Our Team
Sherri Dugger
she/herExecutive Director
With nearly two decades of experience editing magazines and books, Sherri now puts her media and public relations experience to work in the agriculture field. Prior to joining SRAP, Sherri served in executive director roles at Women, Food and Agriculture Network and Indiana Farmers Union. She also has served as a policy and communications consultant for American Grassfed Association, as a Midwest outreach consultant for Earthjustice, and as a rural affairs consultant for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Read More
Chris Hunt
he/himDeputy Director
Chris serves as SRAP’s deputy director, providing oversight and strategic guidance on programs, communications, partnerships, and organizational development. Previously, Chris served as communications director and senior advisor for ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste in the U.S., and spent more than a decade in the philanthropic sector, focusing on sustainable agriculture advocacy and food system reform. Read More
Reva Baylets
she/herOperations Associate
Reva joined the team in March 2023 after serving in a number of business administrative roles, including nearly a decade in both the organic certification and farmers market/food production worlds. Since good food has always held great influence in her personal life and professional career, transitioning to serving SRAP’s mission naturally aligned. Read More
Ashlen Busick
she/herFood & Farm Network Director
Ashlen grew up on a family farm in Northern Missouri next to one of the state’s largest corporate hog operations. Her family’s ongoing battle for justice and advocacy for family farms led her to the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, where she assists communities across the Midwest in navigating factory farm regulation and opportunities for public engagement. Read More
Rachel Casteel
she/herRegional Representative
Rachel grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the ever-looming industry kindled her passion for community organizing, environmental and social justice, and advocacy. She is a graduate from Thiel College with a degree in environmental science and minors in food and agricultural biology, and wildlife biology. Read More
Karen "Susie" Crutchfield
Regional Representative, Contract Grower Transition ProgramSusie and her husband Mitchell were contract growers for Tyson for 25 years, until the demands of the poultry integrator pushed them out of business in 2012. As part of SRAP’s Contract Grower Transition Program, Susie educates farmers about the harms of the integrated model by providing personal stories of oppression, debt, and her fight to save her family from the clutches of big corporate integrators. Read More
Chris Culbreth
she/herCommunity Support Team Associate
Chris joined SRAP in April 2023. She brings with her a passion for social justice and an extensive background in non-profit work, in particular, the provision of legal services to the most vulnerable of populations. This includes victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, incarcerated persons, and people facing foreclosure, eviction, and bankruptcy. Her volunteer work has been for organizations focused on political prisoners, racial justice, worker’s rights, animal welfare, and tenant’s rights. Read More
Michael Diaz
Regional Representative, Contract Grower Transition ProgramMichael is a former contract grower for big poultry integrators Pilgrim’s Pride and Amicks. Personal experience gives Michael insight into how corporations make profits by financially trapping contract farmers. As part of SRAP’s Contract Grower Transition Program, Michael educates farmers and communities about the harms of corporate farming. Read More
Cole Dickerson
he/himWater Rangers Program Manager
Cole’s passion for environmentally and socially responsible food systems grew out of his love for carrots and snack peppers. While studying environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, he started working for a student-run organization that offered CSA shares for students. The carrots and snack peppers were so good he stuck around and found a passion for working with local producers and local communities as a whole. Read More
Mary Dougherty
she/herSenior Regional Representative
Mary, a mother of five, is an experienced community organizer, county board supervisor, photographer, cookbook author, former nonprofit executive director, and entrepreneur. In 2015, she successfully led an effort to stop a 26,000-head hog operation in northern Wisconsin. That experience led to an opportunity to work as an SRAP community organizer and president of Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network, a coalition of grassroots groups dedicated to fighting factory farms. Mary led a campaign for a statewide factory farm moratorium with over 60 cosponsors. She also created a factory farm toolkit and supported efforts to pass precedent-setting factory farm ordinances in Wisconsin. Read More
Tom Driscoll
he/himCommunications Director
Tom brings 15 years of experience at the nexus of farm, food, and environmental policy to his work as SRAP’s communications director. Before joining SRAP, Tom shared his expertise with clients pursuing social and environmental justice through farm and food system organizing and advocacy. His work as a consultant was informed by five years spent in government relations, outreach, and education with National Farmers Union. Previous work on Capitol Hill and with U.S. EPA and Midwest Environmental Advocates inform his communications strategy. Read More
Tina Empey
she/herCommunity Support Program Director
Tina grew up in Utah and though she is not a farmer herself, she comes from a long line of farmers and is an animal lover at heart. While earning her degree from Weber State University, she became involved with Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water (ICCAW), where she conducted water monitoring training with people living in rural communities near CAFOs. Her experiences on the ground led her to focus much of her undergraduate work and research on CAFOs as a public health problem. Read More
Katie Engelman
she/herOperations & HR Director
Katie grew up in a small rural Illinois town. She attended college in Northern Wisconsin where she majored in Environmental Studies and Sustainable Community Development. She has spent many hours volunteering and learning on small-scale family farms throughout the Midwest. In 2013, Katie became an AmeriCorps VISTA service member, which brought her to Oregon to work with a regional food bank. There she helped operate a small urban farm with local teens.
