural Complex in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. He is an active member of the Mississippi River Task Force and it's steering committee. He also serves on the Wisconsin NRCS technical committee.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext 114
E-mail: jhall@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Margaret Krome, Policy Program Director
Margaret Krome is MFAI's policy coordinator. In this capacity she coordinates the annual national grassroots campaign to fund federal programs supported by the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. Over a number of years, she has helped create and sustain funding for a number of state initiatives supporting environmentally sound, profitable, and socially responsible agriculture, including the UW-Madison's' Center for Integrated Agriculture and the Pesticide Use and Risk Reduction project. In addition to policy work, she conducts workshops nationwide on grant writing and using federal programs to support sustainable agriculture. She also works with others in the Madison, Wisconsin area to foster close marketing relationships between consumers and locally environmentally sound farmers. Krome served Wisconsin Rural Development Center for 9 years before joining MFAI in 1995. She writes a bi-weekly editorial column for the evening daily paper, The Capital Times, in Madison, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Phone: (608) 238-1440
E-mail: mkrome@sbcglobal.net
Jeanne Merrill, Associate Policy Director
Jeanne works on work on several state and federal policy issues, including education efforts focused on the Conservation Security Program and the Value Added Producer Grant program. She is also involved with DATCP's initiative on local foods. Prior to her work with MFAI, Jeanne was a Greenpeace campaigner in San Francisco where she worked on genetically engineered agriculture issues. Her work on agricultural issues began with her role as the Agriculture Program Director for Pesticide Watch, a California nonprofit dedicated to alternatives to toxic pesticide use. For over four years she worked with communities in the state impacted by pesticide pollution.
Phone: (608) 256-1859
E-mail: jeannemerrill@gmail.com
Esteban Miramontes, Grounds and Maintenance Specialist
Phone: (262) 642-3303
Flora Nietfeldt, Human Resources and Bookkeeping
Flora joined MFAI on October 1, 2003 as our bookkeeper. She processes accounts receivable and payable and daily accounting tasks. Flora has been gardening since childhood. She loves both flower and vegetable gardening. She enjoys cooking for her family with fresh vegetables and herbs. She has also finished the Master Gardener's program. Flora has an Associate's degree as a legal assistant and has also worked as a landscape designer and plant store manager.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 115
E-mail: flora@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Les Niles, Vegetable Production Specialist
Les came to Michael Fields in 2005 looking for a chance to work in a non-pesticide environment, and he is still here today! His background of 30 years working with farm pesticides in both application and sales have left him severely sensitive to these materials. Les is charged with the overall farm management, maintenance program, and our vegetable production program. He has a BS degree in Agriculture from the University of Illinois, with multiple majors in Farm Management, Agronomy, (Crops and Soils), and Soil Chemistry. He has managed large vegetable/crop production areas and maintenance operations for DelMonte Foods, Kaltenberg Seeds, and two privately held 2000+ acre highly diversified vegetable/packing operations on the East Coast. When he has spare time, he is very much family oriented and community involved.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 129
Therese Philipp, Registrar and Executive Secretary
Therese Philipp serves as registrar for MFAI's student program and as executive secretary. Her duties include management of student housing and the institute's grounds maintenance. She has served previously as managing director of a theater company in Milwaukee and administrator of a Waldorf school.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 4
E-mail: therese@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Sue Ristow, Chief Financial Officer
Sue comes to MFAI with a strong accounting background in both the nonprofit and private sectors. She worked for five years in the accounting department for the American Cancer Society and ten years for a public accountant. Sue's many responsibilities at MFAI include coordination grant reporting and accounting.
Phone: (262) 642-3303, ext. 100
E-mail: sristow@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Dori Sorensen, Education Coordinator
Dori Sorensen, Education Coordinator, supports student programming and educational outreach at Michael Fields. She uses her liberal education from UW Whitewater and an innate passion for nature to develop creative learning opportunities at MFAI. From coordinating retreats for culinary students, organizing workshops and conferences that meet the needs of the general public and agricultural professionals to developing education solutions for both full and part-time students at the institute, Dori embraces the many challenges of her various responsibilities with enthusiasm.
E-mail: dsorensen@michaelfieldsaginst.org
Anne Sylvan, Vegetable Production Technician
Phone: (262) 642-3303
Christine Wills, Vegetable Production Technician
Phone: (262) 642-3303