Today we are pleased to announce that Nat Brown, Alison Cayne, Mike Rankowitz, and Leslie Williams have joined the Food & Environment Reporting Network as members of its board of directors.
“We welcome to our already outstanding board of directors some of the finest minds in technology, business, and law,” said Tom Laskawy, FERN’s Executive Director. “Their combined unique experiences, relationships, and passion for FERN will make them all important and valuable contributors to our mission.”
Nat Brown is a former Senior Software Architect at Microsoft where he had also served as a programmer and manager, eventually launching the XBox console project. Since leaving Microsoft he has worked for, launched, and sold several software startups. Nat currently builds independent mobile apps, advises and mentors Seattle-area startups, and gets to spend time with his two children and his wife, Tina Tsiakalis, a busy midwife and owner of Center For Birth.
“Technology, and especially the Web, is delivering a daunting deluge of opinions, news and information. There is tremendous educational and social value in the well-written, well-researched, in-depth, balanced reporting FERN pursues,” Brown said. “I hope to help the organization find more ways, through the creative use of technology, to educate and inform about important food and environmental issues.”
Alison Cayne is owner of Haven’s Kitchen, a recreational cooking school, specialty food shop, and event space in Manhattan. Before founding Haven’s Kitchen, Cayne began working towards her Masters Degree at New York University’s Food Studies program. In addition, she is on the boards of Just Food and Edible Schoolyard NYC, a contributing editor at Domino magazine, and a blogger for Huffington Post and USA Today.
“It is an honor to work with some of our finest, more passionate journalists,” Cayne said. “Any organization that keeps the public informed, truthfully and responsibly, is a project I am happy to be a part of.”
Mike L. Rankowitz is a retired Morgan-Stanley executive, who worked for the company from 1980 until 2001. He has since sat on a number of boards including Carlyle Funds, New York Racing Association, International Dyslexia Association, and Trinity School. He has two sons and lives with his wife in New York City.
“I believe there’s an enormous void that FERN is uniquely positioned to fill,” said Rankowitz. “I’m genuinely excited about helping the cause where I can.”
After an early legal career, Leslie Williams founded and managed the Perennial Chef, a high-end retail prepared food and catering business in Westchester County, NY, which closed in 2012. Williams is an avid organic gardener and has a strong interest in the environment and food safety and security.
“At a time when we are faced with rapid changes in the environment, investigative reporting is more important than ever. Sadly, traditional news organizations seem unable to satisfactorily fulfill their traditional role,” said Williams. “I believe that FERN has the potential to help fill this void for the benefit of all.”
“One of FERN’s key strategies for the year is to expand our Board and welcome individuals with unique and complementary skills to guide and drive our mission,” said Dan Pullman, Chair of FERN’s board of directors. “Nat’s knowledge of the technology marketplace will advance FERN’s channels of engagement with its followers and supports. Michael’s broad understanding of philanthropy and financial strategy will help guide our increasingly diverse supporter network and the value we provide to it.”
Pullman said: “Alison’s commitment to the food world and its opportunities and challenges is invaluable. Leslie is a hands-on practitioner who combines a strongly critical and honest assessment of food and environmental systems with the structured thinking of her legal background. All of our new board members will add significantly to FERN’s goals.”
Since 2011, FERN has published 25 stories with mainstream media on subjects ranging from the connection between human health and the overuse of antibiotics in industrial animal agriculture to toxic runoff from industrial farming impacting our waterways to wage theft of farmworkers, for which it won a prestigious James Beard Foundation journalism award in 2013.