Julia Groenfeldt
she/herDevelopment Manager
Julia serves as development manager, managing the daily activities of SRAP’s development programs and assisting with goals and strategies for fundraising campaigns. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Global Environmental Studies & Food Systems and Master of Arts in Community Development and Planning from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Read More
Lynn Henning
she/herWater Rangers Program Director
Lynn emerged as a leading voice calling on state and federal authorities to hold livestock factory farms accountable to water and air quality laws. With her husband, she farms 300 acres of corn and soybeans in Lenawee County, Michigan, within 10 miles of 12 CAFOs. As a result of her work to stop pollution from factory farms and to hold state and federal agencies accountable to enforcing laws, Lynn won the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize—the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Read More
Elisabeth Holmes
she/herSenior Counsel
Elisabeth (“Eli”) has practiced environmental, public health, and civil litigation for 20 years. She is familiar with federal, state, and local legal issues facing communities on the front lines of the factory farm fight, and has represented communities across the U.S. in landmark pollution, human health, and animal welfare enforcement cases, including through federal court trials and appeals. Eli attended Mount Holyoke College (B.A.), Boston University School of Law (J.D.), and University of Oregon (LL.M.) where natural resource extraction, colonization and oppression, and environmental and food sovereignty were constant themes in her academic work. Read More
Donald Hutchinson
GIS, Research & Resources SpecialistDonald grew up in rural southwest Virginia. For more than 20 years, he has been involved with environmental, animal welfare, and racial justice groups in various capacities, from organizing fundraising events to leading outreach efforts around racial justice issues. Donald has a BA in Geography and geographic information systems (GIS). In his current studies, he is exploring new ways to utilize GIS for social and environmental justice. Read More
Lia Kahan
they/themImpacted Communities Coordinator
Lia is an environmental justice organizer and emerging public health professional living on unceded Naumkeag, Massa-adchu-es-et and Pawtucket land in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from the Midwest, they grew up between Flint and Detroit, Michigan, at the height of the water crises and saw firsthand the power of grassroots organizing, citizen science, and community care. Read More
Teresa Mitchell Clausen
she/herRegional Representative
Teresa is a native Oregonian, although she hails from generations of farmers centered in the Midwest. Teresa has memories of visiting relatives as she was growing up and experiencing large CAFOs in Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. So when she met a land scout for a large company and discovered one was being built right next door to her home, it became not only personal, but all-encompassing since she was so familiar with the demographics and biodiversity of the Santiam Canyon. Read More
Mercedes Taylor-Puckett
she/herFinance Manager
After two decades working on local and regional food systems, Mercedes returned to college during the pandemic to study accounting. She joined SRAP in 2021 as an operations assistant. In the 1990s, Mercedes was a market farmer then served as manager of the Downtown Lawrence Farmers Market from 2004 to 2008—just as interest in local food exploded nationwide. Read More
Craig Watts
he/himContract Grower Transition Program Director
Craig is a former contract chicken grower for poultry giant Perdue. He made headlines when he teamed up with Compassion in World Farming USA to expose animal issues rampant throughout the company's operations. Craig's story has been featured in the New York Times and on Tonight with John Oliver. Read More
Charline Whyte
she/herStaff Attorney
Charline serves as staff attorney, providing direct support and guidance to SRAP staff and communities for advocacy purposes. She’s a Cum Laude graduate from the Birmingham School of Law, where she has since served as a professor. As a practicing attorney, Charline has worked with the Latino community in personal injury, Federal Labor Standard Act violations, and family law. Read More
Board of Directors
Monica Richardson Brooks
Cofounder, Concerned Citizens Against Industrial CAFOsMonica Richardson Brooks is a community leader who organizes against the expansion of mega-poultry complexes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Monica cofounded the citizens group Concerned Citizens Against Industrial CAFOs, which stopped the siting of what would have been the largest-ever poultry complex in Maryland. Personally, she is a pastor’s wife, mother, business owner, and Spanish teacher. While she leads a full life, she will never be too busy to fight for environmental and social justice. Read More
Mike Callicrate
Farmer-rancher, Business Entrepreneur, and Family Farm AdvocateMike Callicrate is a farmer-rancher, business entrepreneur and family farm advocate. A native of Evergreen, Colorado, he began his career by earning a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Colorado State University in 1975. After college, he started farming and ranching at St. Francis, Kansas. In 2000, he formed Ranch Foods Direct, a branded beef company and retail and online food store located in Colorado Springs. His fabrication plant processes high quality meats, and his retail store sells those products along with many other seasonal and handcrafted items from the surrounding area. Read More
Jessica Culpepper
she/herExecutive Director, FarmSTAND
Jessica Culpepper (she/her) is the Executive Director of FarmSTAND, leading the organization’s staff and board to fight for a fair food system in courtrooms and communities. Jessica’s 16-year career has been entirely focused on legal advocacy on behalf of farmed animals and communities harmed by industrial animal agribusiness. Her fight for a fair food system began at her alma mater, Warren Wilson College, a work college with a sustainable working farm and garden. Read More
Austin Frerick
he/himFellow, Yale University and Author, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry
Austin Frerick is an expert on agricultural and antitrust policy. He worked at the Open Markets Institute, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and the Congressional Research Service before becoming a Fellow at Yale University. He is a seventh-generation Iowan and first-generation college graduate, with degrees from Grinnell College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Robert S. Lawrence
he/himCenter for a Livable Future Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Robert S. Lawrence, MD is the Center for a Livable Future Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the founding director of the Center for a Livable Future (1996-2015), which supports research and develops policies related to the public health impacts of industrial food animal production, improving food security, fulfilling the right to food, and adopting healthier diets. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Read More
Don Stull
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of KansasDon Stull is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Kansas, where he taught from 1975 to 2015. Don holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. For the past three decades his research and writing have focused on the meat and poultry industry in North America; rural industrialization and rapid-growth communities; industrial agriculture’s impact on farmers, processing workers, and rural communities; and food. Read More