About / Our Team

Our Team

We Are

Vision Holders:
We are catalysts in our communities. We believe we can build a sustainable Montana for all.

Greater Together:
We believe change is possible through sustained, genuine, community-based relationships.

Compassionate:
We are kind and generous towards each other. We make space for everyone to show up as they are. Authenticity is encouraged.

Accountable:
We do what we say we’re going to do and we do it with integrity.

Imaginative Pragmatists:
We are curious learners who find creative solutions rooted in practicality.

Agile:
We are humble in our work and willing to pivot when flexibility is needed.

Playful:
We are a smiley bunch who bring a sense of humor into our work. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Employees

Robin Kelson

Executive Director

Erin Austin

Director of Community Partners and Sales

Sammie McGowan

Director of Marketing and Communications

Emilee Wood

Communications Coordinator

Michal DeChellis

Community Food System Assessments Program Manager

Clare Jurczak

Community Food System Assessment Coordinator

Kirsten Sabin

Sales Manager

Board of Directors

Ada Smith, Missoula

Chair, Secretary

Rob Byron, MD, MPH, Red Lodge

Board Member

Jeremy Nadison, Bozeman

Treasurer

Sophie Albert, Whitefish

Board Member

Scot Chisholm, Whitefish

Board Member

Advisory Team

Scot Chisholm

Travis Yuzik

Join the Board of Directors

Are you passionate about ensuring all Montanans have reliable access to healthy food today and for generations to come? Apply to join our organization’s Board of Directors. We are looking for creative thinking, practical solution-finders from across the state who want to roll up their sleeves and make change happen. Join us in getting 33% Montana-grown food on all Montana plates by 2033.

Apply Here

Join Our Team!

View current job openings.

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Robin Kelson

Robin joined AERO’s staff in 2020 after two terms on the AERO Board of Directors. She is a graduate of the Leadership Montana Flagship Class of 2023. An attorney, biochemist and facilitator by training, and an information synthesizer by nature, Robin has worked with start-ups and established businesses, and held executive positions in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Her passion and curiosity focuses on human vitality and the inherent resiliency in evolution and ecosystems. This has led her career choices in the sustainable energy, stewardship agriculture, and nutritional health fields for over 20 years.

Email Robin at [email protected].

Erin Austin

Erin believes growing, cooking, and sharing food in community heals. Her diverse career path has always centered on sustainability and equity. She brings experience working on organic farms, managing school meal programs, researching transit oriented development, advocating for sustainable agriculture policy, and directing nature-based therapeutic trauma programs. She believes that through a process of reconnecting to our internal environment, our communities, and the outdoors, we can restore balance with nature, pursue ambitious solutions to climate change, and lead joy-filled, sustainable lives. Erin is a former AERO Board member.

Email Erin at: [email protected]

Sammie McGowan

After graduating from the George Washington University with a BA concentrating in marketing and international business, she set her sights on conquering Corporate America. When that failed to fulfill her, she moved to Alaska to become a hiking guide in Denali National Park where she found her passion for caring for the earth and all its inhabitants. As a Sustainability Educator for the Whitefish School District, she found a passion for growing healthy food, creating healthy soil, and making healthy food accessible for all people.

Email Sammie at: [email protected]

Emilee Wood

Emilee received her BA in Anthropology from Ball State University. Through her degree and time abroad, Emilee developed an interest in elevating the voices and stories of others, particularly those which offer “counter-narratives.” She believes that food and land are a potent means of constructing identity and community, and that a reciprocal relationship with the land will create a healthy future for all. She can often be found with her hands in the dirt, and enjoys sharing homegrown food and flowers with the people she loves.

Email Emilee at: [email protected]

Michal DeChellis

Michal is a food systems consultant with a background in public health, farm to school, and program and project management. Michal is passionate about building an equitable and humane food system and promoting healthy and vibrant individuals, communities, and ecosystems.

For information about AERO’s MFEI program contact Michal at: [email protected]

Clare Jurczak

Clare grew up cooking, preserving, and subsistence harvesting food with her family in Alaska. Sharing food is how she saw her community take care of each other and inspired her to take action in food security initiatives. When Clare moved to Montana a decade ago, she became enamored by the working agricultural landscapes and people stewarding them. Clare is passionate about supporting efforts to make Montana’s food system more equitable and sustainable for all. Clare brings a background in resource monitoring and environmental education to the Abundant Montana team and is a working ceramics artist.

Email Clare at [email protected].

