Board of Directors

(For brief biographical and e-mail contact information, click on the Biography arrow)

Board Officers and Executive Committee Members

	John Zippert Chair Person Program Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. Biography John is a founding member of the Rural Coalition and has served on its Board of Directors for two decades. Zippert, a longtime civil and voting rights activist has worked persistently for more than three decades on rural community-based economic development emphasizing cooperatives, credit unions, and to promote core values of equity and cooperation among diverse communities and people. He represented minority and other small farmers on the USDA National Small Farms Commission. He and his wife Carol, publish the Greene County Democrat, a weekly paper serving the African American community in Greene and Sumter Counties. Email: jzippert@aol.com

	Georgia Good Vice Chair Person Executive Director, Rural Advancement Fund Biography Georgia, a long-time civil rights activist and community leader, has been Executive Director of the Rural Advancement Fund for a decade. RAF, and the National Sharecroppers Fund, founded by renowned labor leader A. Philip Randolph, have served African American and other small farmers and rural people in the Carolinas for more than 50 years. RAF today works to promote economic development and environmental justice, and to protect the rights of African American and other small farmers. RAF also operates a program to train rural women in the highway construction trade. A Board member since 1993, Georgia also serves as Chair of the NCCBOA. Email: ladyggood@earthlink.net

	Chukou Thao Secretary Executive Director National Hmong American Farmers, Inc. Biography Biography not available but coming soon. Email: nhaf_ct@yahoo.com

	Russel Zephier Treasurer Intertribal Agriculture Council Biography Russel Zephier, is the Tribal Attorney for the Ogallala Sioux Tribe and has been the delegate for the Tribe and on the Board of IAC for six years. On the IAC Board, he also represents the Aberdeen region that encompasses the North and South Dakota Region. He is the Secretary of the IAC board of directors and, of course, handles all legal questions. He is also on the board of the IAC for profit arm and is working to get that entity legally established. Born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation, he has a law degree from Colorado State University.

	Carlos Marentes At-Large Member of the Executive Committee Founder & Director Sin Fronteras Organizing Project Biography Carlos, Chair of the Rural Coalition Board of Directors from 1992 through 1999, has worked as a farmworker organizer since 1977. He is the founder and director of the Sin Fronteras Organizing Project, based in El Paso, TX, and directs training for the Binational Pesticides Project of the RC. A political cartoonist, he was an organizer for the Texas Farmworkers Union and editor of El Cuhamil, its official newspaper, from 1977 to 1980. As Director of Sin Fronteras, Marentes was instrumental in negotiating a grant from the City Council of El Paso to build a farmworker center there. Marentes is also the Executive Director of Centro de los Trabajadores Agricolas Fronterizo and President of the Border Agricultural Workers Union. Although he remains an active Board and Executive Committee member, in special recognition of his contributions to the farmworker movement and his efforts to unify diverse people with shared interests -- irrespective of borders - within the Rural Coalition, Marentes was also elected as Chairperson Emeritus of RC. Email: marentes@htg.net

	Chilo Villareal At-Large Member of the Executive Committee Activist affiliated with COSYDDHAC, a human-rights organization in Chihuahua,Mexico. Biography Altagracia (Chilo) Villarreal works with COSYDDHAC, a human rights organization that supports the indigenous and poor people of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, with close ties to similar groups throughout Mexico. She does extensive training work with these communities, and others in Central America, on issues of economic solidarity. She was invaluable in recruiting the delegations from indigenous communities in Mexico to the past three assemblies, and has contributed her knowledge of models of economic solidarity to our work on community based development. She helped link the SuperMarket project to groups in Mexico and has served on the Rural Coalition Board since 1995. Email: coalicionrural@infosel.net.mx

	Savi Horne At-Large Member of the Executive Committee Senior Attorney Land Loss Prevention Project Biography Savonala (Savi) Horne, Senior Attorney at Land Loss Prevention Project, has been on the RC Board since 1998. Savi works with grassroots organizations to formulate legal strategies to address environmental equity and other rural justice issues. She is a member of a National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee subcommittee covering concentrated animal feeding operations and their environmental implications. At LLPP, she also directs the Kellogg Foundation funded Partners in Agriculture Program and coordinates the Southern Sustainable Research and Education project to promote Equal Access in Agriculture, a collaborative effort with RC and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. She Co-Chairs the Board's Program Planning and Development committee and serves as technical and legal advisor to the RC's SuperMarket project. Email: savillpp@mindspring.com

Other Board Members

	Tirso Moreno Board Member Founder and Executive Director Farmworker Association of Florida Biography Tirso Moreno, Founder and Executive Director of the Farmworker Association of Florida since 1983, is dedicated to organizing to improve the working and living conditions of farmworkers. Born in Mexico, he worked from 1971-1983 as a farmworker in the midwest migrant stream. He has supported the farmworker struggle by forming and leading statewide, national and international organizations, including the Farmworker Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, and the Farmworker Health and Safety Institute. He serves on the Boards of the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, the Environmental Justice Fund, the Southern Organizing Committee, and the National Farmworker Ministry. Moreno was elected to the RC Board at our 1999 Assembly. Email: apopkafwaf@aol.com

