Deb Freeman hosts the critically acclaimed podcast, Setting the Table. She has written for The Local Palate, Plate, Food 52, Epicurious, Garden and Gun, Pit, Gravy, Southern Grit, and Gastro Obscura; has had her work featured in Huffington Post; and has done cultural commentary for BBC Radio and other international outlets. Freeman writes about the intersection of race, culture, and food.

Virginian Joshua “Fitz” Fitzwater, founder of Southern Grit magazine, has been featured in Garden and Gun, Gravy, and the Virginian-Pilot newspaper for his work with heirloom watermelons. He has searched for the South’s rarest and greatest heirloom watermelons, led large-scale heirloom watermelon grows in Fredericksburg (Virginia), and gotten many heirloom watermelons into the hands of Virginia chefs and restaurateurs. This work led to a collaboration with Hampton Roads chefs to make watermelon hot sauce and barbecue sauce that garnered both national and regional press.

Artist-miniaturist Sergey Jivetin connects with growers, breeders, and seed savers and memorializes their contributions into actual seed pods through the art of hand engraving. He displays this work in the traveling Furrow project. Growing up in Uzbekistan, the site of one of the greatest ecological disasters of the 20th century, heightened Jivetin's sense of the preciousness of natural resources and their management. Since coming to the United States in 1994, he has expanded his practice from wearable jewelry to experimental flatware, scientific and medical apparatus, sculptural objects, and site-specific installations. He has received fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Peter S. Reed Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Jivetin's work is in the permanent collections of many public and private entities, including the Smithsonian Institution, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Dallas Museum of Art.

Stephen Silverbear McComber is a traditional Haudenosaunee elder and seed keeper from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake and a Bear Clan member. He serves as a faith keeper and manager of spiritual, traditional ceremonies at the Mohawk Trail Longhouse in Kahnawake near Montreal, Québec, Canada. Also considered one of the foremost Native artists in Québec, Stephen received the Canada Council for the Arts Award in 1985 and 2002. He has been invited to speak about corn at conferences in Mexico in 2012, 2016, and 2020 and has worked as a traditional Native elder with Correctional Services Canada since 2007. Stephen is a proud grandfather of 12.

Brennan Allsworth, field operations coordinator at Seed Savers Exchange, is an avid seed steward who enjoys the countless aspects of farming, including making sauerkraut, pressing apples, growing grains for the mill, and cutting a fresh bouquet. They bring a wide array of experience to the crew, having worked/volunteered on countless homesteads and gardens around the world; started a small farming cooperative growing seeds, vegetables, fruits, and livestock; and worked for a large-scale grain-processing company. Originally from northern Illinois, they spent many years in Boise, Idaho, before heading back east to Iowa. When not farming, they can be found strumming the banjo or hiking and making delicious food with their loved ones.

Hannah Breckbill is a first-generation farmer, growing organic vegetables, pastured pork, grass-fed lamb, and perennial crops with Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned cooperative about eight miles from Seed Savers Heritage Farm. Building her farm from scratch taught her a thing or two about the value of relying on neighbors and friends to bring a vision to life. Now, she has a role with Practical Farmers of Iowa as a land access navigator, serving as a sounding board and coach to beginning farmers in search of places to grow.

Kristin Eggen is the development and membership assistant at Seed Savers Exchange. She is a gift-entry ninja, queen of the postage machine, and professional doodler. Her spirit vegetable is red-head lettuce, which she grows alongside ‘Wapsipinicon Peach’ tomatoes and ‘Arikara Yellow’ beans. After work, you’ll find her managing the local farmers market or fussing over her coonhound, Dexter.

Cindy Goodner, Seed Savers Exchange’s development officer,leads efforts to help our community of supporters find joy in their support for our nonprofit mission. Fiercely passionate about our mission, she is an enthusiastic beginning gardener who prior to joining the organization in 2014 had eight years of experience as a volunteer fundraiser championing two regional bicycle trail systems in central Iowa.

Sierra Kruger, Seed Savers Exchange’s storytelling and signage intern, grew up in the Decorah, Iowa, area helping her grandmother and mother garden from a young age. Sierra loves being outdoors. Some of her hobbies include hiking, kayaking, fishing, hammocking, and gardening with her mother. Sierra attends Iowa State University for graphic design with a minor in marketing and has an interest in botanical art.

