Board of Directors

The new 2010 Tacoma Food Co-op Board of Directors was elected in October 2009 following the 2nd TFC Annual Meeting.  New Board Members will be elected by the TFC members on an annual basis.  Expect many great things to come as the Board of Directors and Steering Committee come together to learn from one another.

Meet the Board of Directors (in alphabetical order):

Molly Archer

Molly Archer moved to Tacoma in 2006.  After looking for a co-op, she instead became a regular at the farmer's market and then found out about this effort.  She volunteered on the finance committee and was elected to the board at the 2009 annual meeting.  After WSU, she joined a regional CPA firm in Yakima where she became a partner specializing in taxes and retirement plans.  In 2000, she and her family decided to simplify and moved to Holden Village where she became much more aware of the health, environmental and social issues surrounding our food.  Molly currently works in Seattle as the Finance Manager for nonprofit Common Ground.  She is very excited to become more involved in the Tacoma community with the effort to form our own co-op.

Amber Englund

Amber Englund began her journey with the TFC in the fall of 2006 as an AmeriCorps volunteer. Her role as a liaison was to communicate and find needs between services surrounding the members of Trinity Presbyterian Church and the neighborhood.  After a conversation with the Director of the food bank, she discovered a need for access to fresh, healthy food for the low-income population of Tacoma. In the same conversation, she learned about food co-ops and realized a community owned and run grocery store was the way to meet this need. So began Englund's past three years to the Board of Directors, speaking at Universities, community clubs, business district meetings, and city expos gathering interest and members. Englund has facilitated the movement, organized teams of leaders for ongoing and short term development. Working with toddlers with disabilities, the TFC has gained importance as she educates families about healthy food.

Casandra Gorell

Casandra Gorell has lived in Tacoma for about a year and has been invloved in the Food Co-op for about that long.  Local sustainable foods have been a very important part of her entire life.  Casandra grew up eating out of her backyard or porch gardens, working on community sponsered agriculture farms and in food co-ops.  She currently works at Tacoma General Hospital and in her free time enjoys cooking, reading, and any activity that keeps her outside.   Casandra is really excited about the progress the TFC has made in the last year of her involvement and cannot wait to see what will happen in this coming year.


David Hanson

David Hanson has been a Puget Sound resident for 23 years. Like many Americans of his generation, he managed to survive the first 20 years of life knowing almost nothing about food production, cooking, or diet. As a college student, he discovered the writings of Frances Moore Lapp�, John Robbins, and Wendell Berry, and by the end of his 20s, he had become an avid home cook and had spent two growing seasons working and apprenticing on small-scale organic farms in Oregon and Washington. These days, he cooks for a family of five and teaches at Green River Community College. He has been a member of the Tacoma Food Co-op steering committee and board of directors for the past year.


Corrinne Henderson

Corrinne Henderson has been involved on both the development and steering committees for about 3 years.  She earned her MBA at the University of Washington-Tacoma and led the feasibility study that was done for the co-op by MBA students at UW-T.  Corrinne spent 7 years in the corporate world, working at Microsoft and Amazon.com before leaving to start her own small business 3 years ago (a women's apparel site).  She is currently a small business owner and a part-time grant writer for local Tacoma non-profits.  She graduated from the University of Puget Sound with a BA in Politics and Government, and has lived in Tacoma since 2002.  She and her husband have an eight-month-old son and enjoy traveling, cooking, gardening, and being outdoors together.

Michelle Jones

Michelle Jones is a faculty member at the University of Puget Sound where she teaches courses in management and leadership. She has been a member of the Tacoma Food Co-op and on the leadership team since 2008. Michelle's interest in organic and local food began when she volunteered on a local organic farm in Rhode Island and began a garden in her backyard. She has continued her interest in this area through continuing to create gardens in each place she has lived since then as well as through coursework and lots of reading and watching films on this subject. She is also a member of a food co-op in Rhode Island and is a member of and worked for a year in the organic produce department of a food co-op in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In her role on the Board of Directors for the TFC, she works with the Innovation Committee.

John Toler

John Toler was previously on the Tacoma Food Co-op Steering Committee for 2 Years, and is excited to see it move to its next phase of evolution. In addition to the Board of Directors, John also sits on the Tacoma Farmers Market Board as well as a Go Local Board. John was raised in Georgia and North Carolina where he helped his grandparents on their farms and that experience helped him see that we all should have access to good wholesome food to feed our family. Upon moving to Tacoma, John couldn't believe that there was no Coop, and decided he would open one. While in the beginning stages of creating a Coop, he I found out about a small group that already started the foundation work. He decided to jump on the train and has not looked back.

To contact the TFC Board of Directors, please email: tacomafoodcoop@gmail.com