	Starry Krueger Board Member Founding President Rural Development Leadership Network Biography Starry is founding president of the Rural Development Leadership Network, a national, multicultural program which supports community-based development in poor rural areas through hands-on projects, education, leadership development, and networking. Krueger previously was the founding director for the Navajo Rural Fellows. She organized a delegation of rural women to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She has been involved with the Rural Coalition since 1979 and as an Executive Committee member was instrumental in keeping the Rural Coalition alive and working during its unstaffed reorganization period in 1990 and 1991. Email: hn1580@handsnet.org

	Rudy Arredondo Board Member President Hispanic Organization Leadership Alliance Biography Rudy, a Board member since 1997, is president of the Hispanic Organization Leadership Alliance, a coalition of 5 Hispanic employees associations at the US Department of Agriculture, and a longtime civil and human rights advocate, a union organizer and political activist. He served as a USDA Rural Economic Development Specialist. He was also a Civil Rights Compliance Officer with USDA during the Carter and Clinton Administrations. In 1996-97, he served on the USDA Civil Rights Implementation Team as Liaison to the Outreach, Farmworker and Program Delivery teams. A native of Guanajuato, Mexico, he came to the US at the age of 5, and has served as an organizer in Texas with the United Farmworkers Union and other groups. Email: hola_5@hotmail.com

	Dorathy Barker Board Member Executive Director, Operation Spring Plant Biography Dorathy Barker is an African American female farmer who has lived in Oxford, North Carolina since 1976. Mrs. Barker is a co-founder and the current Executive Director of Operation Spring Plant, Inc. (OSP), where she has been actively involved in all OSP programs and has been a major contributor in each of the organizational accomplishments. Mrs. Barker acts as a leader and advocate for economically distressed rural farmers and farm families in North Carolina and the Southeast, assisting African American, limited resource, and small family farmers to engage in timely seasonal planting activities, and providing assistance farming in sustaining their livelihood and the operations of their farms. INC (OSP) also provides outreach to farmers and landowners through out the southeast, developing markets for African American, limited resource and small family farmers, especially those affected by the recent tobacco buyout. Since 1991 Mrs. Barker formed and strengthened (WITA) Women in Today's Agriculture, made up of farm women and landowners throughout the Southeast. Due to the expanding survival needs of the community, OSP has developed additional goals to assist in meeting the needs of low-income, handicapped, and elderly segments of the communities.

Ex-Officio

Lorette Picciano

Ex-Officio

Executive Director

Rural Coalition

Biography

Emeritus

	John Bloch Board Member Emeritus Director The Markham Center Montpelier, VT Biography John, a Board member for two decades, has worked for years with community based groups through the Markham Center, a non-profit organization based in Montpelier, VT. For many years he taught low income adults technical skills in fundraising, computers and use of the Internet at the School of Human Services in St. Johnsbury, VT prior to assuming his current post working in Human Services for Vermont. John has made many trips to Mexico to work with our members, and was an election observer in Chihuahua in 1994. He has worked to help poor people and communities cross the "digital divide" and was a leader in developing the SuperMarket Project. Email: blochvt@aol.com

	Marge Townsend Board Member Emeritus President North American Farm Alliance Biography Treasurer Marge Townsend, President of the North American Farm Alliance, owns and operates a small farm where she produces certified organic beef. A social justice activist since the strongest days of the civil rights, antiwar, and economic justice movements, she has been active in the progressive farming and sustainable agriculture, through RC, the National Farmers Union and the National Family Farm Coalition. She represented family farmers at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and the World Food Summit in Rome, and on a delegation to Cuba. She has been a Board member since 1993. Email: farmermarg@orwell.net

	Patricia Bellanger Board Member Emeritus Rural Coalition leader since its inception and an American Indian Movement leader. Biography Patricia Bellanger, (her Ojibway name is Ah-Whan-Equay), a retired Board member and leader of our Coalition since its inception, has been with the American Indian Movement since 1968 and active on behalf of AIM in the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Opportunities Industrial Center. She was a legal assistant in juvenile law and with the Indian Child Welfare Act with Legal Services in Minneapolis. She initiated and led the Rural Coalition's Health and Environment subcommittee of the program committee, and was a founder of the RC's National Advisory Board for the Community-Responsive Partners Project. The Rural Coalition has chosen to recognize and honor Pat's long-time dedication to the Coalition by electing her to the special position of Board Member Emeritus. Email: azgah1@aol.com

	Hubert Sapp Chair Person Emeritus Senior Program Officer Hartford Foundation Biography Hubert Sapp is currently Senior Program Officer with the Hartford Foundation. He previously worked with Oxfam America as their first director of U.S. programs, and a faculty member and academic coordinator at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. A former director of the Highlander Center in Tennessee, Sapp has represented the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation to the Rural Coalition and served as our chair for four years, until 1992. The Coalition has chosen to honor Hubert's long-time dedication to the Coalition by electing him as Chair Person Emeritus. Email: hsapp@hartnet.org