board

FOUNDER

Bill Fishbein
Bill Fishbein, owner of Coffee Exchange in Providence, R.I., has been working in coffee for most of his life. Fishbein created Coffee Kids in 1988 after witnessing the poverty and difficulties faced by coffee-farming families on a trip to Guatemala. Over the years, he has developed a profound understanding of community-driven development.

With Coffee Kids, Fishbein and his team followed an innovative approach to development allowing coffee-farming families to identify their most pressing needs and create their own projects to solve problems. These programs recognize the inherent ingenuity of coffee-farming families and respect the cultural values and norms of the communities.

In 2002, Fishbein was awarded the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) highest award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, for Coffee Kids’ innovative approach to grassroots development. In 2003, Coffee Kids was the subject of a PBS documentary called the Visionaries that highlighted Fishbein’s leadership.

Fishbein continues his advocacy on behalf of coffee-farming families, nurturing new relationships in the European Union, and looking to expand the Coffee Kids model to other industries as well.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rob Stephen, President
Rob Stephen is the owner of Coffee Solutions, a Boston-based consulting and quality assurance company that services the global coffee market. Prior to founding Coffee Solutions, he was the leader of the green coffee department for Dunkin’ Donuts, where he oversaw one of the largest coffee supply chains in the world, and helped move the company toward Fair Trade and other sustainable coffee sources. He served as the immediate past president of the SCAA Board of Directors. Recently, Stephen was tapped as an instructor for the Star Cupper program, a USAID funded initiative that trains promising young coffee tasters in Central America on Specialty Coffee Standards.

William Allen, Vice President
William Allen is an adjunct lecturer at Brown University, Boston Graduate School of Social Work and Providence College. Throughout his 35-year career, Allen has been an innovative and strategic leader in the philanthropic and non-profit sectors. Prior to his current role in education, he served as executive vice president of community services at the United Way of Rhode Island. Under his leadership, the United Way played a key role in various workforce development programs and affordable housing initiatives, and he helped lead a coalition for welfare reform in Rhode Island.

Cate Baril, Secretary
Cate Batson Baril is a business development director at TransFair, USA, focusing on chocolate, sugar and vanilla. Her ten years in design and marketing at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters exposed her to both the beauty and the harsh reality of life for coffee farmers. Baril was part of the team that developed GMCR’s highly popular Fair Trade and Organic, and Newman’s Own Organics product lines. She served on both the marketing and sustainability committees for the SCAA, and as an advisory board member for United Students for Fair Trade (USFT). Baril is the head of the Coffee Kids marketing committee.

David Abedon, Treasurer and Co-Founder of Coffee Kids
David Abedon is a professor and cooperative extension appointee in the Department of Natural Resource Science at the University of Rhode Island. He also directs the University’s Minor in International Development (MIND) program. In conjunction with the MIND Program, Abedon has brought over 200 students to Costa Rica to visit coffee-producing regions. His research has also led him to study in the rainforests of Brazil; work with wild goats and develop conservation plans in Crete, Greece; and research mammal biodiversity in the coffee lands of Costa Rica. Abedon serves on various environmental boards and commissions.

Mona Blaber
Mona Blaber is a freelance editor and writer who has also worked as an organizer and press director on elections at the local, state and federal level. In 1999, while Blaber was working at The Santa Fe New Mexican, the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle inspired her to volunteer for Coffee Kids as a way to take action locally to help improve the quality of life for workers in other parts of the world. In the process of designing the organization’s quarterly newsletters over the next several years, Blaber got a close-up look at the resourcefulness and inventiveness of Coffee Kids and its partners, as well as the dedication, ingenuity and friendliness of its staff.

Mike Lawrence
Mike Lawrence is the executive vice president for corporate responsibility and crisis prevention and management at Cone LLC, a Boston-based brand strategy and communications agency. Lawrence has extensive experience with the coffee industry helping develop social responsibility programs for major coffee companies, as well as working with organizations such as Oxfam America and TransFair . Before joining Cone, Lawrence worked for 26 years as a print and broadcast journalist in several states. Lawrence serves on the Coffee Kids marketing committee.

William Mares
William Mares recently retired from teaching history at Champlain Valley Union High School in Vermont. Mares holds an A.B. from Harvard College and an M.A. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. As a writer and photographer, Mares has done freelance work for the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist and worked at newspapers in Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire and Vermont. He has authored a number of books, including most recently, The Vermont Owner’s Manual and Bees Besieged. Mares served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1985-1991. He is currently the vice president of the Vermont Beekeepers Association.

Rick Peyser
Peyser is director of social advocacy and coffee community outreach for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Waterbury, Vt., where he has worked for over 19 years. He is a past president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, the largest coffee trade association in the world. As president of the Coffee Kids board of directors, Peyser leads the processes of growth and strategic planning for the future. Peyser is also a member of the board of directors of Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) headquartered in Germany, which sets the international standards for Fair Trade that benefit over 1,000,000 small-scale farmers around the world.