Eating Your Greens: Innovations in Agriculture & Food
Friday, April 11 | 2:45-4:00PM |Ford Shop
Amber Gribben is a co-owner of Urban Worm Girl, an industry leader in composting and vermicomposting. After years of cringing at the thought of throwing things in the “trash” Amber Gribben took her years of strategic marketing and product development for the publishing world, and applied it to her passion for reducing waste and improving the quality of the environment. Since 2008, she has been introducing this innovative sustainability practice to the Chicago region through Urban Worm Girl, empowering hundreds of families, students, business owners, and classrooms to make better decisions about composting waste, and has helped to restore much-needed nutrients and vitality to our community landscape.
Wes King is the Executive Director for Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA). After working as an organizer at the Illinois Environmental, Wes joined ISA in the spring of 2009 as Policy Coordinator and later as Policy Director, and in January of 2013 he started work as ISA’s Interim Executive Director. Beyond executive management functions, the focus of his work is developing and monitoring sustainable agriculture and local food related legislation in Springfield and at the Federal Level. In addition, Wes is working on organizing and building the capacity of grassroots stakeholders to influence food and farm related policy decisions. On the national level, Wes serves as the co-chair for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s Marketing, Food Systems, and Rural Development Committee.
James Rakocy has been involved with aquaponic research and development for 36 years. He worked for years he at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) where he developed the well-known UVI aquaponic system, the basis of many commercial operations. In 1999 he initiated an annual training program at UVI that attracted 566 students from 45 U.S. states and 56 countries. He has been invited to lecture on aquaponics in numerous training programs and conferences both nationally and internationally. He was honored for his contributions to aquaponics at the 2nd International Aquaponics Congress in Cancun, Mexico in September 2011. In 2012, he formed The Aquaponics Doctors, an aquaponics consulting company. He continues to teach aquaponics for Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems in Florida and is co-authoring a book on aquaponics.