OUR TEAM
“Let man heal the hurt places and revere whatever is still miraculously pristine.“
– David Brower
STEWARDS OF FOX HAVEN
Fox Haven is a living growing community – from all the diverse lifeforms that reside on this land, to the people who visit, contribute, and learn, to our neighbors and friends, near and far. We invite you to visit Fox Haven and get to know our community.
JoAnn Coates-Hunter: Director
JoAnn holds a BS from University of Pittsburgh, MA from Earlham College/School of Religion and a teaching certificate from Brown University. JoAnn empowers and supports our stellar team, oversees operations, directs our educational programs, teaches, and brings her knowledge and excitement about the wonders of nature to visitors of all ages. Her work on the boards and steering committees of Community F.A.R.E., the Frederick County Food Council, and Frederick Farm to School serves to weave Fox Haven’s mission into the lives of farmers, students, and families struggling with food security and the food economy of Frederick County and the region. JoAnn’s hope is that everyone leaves Fox Haven with a new understanding of self, nature, and our inter-dependency with an action to take, be it a new gardening or farming technique, an energy-saving act, a letter or phone call to a business or governmental body, a plan for a community project or better nutrition.
Lacey Walker: Learning Center Herb Farm, CSA & Herb Internship Manager
Lacey is an educator whose passion for herbs led to becoming Fox Haven’s herb farmer, herbalist, forager, and plant educator. While teaching English to non-native speakers in DC, Lacey began facilitating peer to peer learning, a style of group learning. As Director of the Learning Center Farm, she created the Fresh Herbal CSA in 2017 and established Fox Haven’s Herbal Internship Program in 2018. A lifelong learner, Lacey studies with noted experts and has completed two years of apprenticeship at the Wild Ginger Herbal Center (formerly Centro Ashe), as well as two study trips to Costa Rica and training on the body, with Tammi Sweet of Heartstone Herbal School. In 2017, she completed coursework on fermentation with Sandor Katz in Tennessee, and in 2019, completed an apprenticeship with Susquehanna Apothecary, where she honed medicine making skills.
Laith Nichols: Orchardist, Beekeeper & Educator
Laith comes to Fox Haven with five years of farming, gardening and land maintenance experience. Their background includes greenhouse management, vegetable production, poultry and small ruminant/equine care and beekeeping. They’ve worked for a variety of growing operations; experience includes Gotham Greens–leading producer of hydroponic-grown leafy greens, TALMAR–horticultural therapy center and vocational training farm, and KarmaFarm–a small-scale farm growing specialty produce for CSA and local restaurants. Laith is passionate about ag-based education as a vehicle for fostering food sovereignty and promoting ecological stewardship and is looking forward to helping folks who visit Fox Haven establish meaningful connections to the natural world.
Alecks Moss: Program Coordinator, Marketing & Events Director
Alecks is a professional event planner and marketing strategist who designs and publicizes Fox Haven’s class offerings. Alecks uses her B.A. in marketing and business administration in the creation of dynamic brand management and event design. Infusing a magical spark into every event she plans, Alecks loves bringing together Fox Haven’s growing, vibrant community of locavores, nature lovers, herbalists, storytellers, movers, shakers, learners, and makers. An herb enthusiast at heart, she also brings her passion for nature, mindfulness, and folk herbalism to Fox Haven.
Ashley Hoffman: Graphic Designer, Facilitator & Outreach Specialist
Ashley Hoffman was born and raised in Frederick County and brings her passion for this land to her work at Fox Haven. She is an herbalist who advocates for accessibility in healthcare and herbalism. Through her classes and garden tours, she hopes to inspire students and visitors of Fox Haven to create positive relationships with their own health, the earth and one another. Ashley is also an artist focused in photography and mixed media. Within her personal work, she creates a dialogue for important social and environmental issues. At Fox Haven, you’ll see her creativity in the posters and promotional materials for classes and events.
