The Village
Allegheny Mountain Institute
People
Farm Manager
Fred Gifford
Fred brings years of hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture to his role as Farm Manager at Allegheny Mountain Institute. He oversees daily farm operations, including managing the market garden and coordinating with local farmers markets and food pantries to support AMI’s mission of food access and community resilience. His background includes managing CSA programs and working with small-scale, regenerative farms across western Maryland and West Virginia. He holds an academic background in Wildlife and Natural Resources with a focus in Agroecology, which informs his land-conscious approach to farming.
Farm Assistant
Lindsey Hayes
Lindsey Hayes has lived in the higher Allegheny mountains of WV for the last 22 years. She moved here to work on stream restoration projects on the Monongahela NF, and has since fallen in love with these mountain ecosystems. She spends her time immersed in all things organic farming, enjoying constantly learning from the earth, growing fruits, vegetables, chickens and homeschooling her two girls. She has experience with local farmers markets, CSAs, and preparing and selling herbal remedies.
Administrative Assistant
& Bookkeeper
Rick Gatlin
Rick comes to AMI with over 30 years of accounting and business management experience. He worked with grants, capital budgets, and software implementation at UVA. He also put in many years of corporate accounting at the former Rocco, Inc. A graduate of JMU, Rick originally hails from Tidewater, Virginia, but has developed deep roots here in the Shenandoah Valley. When not trying to get on the golf course, his other passion is training, showing, and loving his herd of English Springer Spaniels.
Outreach Manager & Secretary
Sarah Fitzgerald
Sarah manages Allegheny Mountain Institute's online presence, from updating the website to responding to social media inquiries. She has experience in administrative work, technology and social media presence, and a million other unrelated things. When she's not working, she enjoys reading a book while cuddling with her cat Clementine, spending time with friends and family, working on her own small garden, quad skating and attending live music with her husband, Cameron.
Board President
Anne Adams
Anne is the owner and publisher of The Recorder, a weekly newspaper serving Allegheny, Bath, and
Highland counties. She’s been a resident of Highland since 1990, where she and her husband raised
six children. She currently serves as president of the Virginia Press Foundation, a member of the
Virginia Press Association board, and on the board of Dare to Dream Therapeutic Horsemanship
Center.
Vice President
Wendy Gray
Born and raised in Staunton, VA, Wendy spent a lot of her time in Highland County where her mother was born and her Grandfather taught in a one room schoolhouse. After attending VCU School of Arts in Richmond, she later returned to the mountains to raise her daughter. She is now working with Doniga Markegard from Kiss the Ground as part of a team hired to restore the land through soil remediation while growing medicinal herbs and mushrooms and developing products wild foraged from the land.
Treasurer
Noah Goldstein
Noah Goldstein is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, somatic coach, and facilitator whose work centers on embodied healing and helping people deepen their connection to what matters most. Through his practice at Heartseed Health and as founder of Council of Fathers, Noah guides individuals and communities toward greater presence, authenticity, and relational wholeness.
Noah's commitment to ecological consciousness and place-based community runs through all his work. He lives in Boulder, CO, where he tends a small plot of land with his wife Rachael and their three children, practicing the kind of intimate relationship with soil, season, and bioregion that he believes is essential for our collective healing.
Noah has returned from serving on AMI's founding board from 2014-2018.
Founder
Laurie Berman
Laurie moved to Virginia in 1975, and took a leading role in environmental protection and community development as a Founding Board member of Highland County Arts Council and Allegheny Mountain School, and a Board member of Valley Conservation Council and Virginia Food Systems Council. She’s a naturalist, music maker, wild-crafter, and mother of three grown daughters who all share her love of gardening, stewardship, fresh cuisine, and the vision that if we nurture our land and our watershed, we can provide well for ourselves and our communities.