Abe Mendez is enjoying his 15th year at Seed Savers Exchange, focusing on stewarding our membership community. He is a data detective across the organization's software platforms. His plant interest lies with the herbs, particularly those that inspire new cocktails. When not helping his wife on the family strawberry farm, Abe enjoys listening to his record collection with the family cats.

John Reynolds, Seed Savers Exchange’s co-interim executive director, and his family have purchased Seed Savers Exchange seeds since 2010 for their raised-bed urban garden. He formerly oversaw the sales and business operations of the Seed House at Heritage Farm, having acquired a wealth of digital marketing and ecommerce experience from his time working in New York City.

Kate Rowe, Seed Savers Exchange greenhouse coordinator, began farming in the Chicago area after earning her graduate degree from Savannah College of Art and Design and serving in AmeriCorps. Later, Kate moved to the East Coast, where she started a restaurant farm, managed a CSA farm, worked on small-scale dairies, made cheese, and eventually ran her own small farm in the Hudson Valley. As the SSE greenhouse coordinator, Kate is responsible for seeding, watering, and caring for all Heritage Farm crops across multiple greenhouses. Once these young plants move from the greenhouse to their fields and gardens, she works with SSE crews in the field, then harvests, processes, and cleans all wet-seeded crops for the SSE Collection. When she is not working, Kate loves to cook, spend time with her family and friends, bike, and garden.

Jeanine Scheffert, Seed Savers Exchange education and engagement manager, has been growing food, loving flowers, and finding inspiration in the beauty of her garden ever since she can remember. With a background in education, painting, and printmaking as well as a love of gardening and a passion for facilitating connection, engagement, and empowerment, Jeanine oversees SSE’s education and engagement programs and spends her workdays being inspired by seeds and the community they create.

Evan Wisdom-Dawson (she/they) is a PhD candidate and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellow in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. Her research considers the social, cultural, and political paradigms at work in narratives of climate change and environmental crisis across media. With her work on seeds as media in both fictional and real contexts, she hopes to explore an alternative methodology by which to engage critical conversations on climate change. Wisdom-Dawson received both her bachelor’s degree (2013, with honors) and her master’s degree (2016) in English from McGill University in Montréal, Canada.

Christopher Hoetschl of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is a longtime seed saver and Exchange lister with a particular penchant for beans and soybeans. He encourages gardeners to save seeds to ensure rare varieties survive: “Start small—seed saving does not need to be a major project. . . .If every SSE member saved and shared just one seed ‘orphan,’ we could rescue many varieties from possible extinction.”

Neil Lockhart of Oblong, Illinois, is a tomato aficionado and longtime Exchange lister who has introduced hundreds of rare tomatoes to the gardening and seed-saving community through Seed Savers Exchange.

Diane Ott Whealy of Decorah, Iowa, co-founded Seed Savers Exchange with Kent Whealy in 1975. She has been a national leader in the heirloom seed movement and a strong advocate for the protection of the earth’s rare genetic food stocks for more than 45 years. In 2022 Diane re-joined the Seed Savers Exchange Board of Directors.

John Swenson of Glenview, Illinois, cultivated a love of gardening at an early age while tending a small garden plot of radishes, beans, and carrots (but nary a garlic bulb!) alongside his father, Merwin, in the family’s backyard garden. Since the mid-1970s, he has been hooked on all things Allium sativum—its health benefits, the way it reproduces, and, of course, its taste. Over 30-plus years, John has listed 133 varieties in the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook, and donated 150 varieties to SSE’s seed bank collection. He currently serves as SSE’s garlic advisor.

Mason Welter grew up gardening, as did his dad and his dad’s dad. As a teenager, Mason met Curzio Caravati, a longtime Seed Savers Exchange member, at the Kenosha Harbor Market; that meeting led him to join SSE and start growing new varieties of garlic. In 2015, Mason attended the SSE Conference and Campout, and met Joel Girardin and John Swenson, garlic experts and SSE advisors. Both men inspired Mason to continue on the garlic-saving path they had pioneered. Mason formed a friendship with John right away over their shared passion for growing garlic. Today Mason is stewarding a large portion of John's extensive garlic collection.