Join the board of Free Range Food Co-op!
Serving on the FRFC Board of Directors is an extraordinary opportunity for individuals who are passionate about using their professional skillset to advance the co-op's development.
Directors are active ambassadors for the co-op, and are fully engaged in the work needed to build a cooperatively-owned grocery store in Grand Rapids!
Elections are held annually in October; applications should be submitted by the end of August to be included in the election cycle. Newly elected directors will serve a 1-year term with the option to serve an additional 2 years after that. After the initial 3-years, directors running for re-election will serve a 3-year term. There are occasional vacancies for shorter term lengths which applicants can apply to be appointed to at any time of the year.
If you are interested in serving on the board, please fill out the online board member application and we will be in touch. Reach out to a current board member at any time to ask questions and discuss what is involved with board leadership for Free Range Food Co‑op.
Serving on the FRFC board of directors provides opportunities to:
Represent and engage with other co-op owners
Grow your existing skills and cultivate new ones
Expand personal and professional networks through co-op development
Expectations include:
Attending two board meetings per month (1.5 hours each)
Reading materials prior to meetings; come prepared to ask questions and participate in discussions
Actively participate on one or more teams
Contribute 6-10 hours per month to board and team work (including meetings)
Check out all the director position descriptions from our board member manual:
Brandon Otway, Chair
Site Selection Team; GM Search Team
Brandon is a Grand Rapids import, originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. He has lived here for the past four years. Brandon is married with two young children and sees Free Range Food Co‑op as another step to making Grand Rapids a place where people want to move to raise their families. He is the early childhood coordinator for the Hill City and Remer school districts and in his spare time enjoys growing and raising his own food on a very small scale and spending time outdoors with his family. He is passionate about having the choice to shop for local, healthy food and personal care products and sees FRFC as the means for this becoming a reality for the greater Grand Rapids area. He also sees the co-op as a way to add to the local economy through support of local growers and producers. Brandon looks forward to using his ownership in Free Range Food Co‑op to be a part of the conversation and decision-making that will bring many more owners together to get this movement across the finish line.
Brandon's term expires October 2026
Contact Brandon at brandono.frfc@gmail.com
Ellen Smilanich, Vice Chair
Owner Engagement Team; Board Development Team
Ellen is passionate about sustainability in general (tree-hugging, driving a 2002 now-rusty Prius, eating organic and locally sourced foods, supporting local businesses and farmers and choosing to live with a community and “we’re all in this together” mindset. She and her husband both grew up in Grand Rapids and recently moved back after living in the cities for 35+ years. One of her favorite activities in the cities was to shop each week at the local co-op because she was able to buy in bulk (i.e. bringing her own containers to reduce packaging and get as much or as little as she wanted), select from healthy and sustainability-oriented products (so she didn’t have to do any research, being much too lazy) and belong to a community of diverse and very interesting people. Not having a local co-op was one of the three key reasons she hesitated before deciding to move back to Grand Rapids. Learning that a co-op was in the works helped a great deal to make the decision to move a much easier one.
Ellen is a lifelong learning and development professional and is looking forward to using her skills and professional experience to help to make this co-op a reality.
Ellen’s term expires Oct. 2024
Contact Ellen at ellens.frfc@gmail.com
Tina White, Financial Officer
Finance Team
Tina has spent most of her life as a resident of the Grand Rapids area – moving away for education and job opportunities, but always drawn back for the grounded connection the area brings. In her professional life, she is a degreed accountant, holds a Certified Public Accountant License, and works as a Chief Financial Officer. She enjoys volunteering and believes everyone has something to offer to help make our community better. Her passion for healthy food options, clean products, and supporting local producers aligns well with the future offerings of the Co-op and are what drove her to become involved. She and her husband enjoy cooking, family gatherings, outdoor activities, travel, and ballroom dancing.
