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board
Rob Stephen, President
Stephen is the CEO of Coffee Solutions, a Boston-based training, 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 president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Board of Directors in 2006-2007. Mr. Stephen represents the United States at the Coffee subcommittee for the International Standards Organization and is a past chairman of the board for the World Barista Championship, Ltd.
William Allen, Vice President
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.
Elizabeth Whitlow Inman, Secretary
Whitlow Inman is a certification specialist administering organic certification for over 200 clients in Northern California for California Certified Organic Farmers in Sebastopol, Calif. Whitlow Inman also serves as a consultant to coffee roaster, Taylor Maid Farms, focusing on agroecology to track various aspects of coffee production, processing and consumption. In 2008, she served on the Conference Committee for the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual conference.
David Abedon, Treasurer and Co-Founder of Coffee Kids
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
Karen Cebreros
Cebreros is founder and president of Elan Certified Organic Coffees, a San Diego-based coffee developer and importer that offers a line of certified organic, shade grown, socially responsible coffees through partnerships with village cooperatives in Latin America, Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea. Following a trip to Peru in 1989, Karen decided to help farmers save their land and the health of their families by teaching them how to implement healthy, organic agricultural techniques. She set up agreements with farmers, oversaw their training in organic methods, arranged for certification programs, set up the infrastructure and brought the product to market. To meet the demand for certified shade grown, socially responsible coffees, Karen arranged strategic alliances between the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and Quality Assurance International to make shade and organic inspections simultaneously. She introduced a dozen cooperatives and Ecologic for pre-financing. Cebreros is a founding member of the SCAA Environmental Committee and the International Women’s Coffee Alliance and is a member of the Organic Trade Association, Coffee Kids Board of Directors, and Transfair USA, SCAA, PCAA and Grounds for Health.
William Mares
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 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.
May Sagbakken
Sagbakken is the program manager for Safe Schools/Healthy Students, in Albuquerque Public Schools. Sagbakken’s career has spanned two continents, having worked in both the public and private non-profit sectors in Europe (Norway and Switzerland) and North America (USA and Costa Rica). With both a Master of Community and Regional Planning and M. A. in Latin American Studies, Sagbakken has extensive non-profit management skills including project planning/implementation and coalition/partnership building with culturally complex populations.
Karl Schmidt
Schmidt is president of Probat Burns, a manufacturer of coffee and cocoa roasting equipment.