Katrina Frey- Demeter President
Email: Katrina@Demeter-USA.org
Katrina is the Executive Director for Frey Vineyards, Ltd. in Redwood Valley, CA.  Since founding the pioneering organic and Biodynamic® winery in 1980 with her husband, she has guided the winery’s growth from 2,000 cases to 90,000 cases.  After graduating from Earlham College, Katrina moved to northern CA where she studied Biodynamic farming under Alan Chadwick, the influential English horticulturist.  Katrina has spoken about additive free wines and Biodynamic@ Farming at EcoFarm, IFOAM international conferences, and Expo East and West. In 2003 she was a strategy team member of the successful citizen’s initiative to ban the propagation of genetically engineered crops and animals in Mendocino CA. An avid beekeeper, you can read her blog on www.freywine.com

Paul Reidl
Email: reidl@sbcglobal.net
After graduating from George Washington University Law School in 1980, Paul spent 10 years with the Washington, D.C. firm of Crowell & Moring where he represented clients in litigation matters. He spent the next 18 years as Associate General Counsel of a billion dollar global company, E. & J. Gallo Winery. Paul’s practice concentrated on intellectual property and international law. He also counseled on contracts, labeling and regulatory matters.  Paul now practices copyright, trademark and wine law for clients in various industries, serving as Principal Attorney at the Law Offices of Paul Reidl. In the trademark area, he handles the full spectrum of trademark-related issues, from clearance through litigation. His wine law practice counsels clients on legal and business matters in the United States and abroad.   He has served as the President of the International Trademark Association and is also on the Board of Directors of the Coastside Land Trust, which is dedicated to preserving the coastal open space in the Half Moon Bay, California, area.

Glenn McGourty
Email: Glenn@Demeter-USA.org
Glenn is the Winegrowing and Plant Science Advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension Offices in Lake and Mendocino County.  He received an AB degree in Botany from Humboldt State University in 1974, and an MS degree in Plant Soil and Water Science from the University of Nevada.  Glenn started his career as a lab assistant for Driscoll Strawberry Associates in Watsonville, California, then worked as an Extension Horticulturist for the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension in Las Vegas.  Next, Glenn returned to California to manage his family’s almond and walnut orchards, while lecturing in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  He completed additional graduate work in the Agricultural Business Management department, focusing on marketing of agricultural products.  Glenn joined UC Cooperative Extension in 1987, and works with wine grape growers, wineries, nurseries, landscapers and vegetable growers.

Morris Shriftman
Email: Mo@Mozartinc.com
Morris is an experienced marketing executive with thirty years of branding, sales development and distribution knowledge in the natural and organic food and nutritional supplement industries.  His career in marketing for the “natural space” has been characterized by his artistic approach to effecting positive change. Morris became involved with his first natural products client, Tree of Life, during the early 1970s, when the company was still a small neighborhood grocery store. He helped turn Tree of Life into a major retail brand and successful distributor of natural and organic products by creating retailer-oriented programs and by launching the company’s new image with the creation of a logo, catalogs, and marketing literature.  By building upon client companies’ sense of purpose, purity of ingredients, product differentiation, or their higher mission of social importance, his work has also helped establish many brands as industry staples, such as Horizon Organic Dairy and Traditional Medicinals.   Morris is currently the CEO of marketing communications firm Mozart, Inc., which specializes in natural and organic products and herbal and alternative medicine.

Mary-Elizabeth Gifford
Email: MaryElizabeth@Demeter-USA.org
A strategist and social entrepreneur known for her work in organic luxury, natural beauty, and global sustainability issues, Mary-Elizabeth has worked for some of the world’s leading destination spas as well as on the green side of the beauty and skin care business.  In addition to serving as a Board member of both Demeter and Stellar, she is a past Director of the International Spa Association and is currently Vice-Chair of the Washington National Spa Alliance, and Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Center for Responsible Travel, based in Washington, D.C., and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Mary-Elizabeth, a native New Yorker, graduated from Brown University with honors and had a year of post-graduate study at Harvard University, where she was an Affiliate of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation of Journalism.  She has presented at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, the Global Spa Summit, the annual LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) Forum in Boulder, the International Spa Association,and on the faculty of the Health and Beauty Association. A prize-winning former journalist, her work has been published in Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, an editor at NPR, National Public Radio, and their family.

Mark Steele
Mark is a Managing Director of Convertible Bonds at Sterne Agee. Prior to joining Sterne Agee, Mark was a founder and managing partner of KKS Securities, a boutique Wall Street firm focusing on debt solutions for companies and investors. Mark also worked as a Managing Director at Thomas Weisel Partners for eight years, a publicly traded Wall Street Investment firm, focusing on mid-cap growth companies. Mark graduated from Golden Gate University with a BA in Business Administration with an emphasis on Economics and Finance. Mark’s real passion is Biodynamic and organic farming and he has been assisting Demeter, Stellar and their affiliates for several years. Mark’s brother and sister-in-law own Cowhorn Vineyard & Garden, a Demeter-certified Biodynamic vineyard and farm in Southern Oregon. Mark enjoys spending time with his two children, Sara and Caroline.