The Executive Committee includes seven Food Systems Division members:

Megan Bucknum | Education Working Group Coordinator

Andrea Clark | Secretary

Hunter Heaivilin | Treasurer

Ben Kerrick | National Conference Chair

Arielle Lofton | Committee Member

Andrea Petzel | Past Chair

Molly Riordan | Chair

Esteemed Executive Committee Alumni

Marcia Caton Campbell

Laine Cidlowski

Kara Martin

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.”

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.

  

 

Ben Kerrick is a Managing Partner at KK&P (Karen Karp & Partners), 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.

Arielle 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.

Andrea 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.

Molly Riordan 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 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 and earned her MRP from Cornell University.