Breanna Hawkins is a Policy Director for the Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC). She supports all of LAFPC’s working groups, strategic policy campaigns, and research initiatives. One of Breanna’s key projects is leading the creation of LAFPC’s Food System Dashboard– a collection of over 230 indicators measuring the health, sustainability and fairness of our regional food system, with equity at the center.
Tara Redfield is an LA-Based Home Cook, Food & Travel Blogger and On-Camera Talent.
Most recently, she was seen on NBC’s the Today Show re-creating her winning recipe for Cocoa Tangerine Pancakes. Her food-centric blog, The Food Pervert, was created in 2010 and is where she shares dining reviews, recipes, chef interviews, videos and more. In the autumn of 2013, she completed the Pro-Chef course at The Gourmandise School of Sweets and Savories in Santa Monica, California to further develop her skills in the kitchen. Redfield is an active member of the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs Organization and was a speaker at the national conference as well as the International Association of Culinary Professionals, where she served as Editor of the Visions Newsletter for Food Stylists. In 2014, she was a contestant on TNT’s reality cooking show, On The Menu, hosted by Ty Pennington and Chef Emeril Lagasse. Tara has a true passion for cooking, dining, travel and story telling. She continues to spread the food-love by visiting restaurants, markets, and food festivals as often as possible and sharing her finds through photos, videos and stories.
Karla T. Vasquez is the creator of SalviSoul, a cookbook project documenting the stories of Salvadoran women, their recipes and Salvadoran food ways. Karla is a food justice advocate, a food historian and a proponent for healthy food accessibility in low-income communities. She specializes in community building, nutrition education, food history and health coaching. Karla has worked with Hunger Action Los Angeles, Los Angeles Food Policy Council, VELA, The Edible Apartment, Champions for Change and other social justice organizations where she has used her skills to organize outreach efforts, manage projects and lead community health initiatives. Most recently she was the Director of Community Programs at With Love Market & Cafe, a social enterprise addressing food justice issues in South LA. Karla holds a degree in Journalism and completed her culinary training at The New School of Cooking.
Speaker, ShiftCon 2018
Danielle N. Salmon is a thirty year-young restaurant lover who happily lives and eats in Los Angeles, California. While she has a master’s degree in psychology and has worked for marketing agencies in business development and social media, she always valued what she learned but felt like she wasn’t working towards a passion. It wasn’t until she found herself spending the majority of her time in restaurants and telling people where to eat that she realized what she wanted to do. As a result she created Follow My Gut, a restaurant discovery blog that introduces people to new eateries — as well as some they may have forgotten.
Doniga Markegard has a background in wildlife tracking, holistic management and permaculture. She is the author of Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild. Along with her husband Erik and four children, Doniga lives on a coastal ranch in San Gregorio, CA. The family stewards 10,000 acres of grasslands and provides nutrient dense grass-fed beef and lamb as well as pasture raised pork, chicken and dairy. Doniga is passionate about finding ways to regenerate lands and community through practices that build soil, sequester carbon, capture and purify water and enhance habitat. Doniga has an immense passion for the natural world and helping others live a life of balance with the earth and all living things, leading a life of example where her own actions are deliberated into the health of the future generations. Find out more at donigamarkegard.com or markegardfamily.com
Caroline Cox is Research Director at Center for Environmental Health and a member of the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. She leads CEH’s research on toxic exposures, identifying, analyzing and substantiating the scientific bases for our work to eliminate dangerous chemicals in products that are a threat to children and others. She joined CEH after working on pesticide toxicity and alternatives to their use for over 15 years. She is passionate about protecting our world from toxic chemicals.
Early to the clean beauty digital scene, Amanda Jo, a.k.a. Organic Bunny, has become a standard-bearer for chic, on-trend natural makeup. She’s methodically built a following of like minded fans who devour her immaculate beauty imagery, and are now turning to her for coveted Organic Bunny subscription boxes and product purchases. Word on the indie beauty street is that her e-commerce venture rivals much more established retailers, and it’s not even a year old. The Organic Bunny undeniably has big business hops.
Ana Flores is founder and CEO of#WeAllGrow Latina Network, the first and largest community of Latina digital influencers, hyperlocal events and annual Summit that boldly propels growth through brand partnerships and community development. Ana has been recognized by the prestigious Holmes Report among their 2015 Innovator 25 and was named as one of People en Español’s “Las 25 Mujeres Más Poderosas”of 2017. In 2016 she was invited to speak on two occasions at the White House, including the United State of Women Summit on gender diversity and women empowerment issues. Born in Houston, Texas, raised in El Salvador and a graduate of the University of Florida, Ana is now settled in Los Angeles, where she lives with her daughter.
Andrew Pittz is a sixth generation Iowa family farmer and “Farmer-in-Chief” at Sawmill Hollow,the first aronia berry farm in the United States. Sawmill Hollow was named a Top 51 Company shaping the natural and organic industry as well as a Renew Rural Iowa Company. From the fork of a dirt and gravel road, to the farmers market, to Whole Foods Market and now services independent stores and Fortune 500 companies across the country.
Whether planting aronia berry bushes in all 99 counties of Iowa, barnstorming across the country with major retail outlets, or guest lecturing at American University or the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, Andrew is committed to cultivating a vibrant rural America. Andrew Pittz has been recognized nationally for leadership in farming, entrepreneurship, and rural development and as a result of these efforts was nominated by Senator Harkin’s office as a ‘Champion of Change’ under President Obama’s administration.