Bill Kirmil
Bill Kirmil, Treasurer
Bill began his career in the food business working as a private label Food Broker to Grocery Store chains in California. In a span of five years Bill created more than 250 items for sale to five large retailers.
In 1981 Bill met Sol Price at FedMart stores in Southern California. Sol had just opened a chain of warehouse clubs that he named “Price Club” and they were growing exponentially. Bill and a partner left their jobs and created a brokerage firm named “Monterey Marketing”. Within seven years this company exceeded $100MM in annual sales.
Bill has been a member of the Board of Directors for thirteen years, served as Treasurer and Secretary during the planning and building of the new facility and is currently a member of the Budget and Audit committees.
DeAnn Davis
DeAnn Davis
De Ann Davis, PhD, DABT is currently the Senior Vice President, Science at Western Growers Association. Dr. Davis has more than 25 years of experience in the development and execution of technical global programs, including food safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance.
Following an impressive run in consumer products safety, with leadership roles at companies such Alberto Culver, Kimberly-Clark, Henkel and Procter & Gamble, she transitioned to packaged and fresh produce safety nearly a decade ago. She most recently served as Food Safety Director for Commercial Food Sanitation, a provider of strategic consulting services, expertise and training that addresses food safety and sanitation challenges for food processing plants.
Previously, she served as Vice President of Food Safety and Quality for both Church Brothers Farms and Earthbound Farm, as well as Chief Food Safety Office for Kraft Foods Group, where she was engaged in the development of the regulatory framework for Food Safety Modernization Act.
Dr. Davis earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and Chemistry from Point Loma Nazarene University and her PhD in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University. She is also a certified Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology, where she has served since 1996.
Dr. Davis holds several committee appointments within the produce industry, including having recently served as the Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Center for Food Safety, University of Georgia. In 2018, Davis was appointed to the USDA National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food.
Michelle Roberts
Michelle Roberts, Vice-President
Born and raised in Salinas, California Michelle attended Salinas High School and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. After graduating with a degree in Agricultural Systems Management in 2004, Michelle began her produce career as a Sales Coordinator at Pacific International Marketing in Santa Maria, CA.
Michelle joined the Taylor Farms sales team in January of 2009 as a sales coordinator. Today she manages the Markon Cooperative Account and also was promoted into the role of Director of Foodservice Marketing. Michelle’s passion for produce is helping to get fresh, safe & healthy foods on tables across America.
Michelle and her husband Josh, a local farmer, have three children: Liam (15), Ryder (8) and Drew (4). They reside in Salinas where Michelle enjoys spending time with her family and also an active project leader in the Spring 4-H club.
Laura Bowling
Laura Bowling, Board President
Laura is a branding, communications, and sustainability executive who for the past 30 years has successfully led interdisciplinary creative teams to deliver award winning marketing ideas/campaigns/events across all media platforms from the client, agency, and nonprofit perspective. Laura has worked with some of the world’s most successful companies and brands, including Procter & Gamble (Chicago), Ogilvy (New York City), The Walt Disney Company (Los Angeles) and Conservation International (Washington, DC), where she served as Chief Marketing Officer.
Laura has a deep passion for the social causes she believes in. She oversees a successful consulting business, based in Carmel, that focuses on branding, strategic communications, and development for environmental nonprofits and social impact corporate clients. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University, where she earned her B.S.B.A with a double major in Marketing and Advertising.
Tama Bistrian
Tama Bistrian
Tama Bistrian, CPA is a dynamic business professional with over 30 years of financial accounting experience working in various industries with outstanding leadership, communication and interpersonal skills. She is currently the Chief Accounting Officer at Taylor Fresh Foods, a multi-national agriculture manufacturer with over 20 subsidiaries. Prior to Taylor, she spent 7 years as Director of Accounting at the not-for-profit Monterey Bay Aquarium, 8 years as Controller of homebuilder Monterey Development Group, and 4 years in various financial roles for San Diego homebuilder The Corky McMillin Companies. Tama has a strong GAAP accounting background from her tenure at KPMG as an auditor.
To augment her passion for healthy living and not-for-profit work, Tama serves on the board of Central Coast YMCA as chairman of the board and audit committee. She also serves as audit committee chair for the Center for Produce Safety, a board member of Food Bank For Monterey County, and a mentor in the Pay-it-Forward program at California State University, Monterey Bay.
The Food Bank for Monterey County Voted Best Ag Non-Profit
The Food Bank for Monterey County began way back in 1983 as a program for the Alliance on Aging before becoming its own nonprofit in 1990. If only hunger were a thing of the past – but it’s not, and thankfully we have the food bank doing crucial work to mitigate it. The organization has expanded over the years so that now it serves 10 million pounds of food a year – to 20 percent of this county’s residents. The food bank took a hit in 2015 when an arsonist set its loading dock ablaze, but just this past December, the group moved into a new and bigger location, where they even have a nutrition training center. Let’s hope this community resource continues another 30 years.
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Food Bank For Monterey County Breaks Ground On A New Home
MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY | Jan. 25, 2018
Early in the morning on Saturday, March 21, 2015, an arsonist set the Food Bank for Monterey County ablaze, damaging multiple refrigerated trucks and the loading dock. It was the last straw for a nonprofit that had already outgrown its facility.
