Staff

Melanie Hill
Executive Director

Melanie serves as Community Fruit Rescue's Executive Director as of February 2023. She was first introduced to CFR while completing her Master's thesis - now the ongoing Bears & People Project - and joined the CFR Board of Directors after spending a season as a harvest leader. She received her MA in Media & Public Engagement from CU Boulder, with a focus on black bear coexistence in the region. After working more than a decade at the WILD Foundation as the Communications & Outreach Director, Melanie continues to focus her work around community-based environmental programs and advising students in the CU Wildlife Club. In her spare time, you can find Melanie exploring the great outdoors via foot, ski, and bike with her husband, apple-loving toddler, and two pups.

Board of Directors

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Beth Ahmad

Originally, Beth R Ahmad hails from Littleton, CO, although she spent a considerable amount of time on her grandparent’s ranch in Limon, CO as a child. She became an alumna of the University of Colorado in August 2017, when she earned a Bachelor’s of Accounting, with a minor in Applied Economics. Since November 2017 she has worked in a variety of administrative roles at CU. Her professional specialties include within post-award research accounting and general funds financial reporting. In her free time Beth enjoys baking, gardening, crafting, theater going, learning languages, and volunteering around the Denver-Boulder area.

Blair Norman
Board President | Interim Assistant Director

Blair Norman co-founded Community Fruit Rescue in 2014 and serves as President of the Board in 2023 as well as the Interim Assistant Director. In 2014 she saw fruit rescue as a way to provide resources for the community as well as to reduce the attractiveness of our neighborhood apple trees to our local bears. She was a community garden volunteer leader in Boulder for 6 years and enjoys engaging volunteers to form community bonds. She works as the warehouse manager for a small bag manufacturing company in Boulder when she is not hiking, biking or camping in the Rocky Mountains.

Elise Dietrich

Elise Dietrich moved to Boulder with her family in 2019, and began volunteering with Community Fruit Rescue in 2021. Originally hailing from New Hampshire, she developed a passion for apples while working at an orchard in New York's Hudson Valley during college. An all around renaissance woman, she worked in public health and microfinance before earning a PhD in Latin American Studies from Tulane, and teaching Portuguese at the US Military Academy at West Point. In recent years she has shifted her focus to design, illustration, and autobiographical comics. Elise is a lifelong nature lover, swimmer, and crafter who is excited to apply her skills to the CFR mission.

Erin Hauer
Secretary

Erin Hauer is a designer at a local landscape architecture firm that works closely with community, ecology, and water resources. She is involved in growing Fruit Rescue's tree care program, bringing insight from her master’s studies abroad on participatory design and management as well as her research experience with the European Forum on Urban Forestry. Her first harvest memories in Boulder were made while gathering fallen apples from a community lawn and baking them into pies with her grandmother.

Jamie Chisolm

As an early retiree and new resident of Boulder, Jamie was looking for a worthy place to spend her time, engage with members of the community, assist in reducing food insecurity and help put fruit in the bellies of sanctuary animals.  Community Fruit Rescue fit the bill. Jamie graduated from Gonzaga University with a double major in Public Relations and Speech Communications, followed by a Masters in Athletic Administration.  After working in collegiate and professional athletics for five years, she transitioned to a career in Insurance, where she spent the remainder of her career.  Being a Catastrophe Claims Leader provided the opportunity to travel throughout the United States, often working in Colorado, where she fell in love with Boulder.  Jamie stays busy exploring all sunny Colorado has to offer and hiking with her husband, two small children and three big dogs. ​

​Joy Tagert

​Joy Tagert joined Community Fruit Rescue as a Harvest Leader, and was immediately hooked on the mission of reducing waste and helping solve food insecurity in the Boulder area. She spent the bulk of her professional career working at OpenTable, bringing technology into restaurants around the world. In addition to being a serious foodie, she is an avid gardener and is passionate about making sure people have enough to eat, regardless of their circumstances. In her free time, you can find Joy with her husband and three teenage boys enjoying all that Colorado has to offer.

Micah Parkin
​Treasurer

Micah Parkin co-founded Community Fruit Rescue in 2014 and serves on the Board as the treasurer. In addition, she is a founder and Executive Director of 350 Colorado. She has 20+ years of experience as a climate and clean energy advocate, community leader and organizer, and nonprofit director. Micah serves on the City of Boulder's Clean Energy Technical Team, as well as the RenewablesYES and Empower Our Future teams. She serves on the steering committee for the Coloradans Against Fracking coalition and the board of Colorado Rising as well as on "The Shed" – Making Local Food Work coalition. She created the Boulder Edible Landscapes Coalition to promote local food growing and access for all community members. Micah is the mother of two daughters who fuel her passion to build a powerful climate and clean energy movement, create resilient communities and transition to a sustainable future.

Advisory Council

Jonathan Sekerak

Jonathan Sekerak is a brand and culinary innovation strategist at SRG, where he focuses on creating regenerative, for-profit business models. Prior to this he was the founder of a Boulder-based startup called UglyFruit, a social cause company seeking to combat food waste by converting seconds into shelf stable fruit snacks. Jonathan's passion lies at the intersection of human and planetary health, and he seeks to promote regenerative agriculture as the key to solving the challenges we face on both of these fronts. When he’s not skiing, hiking or otherwise adventuring in the mountains, you can usually find him cooking Thai food, seeking out live music, or planning his next SCUBA trip.

Ethan Welty

Ethan Welty is a research scientist turned urban forager. With technology and big data, he champions the overlooked but abundant food growing in cities, hoping to convince even the most diehard urbanite that cities can be a source of fresh and free food. He is a co-founder of Falling Fruit (fallingfruit.org) – a collaborative global urban foraging map – and co-founded Community Fruit Rescue in 2014, where he serves on the Steering Committee as a technology consultant extraordinaire. All the while balancing his photography career with research on glaciers for a Ph.D. at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research.

Lindsey Loberg

In addition to serving on Community Fruit Rescue's steering community, Lindsey Loberg is the Co-Executive director for Boulder Food Rescue, a nonprofit focused on building a more just food system. Lindsey first became involved with food justice work as a high school teacher in their hometown of Milwaukee, WI, facilitating student projects exploring food systems, food access, food waste, and food sovereignty. Their work focuses on community engagement and facilitating democratic, participatory systems of food access. They also sit on Boulder’s Human Relation’s Commission. Lindsey is learning Spanish and likes bicycle adventures.