Leadership

The Executive Committee includes 10 Food Systems Division members:

Megan Bucknum | Education Working Group Coordinator
Laine Cidlowski | Communications Chair
Andrea Clark | Secretary
Hunter Heaivilin | Membership Chair
Ben Kerrick | National Conference Chair
Arielle Lofton | Committee Member
Kara Martin | Treasurer
Andrea Petzel | Past Chair

Molly Riordan
| Chair


MB
Megan Bucknum is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Planning and Sustainability at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ where she teaches urban and food systems planning courses. Megan has previously worked as a consultant for food business consulting firm, New Venture Advisors LLC and has held staff positions at Philly CowShare, The Food Trust, Fair Food Philadelphia and the Wallace Center at Winrock International, as well as assisting with the University of Vermont’s inaugural Food Hub Management Certificate course. She has been a contributing author to the planning guide Building Successful Food Hubs, Healthy Food in Small Stores report, and the books “Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement is Changing the Way We Eat” and “Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers: Leveraging Purchasing Power to Drive Systems Change.” Recently, Megan has co-produced the Wallace Center’s Food Systems Leadership Network’s Visionary Voices podcast.


SFPC-21Laine Cidlowski, AICP, LEED-AP is the Food Systems Administrator for the City of Denver Colorado in the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. She oversees the Denver Sustainable Food Policy Council and leads the Food Systems team work to implement the Denver Food Vision to make the city’s food systems more healthy, vibrant, inclusive, and resilient. Laine was previously the first Food Policy Director for the District of Columbia and the leader of the first public DC Food Policy Council. She worked with the city of DC to study the local and regional food economy, sign on to the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, and to start the DC Good Food Purchasing Program Coalition. Prior to that she was the Lead Urban Sustainability Planner for the DC Office of Planning where she was the project manager for the Sustainable DC initiative to make the city socially equitable, environmentally responsive, and economically prosperous. Laine holds a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning and a Certificate in Urban Design from the University of Pennsylvania and B.A. Degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in Environmental Studies. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and serves as the Communications on the leadership committee of the American Planning Association’s Food System Interest Group.


Andrea Clark,Andrea Clark began her career with KC Healthy Kids as a planning intern in 2016 and returned in 2019 as a member of the policy team. As an urban planner, she manages collaborative projects that connect and strengthen the local food system. She also supports initiatives of the Greater KC Food Policy Coalition, advocating for good food and farm policy at the local, state, and federal level. Andrea is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She has presented on food and farm policy at local workshops and national conferences. She is trained in qualitative research methods and has earned graduate degrees in Urban Planning, American Studies and Sociology.

HHheadshotHunter Heaivilin is a Food Systems Planner with fifteen years of experience working with community, non-profit, and government clients. Hunter specializes in data driven policy and planning and consults through his firm Supersistence. His education and work has grown from ecosystem management (AS) to sustainable community development (BA) and urban planning (MURP). As a Phd Candidate in the Department of Geography & Environment at UH Manoa he researches disruptions and resilience in Hawaii’s food system over the 20th century.

Ben_0060Ben Kerrick is a Senior Consultant at Karen Karp & Partners (KK&P), an NYC-based national consulting firm working at the intersection of food, agriculture, and health. Ben is a public service-oriented food systems professional with extensive knowledge of and experience with diverse food system stakeholders and projects. His work at KK&P includes community engagement, placemaking, food system mapping, data visualization, program and event design, and research and analysis. Much of his work has focused on regional and community-scale projects involving multiple stakeholders, primary and secondary research, and action plans for food system initiatives. In addition to extensive work in NYC, he has managed or supported KK&P projects in Maine, Louisiana, North Carolina, Connecticut, upstate New York, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, California’s Bay Area, and the Mid-South Delta. Ben holds Master’s Degrees in City & Regional Planning and Environmental Science (Agroecosystem Science specialization) from The Ohio State University.

IMG-5928Arielle Lofton is an alumna of The Culinary Institute of America with years of experience in restaurant operations. Having a passion for serving local communities, she wanted to learn more about what it takes to make more sustainable, equitable, and healthy places for us all to live and enjoy. She currently attends the School of Professional Studies at George Washington University majoring in  Sustainable Urban Planning. So far, she’s worked for various local and national organizations gaining experience in supporting wildlife and environmental conservation efforts with geographic information systems (GIS), community engagement through helping manage a county-wide community garden program, and providing technical assistance and research for projects focused on transportation and land-use development initiatives. She is passionate and excited to continue learning more about the planning world and serve on the Executive Food Systems Division Board of the American Planning Association.

IMG_0461Andrea Petzel, AICP is founder and principal of Broadview Planning, a woman-owned consulting firm specializing in urban planning services related to land use, health and sustainability. As a senior planner for the City of Seattle, Andrea developed one of the nation’s first comprehensive urban agriculture ordinances that helped increase access to local, healthy food. She continues this work serving on the Sustainable Agriculture Committee for the state chapter of the American Planning Association. In addition to her policy work on urban agriculture, Andrea participated in the development of Seattle’s Healthy Living Assessment, a framework to assess health impacts at the neighborhood level. The project was awarded a 2013 National Planning Achievement Award for a Best Practice from the American Planning Association.

KMartinKara Martin, AICP is the Director of the Food Innovation Network in King County, WA. For over fifteen years, Kara has been working to advance how community health and food systems intersect through the tools of community engagement, policy change, research, and partnership convening. Kara has experienced in community food systems assessments and addressing community health issues through comprehensive plans and development regulations. Currently, her work focuses on implementing community-driven food system strategies. and programs. In addition to being an American Institute Certified Planner (AICP), she attended the Built Environment Assessment Training (BEAT) Institute, where she received training in the most current tools used to evaluate the built environment’s effect on community health. She has lead the Washington APA chapter’s Sustainable Agriculture and Healthy Food Systems working group and served on the Washington State Food System Roundtable and Seattle Planning Commission.

Riordan_headshot_milletMolly Riordan, (MRP, Cornell University) is a food systems planner with a focus on institutional procurement and food policy. She is the Eastern Region Program Manager, Healthy Food in Health Care at Health Care Without Harm, where she supports hospitals to leverage their buying power in support of equitable food system change. She is concurrently an Urban Agriculture Specialist with the Cornell Small Farms Program at Cornell University, a co-author of the 2019 report, “The Promise of Urban Agriculture: a National Study of Commercial Farming in Urban Areas.” and lead author of a chapter in the forthcoming book, Planning for Urban Agriculture in the United States (Springer). Originally from the Buffalo, NY area, Molly currently lives in Philadelphia, PA.

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