But the process of finding a new location took time. Fast-forward almost three years to Monday, Jan. 22, when Melissa Kendrick, the Food Bank’s executive director, celebrated the groundbreaking for a new 50,000-square-foot facility on West Rossi Street in Salinas.
The new facility is a much-needed expansion and upgrade for the nonprofit, which has been leasing an old tea-packing facility on West Market Street. The existing place has roughly 5,000 square feet of cold storage capacity; the new facility will provide 20,000 square feet, and aims to be fully powered by solar panels.
It’s in this same facility, Kendrick says, that the organization grew over the last 25 years from handling 100,000 pounds of food a year to more than 10 million; they needed to expand.
“As you can imagine, to get from 100,000 to 10 million is quite a task,” Kendrick told members of the staff, city officials, and the press on Monday morning. “It’s time to move on”.
The food bank serves one in five Monterey County residents, half of whom are children.
The new building launched roughly 18 months ago, following years of fundraising (including through Monterey County Gives!) and seed funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Harden Foundation, Sunlight Giving Foundation and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation.
The food bank is still raising money for its new facility, and launched what they’re calling the “Spoonful of Love” campaign. The goal is to sell 100,000 personalized engraved spoons at $100 each, which will be mounted on the wall of the new place when construction is complete.
The new spot is expected to open in June.
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Food Bank of Monterey County Expanding Services with New $10 Million Facility In Salinas
MONTEREY HERALD | Jan. 22, 2018
Salinas >> Ground was broken at a new location for the Food Bank for Monterey County on Monday, amidst the puddles created by an early morning rain.
“I apologize for the weather,” said Melissa Kendrick, the Food Bank’s executive director. “First, I’d like to draw your attention to our swimming pool,” she said, gesturing to standing water left from the showers.
Jokes aside, Kendrick was all smiles for the groundbreaking ceremony. Preparations to build the new bank have been percolating over the last 18 months. The Food Bank is the largest provider of emergency supplementary food in Monterey County and serves 1 in 5 of the area’s residents, half of those being children. Their facilities of the last 20 years were “woefully inadequate” for feeding those over 100,000 individuals a year, said Kendrick.
The old site, located at 815 W. Market St. in Salinas, was particularly limited in terms of food storage capacity. The limitation was worsened by a fire that took place on March 21, 2015, which damaged the bank’s industrial-sized refrigerator. The blaze also took out three of the bank’s trucks used to collect and deliver food.
“The fire really planted the seed” to build a better food bank at a new location, said Susan Spiegel, board president for the nonprofit.
The Market Street site was leased, she explained, and rent was the largest line item on the bank’s budget. In addition, with only 5,000 square feet of refrigeration space, the old location didn’t fit the needs of a food bank distributing upwards of 10 million pounds of food a year.
“Our partners in the agriculture industry donate us their overage,” Spiegel said. “At the old facility, we couldn’t handle more food even if they wanted to give it – now we won’t have to turn any food away.”
Kendrick found the bank’s new site at 334 W. Rossi St. The Food Bank purchased the $2.5 million plot with funds from the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, the Harden Foundation, Pinnacle Bank and Sunlight Giving. SSB Construction is building the new facility, designed by Belli Architectural Group, to be powered by an array of solar-panels and feature 20,000 square feet of refrigeration space.
The new food bank aims to minimize its own carbon footprint and that of its partners in agriculture.
California’s landfills emit a steady stream of methane as the organic waste in them decomposes – enough to make them the second largest man-made source of methane in the state. The landfills are made up of about 18 percent food waste, making food a major contributor to the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.
To help tackle the issue, Gov. Jerry Brown approved Senate Bill 1383 in 2016. The bill requires that at least 20 percent of edible food that is currently disposed of in California is recovered for human consumption by 2025. CalRecycle propels the state toward this goal by regulating the disposal, recycling and recovery of organic waste. Partnerships with organizations like the Food Bank for Monterey County help agricultural companies comply with the new regulations.
“When they have excess food, they think of us first,” said Kendrick. “We’re able to divert produce and perishable waste from landfills and get it into the mouths of those that need it.”
The new food bank should be open by June, she said, and operations will continue at the old facility in the meantime.
“I’m surprised she didn’t make the sun come out,” said Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter of Kendrick at the groundbreaking. Gunter commended Kendrick’s tireless passion, noting the community’s reliance on her efforts at the Food Bank. The nonprofit provides food to 150 agencies, including Meals on Wheels, Dorothy’s Place and many church pantries.
“Because of the food bank, people are getting fed tonight,” he said.
Congressman Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, sent his support from Washington, where he is working to reauthorize the Farm Bill, which supports supplementary food programs like the Food Bank. Supervisor Simon Salinas, Social Services director Elliott Robinson, and Salinas councilmembers Gloria De La Rosa and Scott Davis also attended the event.
“The Food Bank has so many faces,” said District 5 Supervisor Mary Adams, who has supported the organization since her days as CEO of United Way Monterey County. Many county residents are impacted by hunger, she said, from military families to seniors to young people.