Our Team

The nonprofit board and advisory board of Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Education Foundation and Sweet Wheel Farm are rooted in decades of hands-on service, both in the fields and in the community. Together, these leaders steward a vision of food security, environmental regeneration, and health equity that begins in the soil and extends to every household reached by the farm’s programs. Their combined governance ensures that every initiative—whether it is feeding food-fragile families, educating children, or piloting new farm technologies—remains accountable, transparent, and deeply aligned with the nonprofit’s mission.

Board members bring professional depth in nonprofit leadership and governance, helping the Foundation develop sustainable funding strategies, rigorous oversight, and long-term planning that protects Sweet Wheel Farm as a community asset. This expertise sustains a closed-loop, community-driven food system that grows, harvests, and distributes chemical-free produce within Santa Barbara County’s food desert communities. Through careful policy setting and strategic partnerships, the board safeguards the farm’s role as an educational green space, a fire-resilient greenbelt, and a dependable source of dignified nutrition for vulnerable residents.

The advisory board layers in specialized knowledge in farming, botany, soil health, nutrition, and public health, ensuring that Sweet Wheel’s regenerative practices and “food as medicine” ethos stay at the leading edge of science and best practice. Advisors help shape curriculum that teaches children and adults how food is grown, propagated, grafted, and harvested without herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers, connecting ecological literacy with lifelong health. This multidisciplinary guidance keeps the farm’s education programs practical, evidence-based, and culturally responsive for veterans, medically fragile neighbors, and under-resourced families alike.

Marketing, communications, engineering, and innovation experts on the advisory team help amplify the Foundation’s impact and strengthen its resilience. From telling the story of a zero-emissions, closed-loop farm system to designing water- and energy-saving infrastructure such as moisture-capture technologies, these advisors translate complex ideas into accessible solutions and community support. Their collaboration with board leadership allows Sweet Wheel Farm and the Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Education Foundation to remain a model of regenerative agriculture, community-powered nutrition, and hopeful innovation for Santa Barbara County and beyond