Kristin grew up in Vermont and New Hampshire, graduated from Middlebury College, and worked in politics in Washington, DC for ten years before moving to Seattle, where she continued a career in media and communications, public policy campaigns, strategic grantmaking initiatives, and campaigns to improve the health of people and the planet. Kristin lives with her partner, her son and a posse of cats, dogs and chickens.
Kristin is a seasoned communications and policy advocate with 30 years experience doing media and campaign strategy inside and outside the government, as a press assistant in the White House; press secretary to two U.S. Senators; communications director for Sierra Club, senior publicist at Fenton Communications and program director at the former Environmental Media Services (EMS).
Kristin is passionate about empowering consumers with accurate information on controversial issues – from putting the dangers of farmed salmon on the map, to ensuring the integrity of the first national organic standards adopted by the USDA. Kristin’s a natural networker who enjoys attracting prominent voices and timely media coverage to good causes. While director at Resource Media, which she built as an offshoot of EMS in 1999 with offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Boulder, and Kalispell, Kristin led communications initiatives on dozens of national and local environmental and public health issues.
In 2004, Kristin co-founded Good Food Strategies, spearheading change campaigns for a broad range of players in the field from farmers to nonprofits, businesses to government agencies and philanthropic foundations. Good Food Strategies provided strategic communications services to help develop new grant-making programs focused on sustainable agriculture and food system reform issues at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and for The Schmidt Family Foundation’s 11th Hour Project.
In 2011, as an independent consultant, Kristin conducted a landscape assessment of climate science communications initiatives on behalf of The Hewlett Foundation and the Packard Foundation, and helping the Food Family Farming Foundation and “Renegade Lunch Lady” Chef Ann Cooper develop a long term plan and support for school lunch reform. Kristin also conducted an in depth communications landscape assessment of food system reform initiatives focused on animal agriculture issues, and their impact on key decision-makers in business and government for the Schmidt Family Foundation’s 11th Hour Project.
Kristin provided strategic assistance Food Forward, a project to capture the compelling stories of food system change makers; the pilot episode aired in Spring 2012 on PBS stations around the country.
In late 2012, Kristin became Executive Director of the Beecher’s Pure Food Kids Foundation, a non-profit education initiative with a high impact program to empower 4th/5th grade students with the knowledge and skills to read labels to better inform their food choices, and to inspire their interest in cooking and eating read food. Kristin spearheaded significant growth in the program, which today is provided to nearly 100% of schools in the Puget Sound region, reaching tens of thousands of students, teachers and parents each year. Kristin also developed strategic partnerships with businesses and new sources of funding, such as Whole Foods, which has led to a tripling of the annual budget, and expansion of the program to reach more adults.
During the past 4 years, Kristin opened two retail businesses, a neighborhood market, The Feed Store, and a bar called The Saloon. Kristin and her partner Denise built, permitted, opened and operated these businesses between August 2015 and November 2018. While the businesses were popular with the neighborhood, Kristin and Denise have chosen to move away from running retail businesses in favor of getting back to more direct work for causes they care about.