2012-2013 EXECUTIVE COUNCIL NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

[lilyk]

Dear Roasters Guild Members,

Listed below are the Roasters Guild Executive Council Nominees for the 2012-2013 election. Each position on the council serves a two-year term. Please review each nominee profile carefully and prepare to vote. There are five (5) open seats on the Executive Council for 2012.

• Monday, February 13, 2012: Voting opens
• Friday, March 2, 2012: Online Election closes at 5:00 PM
• March 5, 2012: Election results announced and posted to Roasters Guild Website

A downloadable .pdf version of the information below can be found here: http://bit.ly/RGEC2012noms

For more information on the election process, please review the Roasters Guild bylaws here: http://roastersguild.org/?p=about&sub=handbook.

Nominee Profiles

*Please note that Chris Wade of Coffee Bean International was elected by his fellow Executive Council members to the officer position of Secretary/Treasurer and therefore will not appear on the election ballot.

Jacob Anderson, Caribou Coffee Co.



In Jacob’s seven years in the coffee industry he has been a barista, store manager and production roaster. Jacob is currently a Green coffee tech with Caribou Coffee Co and spends a lot of time sample roasting and cupping. Jacob is also Q certified cupper. The Roasters Guild classes and Retreats have played an important role in Jacob’s development as a coffee professional and he hope to help others utilize the Guild as well.


Joseph Ferrara, Unique Coffee Roasters



Joseph Ferrara is a 23 year old from Staten Island, NY. Joseph is currently the Vice President at Unique Coffee Roasters. He started roasting coffee at the age of nine when his father was roasting coffee in the garage of his home. He was always interested in what made coffee, how it was made, why it changed, the different beans, flavors, and nuances. Joseph has more than a passion for coffee, he has a sheer dedication. There is nothing more that interests him more than coffee. Today he roasts, oversee all operations at Unique Coffee Roasters, which includes production, purchasing and corporate responsibility.


Ryan Gonzales Johnson, Portland Roasting



Ryan is the Lead Roaster, supervising roasting operations and working with our many departments in procurement, cupping, sampling, evaluating, education, green management, blend development and profiling at Portland Roasting Coffee. Without the educational opportunities with the Roasters Guild, Johnson’s work wouldn’t be possible and certainly wouldn’t be as fulfilling. His experiences at Expos and Retreats alongside regional gatherings have solidified his commitment to the roasting community with tons of knowledge and camaraderie. Johnson hopes to continue these experiences, employing his skills and giving back in the process, making roasting stronger and more prestigious. Johnson appreciates the support.


Allen Leibowitz, Zingerman's Coffee Company



Allen is a Managing Partner and founder of Zingerman’s Coffee in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is responsible for green sourcing, roasting, quality control and education. Allen has developed customer training courses and regularly teaches cupping, service and all aspects of brewing. On a regional level, Allen is active in building the local barista/coffee culture, including teaching at Michigan's first SCAA regional skill building workshop. He is an accredited instructor for the SCAA, has taught at the National Association of Specialty Food (NASFT), and judged at many Rainforest Alliance Cup for Quality events. Allen believes there is something new to learn about coffee every day.


Emilio Lopez, Topeca Coffee



Emilio is a sixth generation coffee producer in El Salvador. He is experienced as a grower, managing two plantations, Ayutepeque and El Manzano. He is a miller/exporter and roaster, founding Cuatro M, Single Origin Coffees and Topeca Coffee in 2001. He has been a member of the roasters guild since 2002, attending nine of eleven RG retreats. He is heavily involved in researching the variables of coffee production, and their effects on the final cup, titled the El Manzano Project; of which he presented on at the previous RG retreat. He is eager to continue these efforts, to better contribute to the roasting community.


Mary Tellie, Electric City Roasting Co.



Mary Tellie is the Owner of Electric City Roasting Co and Zummo's Cafe. She has also been featured as one of the top ten women in coffee by Barista Magazine and has also been featured in Roast Magazine for utilizing small and medium size roasters. Tellie drives her company to work with farmers and micro- mills around the world to create direct trade relationships to promote sustainability and traceability with the coffee we buy. In doing so Tellie has exceeded the FTO model in so far as the price per pound tendered and increasing the percentage in which the farmers and millers get paid. As a roaster retailer we love telling our direct trade stories to all of our loyal customers.

[rojo]

Hey Guys,
I´m Ryan Gonzales Johnson and I´m one of the many awesome nominees this year for the executive council.

I´d like to say thanks for the nomination and votes and support, hopefully doing me the honor of working for the Guild membership. I´m on travels right now in Honduras (my first origin trip, Yay!) so I´ll keep this short and lend you more of my perspectives and ideas and potential contributions later. I would like to say though that what I´ve gained from involvement with the Guild has been and keeps being ever so valuable. It´d really be wonderful to have the opportunity to give back while continuing to learn and develop this roasting craft.

