TLC Staff & Board

Staff

Megan Lewis, AICP-Executive Director

Megan Lewis became the executive director of The Land Connection in November 2007. Growing up in north-central Indiana, she lived amidst prime farmland and saw how development pressure, commodities agriculture, and economic influences could impact the intricate relationship that family farming has to community health, vitality, and character. Her nascent interest in land conservation was further cultivated while a research associate with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., which led her to pursue a career in planning, working first as a land-use and environmental planner with Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) in Philadelphia and then as a senior research associate with the American Planning Association (APA) in Chicago. Megan is extremely excited to be leading The Land Connection as it grows and expands its capacity to make sustainable farming, access to local, organic food, and prime farmland highly valued and protected assets for all residents of Illinois. She holds a master's degree in regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree in economics from Indiana University. She and her husband, Chris Ramsey, and their daughter Fiona live in Chicago.

Terra Brockman-Founder and Director of Communications and Farmer Training

Terra Brockman was raised in central Illinois, and after spending time at the Universities of Oregon and California at Berkeley, she finished up an undergraduate and graduate degree in English Literature and Biology at Illinois State University.  She then worked as a teacher, writer, and editor in Japan for five years and then in publishing in New York City for eight years. During those years, she traveled extensively, from Nepal to Eritrea to Morocco to the Baltics.  During her travels, she found that much of the “third world” ate better than some in the first world because their foods were fresh, local, and unprocessed. As she made her way back to central Illinois, she realized that the best food in the world could be grown in the rich soils of Illinois. In 2001, she founded The Land Connection, and is working to ensure that more Illinois farmland will grow great local foods for our tables.

Kathy McGroarty-Torres -Office Manager

Kathy McGroarty-Torres was born and raised in mid-Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan where she received a B.A. in History. Shortly after graduation, she made the conscious choice to begin exploring a more holistic approach to life and work. This led her to get certified as a massage therapist and to also begin educating herself about local, organic foods, particularly the impact such foods can have on health. Her interest in sustainable agriculture grew until she made the decision to actually try working on an organic farm. Since then, Kathy has worked on an organic vegetable farm in Illinois and organic fruit orchards in Mexico. She has also been a regular volunteer at the Evanston Farmer's Market where she enjoys the company of a very conscientious, dedicated community of food-lovers.

Board of Directors

Sarah Ferrer-President
Administrator, Northwestern University

Sarah is an Evanston resident and mother of two. She is the coordinator for an undergraduate honors program at Northwestern University, holds a Master's degree from Harvard University in Theological Studies with a concentration in religion and culture in Latin America. Sarah's introduction to food politics was passed down to her from her father who was an avid organic gardener. During graduate school, Sarah worked in the fields and served on the first Board of Waltham Fields Community Farm in Massachusetts, which now yields over 100,000 pounds of organic produce. Sarah also spent a year in the Chilean Patagonia helping run her husband's family farm and restaurant.

Irvin Cernauskas-Vice President           
President, Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks

After many years working as an IT consultant, Irv and his wife Shelly decided to live their values by launching Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks, a company founded to create new market opportunities for local organic farms and to offer new ways for consumers to access these products.  Irv has an M.S. in Management from MIT Sloan School of Management, and an M.A. and B. A. in Economics from the University of Toronto. He also serves on the board of Oak Park-based Seven Generations Ahead.

Sharon Lieberman-Secretary
Manager of Grant Development, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Foundation

Sharon Lieberman has been active in environmental and women's health issues for many years in NYC and in Evanston. She served on the Evanston Environment Board, the board of HERS, Evanston's Long Term Care Committee and ETHS's health center Community Advisory Board.  In the 1990's, she led initiatives to reform school lunch nutrition and reduce pesticide use by the City of Evanston.  Sharon has been published in The Women's Review of Books, HealthPAC and Self, among other publications. She holds an MS in Health Sciences from Hunter College and is currently the manager of grants development at the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Foundation. She has two 20-something children.

