The Common Acre came together when artists and urban farmers decided in 2012 to work together on a shared mission of maximum social impact.
Since our inception, our team has grown to encompass doctors of medicine and science, city planners, educators, and strategists, and a great crew of multi-talented volunteers.
Executive Director
Allison has a long history of gardening and love of food dating back to her childhood, on through volunteerism and professional pursuits. She has been improving non-profit systems since managing Books to Prisoners Olympia while pursuing her BA at The Evergreen State College. After two years traveling with the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms program, she dedicated herself to creating more just, effective urban farms in Seattle. She became an Alleycat Acres Farm Manager in 2013, and their first Executive Director in 2015, leading to her new role as ED of The Common Acre in 2017.
President
Sheila Brown believes in personal and societal transformation, sustainability and simple living, and the arts as a way to celebrate, build and heal communities. In her work life (currently as Education Program Supervisor at Camp Long), Sheila’s passions include environmental restoration, cross-cultural and multi-cultural understanding, outdoor recreation and science. Sheila has also developed and managed programs and facilities, and promoted public-private partnerships. In her personal life, her interests include choral and acoustic music, Buddhism and other spiritual traditions, exploring awareness through the body, history and new developments in science, and spending time with friends and her border terrier. Sheila is tri-lingual and has lived and traveled throughout Latin America and Europe.
Treasurer
A partner with Social Venture Partners, Renée is also an independent consultant to non-profit organizations, coalitions and foundations with a focus on improving the capacity of non-profits to work efficiently, equitably and collaboratively on shared goals informed and centered around community strength and wisdom. Prior to this work Renée spent many years in the corporate sector as a Manager and Director of diverse project teams building online media brands (Microsoft Network, Expedia) and developing the key internal and external business partnerships required for their success. Renee’s passions and joy bloom and grow in adventure with her partner Marci and their daughters Isabel and Hannah and include making music, reading widely, learning from others and exploring and playing outside whenever possible — especially with their beloved family dog Harpo, aka, “furry brother from another other.”
Co-secretary
A 31-year resident of Seattle, Kurt Sahl still looks forward to the fall rains. He’s been a high school science teacher in Alaska, Austria, and the Seattle area as well as a teacher educator at UW Seattle, UW Bothell, and Antioch University. Currently, Kurt works as a program manager with the Professional and Continuing Education Program at the UW Continuum College. Formerly, Kurt was the Director of Operations at 21 Acres, a sustainable agriculture education center in Woodinville. After earning his degree in entomology from the University of Idaho, Kurt lived off-grid in Alaska where he drove a tour bus in the summer and taught in the winter. He earned his teaching credential and M.Ed. from the UW.
Co-secretary
Gurdeep is a first generation, Asian Indian American, college graduate from the University of Washington. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 2018. While in undergrad she discovered a passion for education equity and focused most of her time working with the Philosophy for Children center to create spaces in K-12 classrooms for students to explore their own questions and curiosities through community based inquiry. Towards the end of her degree she became invested in food justice issues. This came from reflecting on her own experiences with food insecurity growing up & recognizing some of those same experiences in the communities she was working with. Her goal now is to better understand the food system from production to consumption so that she can be a better advocate. Currently, she serves with AmeriCorps at the Pipeline Project at UW to provide resources to high needs schools while also bridging her passion for education equity and food justice.
Beekeeper
Founder of The Common Acre, Bob has had careers in social service, media, arts, and agriculture. After working intensively with the homeless and mentally ill, Bob moved into the arts. Founding Program Director of the Capitol Hill Arts Center, Bob subsequently curated arts programs for the Bumbershoot Festival from 2004 – 2010, and served as Program Director of Town Hall Seattle in 2011-12. As an artist, Bob produced the theatre project “Fringe the Puyallup!”, was a writer-in-residence for the Richard Hugo House, and produced the guerilla haiku project SLUG. Bob runs the beekeeping adventure Urban Bee Company.
Bee Research Assistant
Will Peterman is a writer, photographer, and bee nerd. He studied pollination ecology and artificial intelligence in graduate school at UCSD, then spent fifteen years in software development before returning to entomology as the lead of the Western Bumblebee Project (beesearch.org). He is currently studying the quirks of bee vision and working on conservation strategies for native, ground-nesting bees.
Bee Research Lead
Evan Sugden, PhD earned his MA in biology from the University of Utah and his PhD from the University of California-Davis. Evan has done post-doctoral work in Sydney, Australia; worked as an apicultural development agent in Dubai; and helped detect and study Africanized bees in Texas for the USDA. Since 1998 he has taught at the University of Washington, where he also manages the UW apiary. A consultant through his business Entomo-logic, Evan is also a certified SCUBA diver and has explored marine environments on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), around Bermuda, and in both the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.