Team

Biografías en español aquí

Marilu Rivera (she/ her)* Land Steward 

Marilu Rivera was born & raised in Mendocino county to parents from Michoacan Mexico. She is a small business owner with more than 10 years of agriculture & horticultural background, currently focusing on ancestral food, dye & cut flower cultivation. 

Mary Kate Randolph (she/her) Climate Beneficial Verified Systems Manager 

Mary Kate supports the development of the Climate Beneficial Verification program as Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial Program Analyst, helping to accelerate the program’s impact. She has worked with B2B sustainable apparel organizations over the years, collaborating with brands and retailers to bring private label programs to market, managing the process from farm-to-finished product. Growing up in the Hudson Valley NY, inspired by local makers and producers, Mary Kate experienced first hand the power of community and knowing the source of where/how products are made. These roots have continued to fuel her passion for sustainability and regeneration — to help scale climate strategy and solutions that create long term holistic impact for the textile industry and beyond.

Mike Conover (he/ him) Climate Beneficial™ Technician

Mike Conover works on special projects for Fibershed and The Carbon Cycle Institute. Mike is training in Carbon Farm Planning and supporting growers in developing holistic implementation of land restoring practices. He holds an M.S. in Ecological Design from the Conway School and has spent the past decade studying and practicing regenerative agriculture and sustainable land-planning. He sees carbon farming and regenerative agriculture as essential strategies to address global climate change, rebuild healthy soils, and create more resilient regional economies around food and fiber.

Navit Reid (she/ her) Grants & Project Manager

Navit manages the Healthy Soils Program block grant for Fibershed on behalf of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. She works to support producers to implement and access funding for climate beneficial land stewardship. Navit has over a decade of experience working as an ecologist and managing operations in early stage organizations across the United States, New Zealand and Europe. She holds a B.A. in Ecology and Photography from Hampshire College and an M.A. in Organizational Leadership and Societal Change from Malmö University. Navit’s array of interests keep her busy, but all tend to come back to the same theme: exploring ways to collaborate for systemic transformation, rooted in relationship with land and community.

Nica Rabinowitz (she/ her) Climate Beneficial Verified
 Sales and Supply Chain Development Manager

Nica is a regenerative agriculture and textiles advocate, researcher, and educator. Her work since graduating with a BFA in fashion design from Parsons School of Design in 2015, has been rooted in community building, social justice, farming, and soil to soil textile creation and production. Nica holds a M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction and has taught people of all ages in the classroom, in the field, and in the boardroom. When Nica is not cultivating brand partnerships and supporting Climate Beneficial supply chains you can find her in the weeds on her homestead and living laboratory in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Paige Green (she/ her)* Photographer

Paige Green is a documentary and portrait photographer in Petaluma, California, whose storytelling approach to photography focuses on women, social justice and environmental activism. In 2010, Paige began working with Executive Director of Fibershed, Rebecca Burgess, to capture the stories of local natural fiber and the textile community, from fiber farmers, ranchers, small manufacturers, artisans, and designers, helping define Fibershed.

As the Director of the Climate Beneficial Verification Program, Siena is responsible for scaling the strategic direction of the program to align with market demands for measurable, traceable, and holistic climate solutions. As someone whose experience spans design, marketing, strategy, education and tool development, they specialize in bringing together the often disconnected worlds of data and storytelling, business realities and aspirations.  Over the last decade they have worked with small innovators to large sector players including, Textile Exchange, Patagonia, Parsons School for Design, Gap, Nike, and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition.  Siena’s passion for regeneration began after living next to a small scale cattle rancher in Colorado, and believes strongly in reconnecting the narrative of communities and ecosystems in our contemporary sustainability discourse.

Vicki Russo (she/ her) Director of Business Administration

As Fibershed’s Director of Business Administration, Vicki Russo oversees financial aspects of the organization, human resources, and organizational policies. She holds a BA in Business Management. She has spent the past 30 years working in training and development and organizational development. Vicki was born and raised in Sonoma County and is excited to contribute to this community.

Rebecca Burgess (she/ her) Executive Director 

Rebecca Burgess has two decades of experience working at the intersection of ecology, fiber systems, and regional economic development. She is the author of the best-selling book Harvesting Color, a bioregional look into the natural dye traditions of North America, and Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy released in 2019. She has taught at Westminster College, Harvard University, and California College of the Arts. She serves on the leadership council of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at Chico State University, as Board Secretary for Hukuuiko (a non-profit serving the Coast Miwok Tribal Council), and on the board of the Carbon Cycle Institute.

*We are grateful to work with a talented team of consultants and project leaders, all of whom conduct specialized services for the organization, along with other work in the community. For a full list of contractors, please contact hello@fibershed.org.

Dustin Kahn (she/ her) Secretary

Dustin has been a graphic designer for nearly 40 years, currently working primarily in publication and website design. She also grows dye plants and is a natural dye instructor, having studied natural dyes since 2009, with a special interest in indigo. For three years, Dustin was a partner in West County Fiber Arts, a fiber arts school in Sonoma County, and she is currently organizing fiber arts classes for the Fibershed Learning Center.

Kat Anderson, Ph.D (she/ her)

Kat has a Ph.D. in Wildland Resource Science from UC Berkeley and is the author of the book Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. The book was recently chosen by the celebrated permaculture designer Ben Falk, as one of the most important books to read in order to permanently solve food security. Kat has worked with Native Americans for over 25 years, learning how indigenous people judiciously gather and steward native plants and ecosystems in the wild. Her interests are to learn, celebrate, and restore the similar plant uses, gathering and tending practices, and ethical stances towards nature that are in multiple local cultures here and around the world.

Marlie de Swart (she/ her) Treasurer

Marlie is a fiber skills educator and small business owner, as well as a fiber and ceramic artist. She has been involved in creating fiber works from local sources since childhood. She grew up in Holland, graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris and Occidental College in Southern California, and met her husband while attending Art Center College of Design. Currently Marlie has a local fiber arts cooperative store, Black Mountain Artisans, in Point Reyes Station. She recently published a book of her knitting designs called Knitting Woolscapes, Designs Inspired by Coastal Marin Wool.

Rebecca Burgess (she/ her) Executive Director 

Rebecca Burgess has two decades of experience working at the intersection of ecology, fiber systems, and regional economic development. She is the author of the best-selling book Harvesting Color, a bioregional look into the natural dye traditions of North America, and Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy released in 2019. She has taught at Westminster College, Harvard University, and California College of the Arts. She serves on the leadership council of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at Chico State University, as Board Secretary for Hukuuiko (a non-profit serving the Coast Miwok Tribal Council), and on the board of the Carbon Cycle Institute.