Our Staff
Joanne Patton is the widow of Green Meadows Farm’s founder, Major General George S. Patton. She assumed his role in recent years, overseeing the Farm in conjunction with her family – all supporters of organic agriculture. Joanne’s travels as an Army wife made her an aventurous eater. All vegetables are her favorites – but eggplant (especially in her caviar recipe) is tops!
Heidi Thunberg is the Farm Manager. She loves working in all aspects of the farm, but she has a soft spot for the greenhouses. You can usually find her there happily communing with the tomatoes and cucumbers. She is also a mom of two fabulous boys, who are the resident chicken catchers.
Upon graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she spent a couple years working in Japan and then for a Japanese company in the U.S. She then decided that farming was the life for her and worked on both dairy and CSA farms in New England.
This is her 4th season at the farm and she still can't seem to get enough. Heidi says that she loves her job and is excited to be at Green Meadows Farm because of the important role a farm has in its community. When she's not farming (that is, for the month of January) Heidi loves to knit, translate Japanese, and play with her boys. Her favorite vegetables are bitter greens cooked with lots of garlic.
Holly King is the Farmstand Manager and loves the challenge of both running our lovely stand and baking those lovely pies and cakes we offer around the holidays. Holly's first playpen was a 160 quart bread mixer in her Dad’s upstate New York bakery. By four she was making snowflake rolls and by the third grade she was up at 4:00 AM with Dad making doughnuts.
Holly headed to SUNY Potsdam to earn a degree in geology and environmental science, areas she had become interested in growing up a tomboy on her family’s small organic farm. She still loves to get her hands dirty with all of us farmers and is looking forward to growing the community that is Green Meadows Farm. Her favorite vegetable is, well, all of them.
We are so pleased to bring Rob Eckman in as our Field Manager this season. Originally from suburban
New Jersey, he greatly enjoyed playing in the woods and landscaping in the summer as a kid. Although he had many different jobs in high school, he says the low point of his employment was in a video game store where he just kept telling the kids to go play outside.
After high school, he made his way through the Northeast, making a stop at Boston University to graduate with a B.A. in Geography. He then moved on to apprenticing at a few different farms. He says that by his first year apprenticing, something "clicked" and he knew this was the profession for him.
Full-time growers tend not to have a lot of free time, but Rob enjoys reading (farming books), wood-working, farming, hiking, farming, cycling, and well, farming. His favorite vegetable is winter squash.
Christine Green relocated to MA in 2010 with her Husband Todd and two children, Rita and Joe. Originally from Chicago, IL and the youngest of 9 children, she loves to call home and share stories from life on the farm. Christine first found Green Meadows farm through a friend and CSA member and it was love at first sight. She loves that all of her passions are celebrated in one place : growing, cooking and eating great food, taking care of the environment, and the sense of community that her family can be part of. Christine started working at the Farmstand in 2011, but we quickly took notice of her many talents and asked her to help us develop our education and children's department at the farm. When she is not at the farm, Christine enjoys spending time cooking, gardening, spending time with her family, and fellowship. Christine is a enthusiastic Kohlrabi fan, but loves butternut squash, broccoli, spinach and really whatever is the newest item out of the field.
This is Todd's third season on the field crew here at Green Meadows and perhaps his shirt in this photo describes his attitude best. He comes to work every day with a smile on his face, enjoying just about everything life has to offer him. He was working as an account executive in the corporate world for several years until he decided to slow down when he started having kids. He says that he came to work at GMF to be a part of the local food community, but he stays here because he loves working outdoors and being active. But, we know it's really because he loves handweeding carrots.
When not harvesting or solving some mechanical dilemma for us on the farm, his free time is filled with caring for his family and being the best stay-at-home dad ever. He loves to cook for his family and his favorite thing to make with Green Meadows produce is a tomato and eggplant pasta sauce.
Hunter is a Junior at Ipswich High School and started working at Green Meadows as a volunteer alongside her mother, Shannon. She quickly proved her value to the farmstand and was a crew member by April. She says her favorite thing about working at the farm is the customer interaction. She loves hearing about recipes that people come up with based on the produce in the share. Her favorite subject in school is History and one day she hopes to be a History teacher. When she's not working or in school, Hunter likes to hang out with her friends and go to the movies. Her favorite vegetable is the carrot.
Shannon has been working in the farmstand for four seasons now. She is originally from Iowa and moved to Manchester to be a Nanny. There she met her husband. They live in Ipswich with their three children, Trevor, Hunter (featured above) and Keegan. In fact, two of her kids also work at the farm, one in the farmstand and one with the field crew. When she's not working, Shannon loves to cook, bake, bike and run. Her flower garden is also very important to her. Her favorite vegetable is arugula.