Dennis Ryan-Treasurer

Dennis is the Co-Founder and President of Fraiche Kitchen, providing in-home cooking lessons and gourmet dinner parties, while educating our community about eating local, seasonal, and sustainable food products. From Peace Corps Volunteer to the top of the international corporate ladder to Kendall College’s School of Culinary Arts, Dennis broke onto the local food scene as Chicago’s Green City Market Manager and Farm Forager. With the creation of Fraiche Kitchen, he brings his discoveries from local farms, food artisans and the top of Chicago’s culinary community into your home. Dennis holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Rhode Island.

Debbie Hillman
President, Evanston Food Policy Council; Co-Chair, The Talking Farm

Debbie Hillman is a lifelong organic gardener who recently ended a career in the design, installation and maintenance of residential gardens. She now devotes herself full-time to food and farm issues. She co-founded the Evanston Food Policy Council in 2005, and was the recipient of the Evanston Environmental Stewardship Award in 2006. She is currently working with Illinois State Representative Julie Hamos to spearhead the Food, Farms, and Jobs Act of 2007.

Dr. Martha E. Cook
Associate Professor of Botany, Dept of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University

A founding board member of The Land Connection, Dr. Cook works tirelessly on food and land use issues. After studying at universities all over the country, Martha Cook settled in the state with the richest soil in the world. During her job interview, she was promised there would be local organic vegetables available if she came to Illinois State University, and now she enjoys food from a CSA farm and from the expanding Bloomington and Normal Farmer's Markets. She uses local organic flour to make her own bread.

Ann McMahon
Civic Volunteer, Former Business Owner

Ann McMahon earned a BA from Marquette University in 1963 and an MA in Environmental Studies from the University of Illinois at Springfield in 1970. She taught middle school science for 10 years, the last six of which were at Nichols Middle School in Evanston. She was a travel agent for 20 years, part owner of Four Corners Travel in Evanston for 10 years. Ann has lived in Evanston for 40 years with her husband Tom, and is very active in the Evanston community, serving on multiple boards and as a member of the Grosse Point Lighthouse Area Task Force and on the Lighthouse Landing Committee. She is passionate about finding, cooking, and sharing good, healthy food, particularly from the Evanston Farmer's Market.

Sharon Meyers 
Director, Sharon Meyers Communications

After 10 years working abroad in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Brunei, Sharon returned to Chicago and helped organize the Illinois Food Security Conferences and co-publish Bringing Change to the Table, the first book of its kind on the topic of food security in Illinois. She currently runs her own communications firm, managing a comprehensive range of consultancy services. Sharon has a B.S. from the University of Illinois, and a Masters of Education from the University of Illinois Medical Center. Her interests include travel and travel writing, as well as art photography. She has two beautiful children.

Rick Turley
Self-Employed CPA

Rick spent his formative years in central Indiana and earned a degree in business from Valparaiso University. After working at a national public accounting firm and a global consumer products company, he became self-employed and now primarily works with companies who need assistance on special projects. He is an avid gardener, inheriting his interest from his maternal grandfather who gardened organically his entire life and amused himself by breeding plants like bush beans into runner beans and growing peanuts in Indiana. Always interested in quality local food and troubled by the loss of prime Illinois farmland, he was moved to become involved after reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. He has been a board member since March 2008.

John Clark

John moved to Chicago from his native California in 1999 in a transfer with Deloitte & Touche, one of the largest accounting firms in the nation. Since his graduation from California State University at Fresno, John has worked with various food industry companies and developed a keen understanding of the financial, operational and distribution issues facing not only food suppliers, but grocery and restaurant companies as well. John’s years of growing up and working in California’s Salinas Valley sharpened his interest in the importance of food and the many complexities of delivering it to growing populations. John currently is a vice-president of KemperSports, a company whose primary business is to own and operate golf properties across the United States and Latin America. John and his wife Cindy reside on the North Shore where they enjoy the many local farmers markets to choose from each week.

The Land Connection welcomes these new board members. Their bios will be posted soon.

Liz Sarnik

Pam Horwitz