Prior to being drawn into coffee and roasting I was a community organizer and the pull and passion I feel about getting people together and organized, making commitments and working towards collective goals is something that stays with me. For that reason I´d love to do just that for the Guild. Involving and facilitating membership and hopefully developing more frequent and put together regional groupings, greater sharing on the forum and FB and trying to get more direct communication going are priorities to me.

I love volunteering in the labs because I get to meet and work with so many great professionals and further us all as Roasters via the certification program. I hope to continue that with more energy and direct input as an EC member.

I think as Roasters, a great majority share similar wants and needs, and have similar desires for the direction of the industry on our end of the business. Things about how we classify our work to evolve the perception and thus compensation for what we do and how that coincides with certification and the Guild as a trade organization are important to address in order to start creating a material benefit of cerification and uplift of the craft both in public perception and for our trade. Other things like consensus on issues we may all want to debate and declare to the public and the industry (we can make statements as a guild!) are also important directions to steer towards enabling us to give voice to the membership and further cooperation as well as getting the opportunity to help steer industry dialogue.

For these reasons (and there are more) I´m putting myself out there and I´d love to know that folks in the Guild care about and value these things enough to put me on the Council. Thanks.

[chris7wade]

Hello Everyone, I can't believe it has been two years already and now it is time to run again for the RGEC. This is a great group that we have to choose from and I am glad to see so many active members on the ballot.

As for me and why I would like to continue to be a part of the RGEC I have many reasons. I have taken on the role of being the head of the Certification Task Force and have spent a lot of time working on the classes for Roasters Guild Certification. It is a huge project and there is still a lot of work to finish especially as we develop the master level classes.
I also feel that I have gained a lot from being a part of the roasters guild over the past years and this is a great way to give back. Helping out as a volunteer member of the RGEC has given me an oppertunity to be an active part of everything that is going on in the guild. I have taken on quite a bit of responsibility and have really enjoyed the work. I also have liked being able to get in touch with the membership base. I make sure when people have gotten in touch with me I respond to their questions quickly.

A little about what I do at my company and in the coffee world.
I work at Coffee Bean International and I oversee green coffee quality, I also am a coffee buyer. I work with our internal roaster training program and other types of training internally. I have the oppertunity to travel to origin a few times a year and have also been teaching for the SCAA/Roasters Guild both in the U.S. and abroad. I am active in my local coffee community as well and love being a part of Portland's coffee culture.
In my past I have spent time as a production roaster and have worked in many roles in the industry. I started in coffee at a small roaster on the Oregon coast working on a Probat L-12 and I feel that being at both a large and small company I can understand the needs of a varied group in our membership base.

I appreciate your votes and hope to continue serving the Roasters Guild as your representitive.

Good luck to everyone and remember to vote. I also promise to not do any negative campaign adds or robo calls to your home phone.

[ChrisSchooley]

So excited about this slate of nominees, and can't wait to hear from all of them here. Thank you to Ryan and CWade for chiming in.

[Emilio]

Dear Roasters Guild Members,

I want to start by extending a thanks to the Roasters Guild for the nomination, and congratulations to each of the other candidates for your work and success. This is an honor, and I am proud to be considered a candidate.

A few of the things that, I believe, would make me a valuable contributor to the Council.

I have been an active and consistent member of the Roasters Guild since it’s origins, and have built and developed effective relationships with many of the other members. My experiences within the coffee industry are broad, from building and developing nurseries within our plantations that I help to manage; to creating custom coffees for roasters and baristas.

Living and working in El Salvador, I have been able to host Roaster Guild trips to origin, while contributing to a better understanding of the experiences and realities of producers, millers, and exporters, as well as the overall development of coffee throughout its production. My experiences can help to provide insight into different methods of processing and their effects on the overall quality of coffees.

I will continue to provide a source of research and experimentation, while developing and sharing the conclusions of those experiments, through different sources of publishing and media. I am also able to use these findings to contribute to the development of curriculum and materials for potentials classes and workshops within the Roaster’s Guild.

I intend to offer the resources and facilities of a farm, mill, laboratory, and roastery in El Salvador, to the use of future Roasters Guild trips to origin and experiments held by it members.

With many areas of experience within the industry, I believe that I can help to cast a vision for the future of the coffee industry, while providing the resources, ideas, and commitment, to help the Roasters Guild to continue with its goal of promoting the history, fundamentals, art, and science of coffee roasting.

Some of the projects I'm currently working on can be viewed on the following blog.

http://cuatromcafes.com/SingleOriginCof ... /Blog.html

Hope this information and effort is useful to the roasting community.

Sincerely,