Kirsten Sabin

As a life-long Montana resident, Kirsten has a deep connection to this state, its people and magnificent scenery. She holds a degree in Business Marketing from University of Montana, and has had a diverse career path. Her entrepreneurial spirit led her to start her first small business, a coffee cart, right out of college. After moving to Whitefish, Kirsten discovered a love of sales. As a Web Sales consultant, she witnessed firsthand the positive impact for clients when they were matched with the proper website solution for their needs. After her 2nd child was born, an opportunity to help launch a new children’s footwear company allowed Kirsten the freedom to work from home, and travel to trade shows around the US (with her baby!)

She and her husband co-owned Stillwater Mountain Lodge & Nordic Ski Center outside Whitefish from 2005-2018. Though wearing many hats as an owner, her main focus was on marketing, guest & community relations as well as event promotion. Kirsten was drawn to join Abundant Montana’s team because she has a desire to help make a positive impact for Montana’s purpose-driven food and farming businesses who are ‘in the trenches’ working hard to succeed. When she is not working with Abundant Montana, Kirsten enjoys teaching yoga, skiing, hiking, trail running with her Aussie, trying new recipes and family time. She serves on the Board for the Backpack Assistance Program in Whitefish.

Email Kirsten at: [email protected]

Ada Smith

Growing up on a farmstead in rural Wisconsin and spending summers on her grandparents ranch in Montana were formative in developing Ada’s interest in food systems. In Ada’s current research as a PhD Candidate at the University of Montana, she is working with ranchers to understand how adaptive rangeland management practices are being utilized to support ecological and economic sustainability in Montana. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Wellesley College and her M.A. in Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia working in partnership with Gitxaala Nation to understand and support a community food sovereignty program, which included efforts to integrate Indigenous knowledge into food literacy curriculum.

Rob Byron

Robert is an internist who lives in Hardin, Montana. He received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, served four years as an officer in the US Navy, before then earned his MD from the University of Louisville. He moved to Hardin where he worked on the Crow Reservation for over two decades. With Lori, his wife, he is co-chair of the Citizens Climate Lobby Health Team and helped start Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate. He is one of the lead authors of the recently released “Climate Change and Human Health in Montana” report. He has been a strong advocate for sustainability, environmental justice and climate change issues at the state and national level.

Jeremy Nadison

Jeremy joins the AERO board with seven years of sustainable infrastructure investment and regional food system development and lending experience. Jeremy has spent the last few years supporting his regional food system through land access, processing infrastructure, and financing projects. Jeremy is now a member of the Steward team where he focuses on financial underwriting and improving community-led financing access to farmers, ranchers, and other small food systems companies. Jeremy lives in Bozeman and loves spending time in the mountains of Southwest Montana.

Sophie Albert

Sophie Albert is the Executive Director at the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish, MT where she is working on shifting the focus from traditional emergency food assistance to providing more holistic services and building a strong community food system with abundant access to fresh, nutritious and local food for all. Sophie has more than 10 years of non-profit experience managing educational and social service programs in Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan and the US. Sophie is a passionate advocate for socially just systems and resilient communities. Prior to building food security in North-West Montana, Sophie served as the Director for Refugee Programs at The Alliance in Houston, Texas, where she led the Covid-19 response for local refugee and immigrant communities. She holds a Master of Disaster Management from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Sophie is originally from Germany and her family is home in a small farming community in the Lusatian Mountains on the southeastern border with Czech Republic and Poland. She moved to the US in 2016 to join her husband, Chris, after meeting him overseas. In her free time, Sophie loves swimming, snowboarding, writing, rummaging the local bookstore, and exploring the beauty of Montana with her tiny daughter, Frankie, her husband and their dog, Einstein.

Scot Chisholm

As Classy's CEO, which he co founded in 2006, Scot helped raise $6B+ for social good through the software company and non-profit giving platform. His current Montana-based projects include Haskill Creek Farms, a for-profit social enterprise and certified B Corp, focused on wellness for our human and planetary health, and Save Farmland, a 501 (c) (3) non profit, committed to preserving farmland and supporting the future of sustainable community agriculture and healthy local food access in Montana’s Flathead Valley.

Scot Chisholm

Travis Yuzik

Raised in a rural farming community in northern Saskatchewan, but has adopted Billings as his home since 2015, Travis uses his metal fabrication company Atomic Industries as a platform for his commitment to being a positive force for change in the world. In all areas of his work, be it customer relations, team development, product delivery, or community volunteer efforts, Travis focuses on opportunities to build lasting connection through communication that fosters unity and cooperation.