Tina’s term expires October 2024
Contact Tina at tinaw.frfc@gmail.com
Shara Dabrowski, Records Officer
Marketing Team; Capital Campaign Team
Shara is an avid lover of growing, cooking and eating good food. When she isn’t working at her day job at Evans Insurance Agency, she can usually be found in the garden with her husband Casey, at their farm near Warba. In addition to gardening, she and Casey enjoy cooking from scratch whenever possible and learning new regenerative living skills to put into practice on their homestead. She has always looked forward to having a food co-op in Grand Rapids as an inclusive space where residents and visitors alike have access to fresh, healthy, local foods. Shara believes FRFC can also play an important role in our community by supporting local farmers and providing educational opportunities for community members.
Shara's term expires October 2025
Contact Shara at sharad.frfc@gmail.com
Tom Connolly, Director
Site Selection Team; GM Search Team
Tom is a lifelong Itasca County resident; he lives in Bovey and has two daughters. He sees value in the co-op as a great way to promote healthy eating, sustainability and community, and to connect local farmers with local consumers.
He is a Professional Engineer with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He looks forward to applying the experience he has gained leading projects and working with diverse teams to help make the co-op a reality.
Tom's term expires Oct. 2025
Contact Tom at connolly.tom@gmail.com
Garrett Holl, Director
Board Development Team; Site Selection Team
Garrett grew up on a farm in central Iowa and studied horticulture and biology at Iowa State University. That's where he met his wife, Stacy, who is from Grand Rapids. He has lived in Grand Rapids since 2015 and has three children. He is passionate about sustainability, gardening, and making his own bread. He loves fresh, local products and knowing where and by whom they’re made. Garrett has work experience in agriculture, food service, retail, genetics, software development, IT support, and construction and will apply what he's learned to help make this food co-op a reality. He believes together we can build a Co-op that is inviting, accessible, and helps our community build ties to each other and the natural world.
Garrett's term expires Oct. 2026
Contact Garrett at garrett.frfc@gmail.com
Lydia Williams, Director
Owner Engagement Team; Marketing Team; Capital Campaign Team
Lydia believes that co-ops, just as they were a landmark of the past, are the way of a sustainable future as well. FRFC should be an epicenter for all things food, health, and community. With issues surrounding rising food prices, inaccessibility to healthy and nutritious foods, and supply chain issues in general, now is truly the time to make connections with the public and with our local producers to offer them a reliable marketplace to be able to sell their products. She believes she can help move our co-op forward during this critical time of finishing up stage 2B and shifting into Stage 3 of development. Lydia is dedicated to seeing this project be successful, and offers a unique viewpoint as a young individual which will be helpful in making sure our co-op has a continued legacy into the future. She would love to see the goal of providing classes on many different food-related and sustainability topics to our ownership and the general public come to fruition. A healthy community starts with community education!
Lydia’s term expires Oct. 2025
Contact Lydia at lydiaw.frfc@gmail.com
Lynn Gannon, Director
Board Development Team
Lynn has been a co-op owner in every city/town she’s lived in since 1989 and can't imagine living somewhere where there was no food co-op. As a new Grand Rapids resident and passionate believer in the strength and benefits of the cooperative business model, she was thrilled to learn of the initiative to open Free Range Food Co-op. She believes in the importance of local, sustainable, fresh foods as a means to achieving environmental and personal health and sees FRFC as a vital step toward increasing the availability of those types of foods. During a 30-year career as a white-collar fraud investigator she mastered skills of document and project management, teamwork, and can crunch numbers on a spreadsheet like there's no tomorrow. She served on the board of directors for Spiral Natural Foods Co-op from Oct 2014 until June 2020, including three years as board president, when a traumatic accident, hospitalization, and recovery made her continued participation on the board impossible. During her time on Spiral’s board she gained a working knowledge of board policy governance, learned some basics of grocery operations from Spiral’s very patient GM, and along with the board and GM navigated the co-op through significant financial challenges and launching of a capital campaign to raise needed funds for a store expansion effort. Beyond food co-ops, Lynn loves dogs and believes any day gets better if she can spend it with dogs. Prior to her injuries, Lynn was an avid runner, endurance athlete, and outdoor enthusiast. Though, post accident, taking hikes in the winter woods entails many new challenges for Lynn, she is looking forward to exploring the woodland trails in the Chippewa National Forest this winter with her dogs.
Lynn’s term expires Oct. 2025
Contact Lynn at lynng.frfc@gmail.com