Mardelle Poffenberger: Business Manager, Living History Teacher
Mardelle grew up on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay and spent her youth in the outdoors, camping, swimming, fishing, exploring the Bay area, and Frederick County farmland when visiting relatives. She loves history and is known for her living history activities in Frederick and Washington Counties. Mardelle subscribes to the sustainable, use-everything-throw-nothing-away lifestyle which existed for thousands of years, and she works to incorporate this into her daily routines. Professionally, Mardelle is a bookkeeper, administrator-trained in business management, and is part owner of Bravura Arts & Framing, an art gallery and custom picture framing shop in downtown Frederick. Mardelle’s work at Fox Haven allows her to combine much of what she loves in life.
Randal Marcoux: Facility and Land Steward
Carpenter, foreman and superintendent for 43 years in the Baltimore/ Washington area. Looking to help people close to home for a change and get to know my neighbors in return. In his spare time, Randal is an avid gardener, frequently sharing homemade creations including pickled peppers and wineberry wine.
Dick Bittner: Fox Haven Organic Farm, LLC Farm Manager
Dick has spent most of his life close to farming and the farm community here in Frederick County. Born, raised, and educated in Frederick County, Dick’s degrees in engineering from Johns Hopkins University led him to work for 17 years assisting doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he designed, built, and tested medical instruments. A second career selling farms and land led Dick to help in the formation of the tract of land that is now named Fox Haven Organic Farm (FHOF). Now, in his third career as farm manager at FHOF, Dick draws upon this life experience to restore the land and build innovative systems at FHOF, demonstrating sustainable models to produce food, restore the land, natural systems and wildlife.
Harriett Crosby, Founder
Harriett was trained at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland as a Jungian psychoanalyst and set up practice in Washington DC. During the Clinton administration, Harriett worked in the White House Office of Environmental Policy and the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. She invited innovative thinkers, including Father Thomas Berry, David Brower, Joanna Macy, Fritjof Capra to speak at brown bag lunches. She was a speech writer for Vice President Al Gore on Native American Indian issues. Harriett was a Sundancer on Pine Ridge Reservation in S.D. for four consecutive years. While fasting on a four-day vision quest in the Black Hills, she watched the approach of a thunderstorm, was drenched in rain and felt bolts of lightning striking all around her. She had a vision of the earth being alive, intelligent, expressive and Mother Earth became her teacher. She has been guided by this vision and it is foundational to Fox Haven’s mission. She currently serves actively on the boards of Friends of the Earth, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, as well as Fox Haven.
Robin Aura Kanegis
Aura grew up next to Fox Haven and has been a voice in its conception, growth and maturity. She currently serves as Director of Public Policy and Advocacy for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Washington, DC, where she lives with her family. Prior to joining AFSC she served as Director of Campaigns and Iraq Peace Campaign Director for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), and with the National Congress of American Indians, on behalf of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments and individuals. Aura holds a B.A. in Third World Studies and Women’s Studies from Oberlin College and an I.B. from the Armand Hammer United World College. She is the lead vocalist of Brûlée, a jazz-blues band performing in the Washington area.
Larry Bohlen
Larry is a former NASA engineer, an international environmental advocate, and a food safety entrepreneur. He helped repair the Hubble Telescope, led efforts that saved farms and forests, and discovered an illegal variety of genetically engineered corn in the American food supply. Now he is developing novel methods to detect food contaminants through NaturalCheck, a triple-bottom-line company that he founded. Previously, he held positions at the American Lung Association, the Sierra Club, and at Friends of the Earth, where he directed the Health and Environment Program to prevent pollution of air, water and food.
Sophia Marvell
Sophia grew up on an organic seed saving farm in Montgomery County, MD. After attending the farm school for organic vegetable production and animal husbandry, she co-founded Brickyard Educational Farm and received her M.A. in Education, focusing on land-based communities. She currently works at Potomac Vegetable Farms in Virginia, as a farm-based educator and educational garden manager. Sophia is committed to multi-generational social and ecological healing through connection to land, nature, and our collective histories.
Lotte Schlegel
Throughout her life and career, Lotte has been involved in sustainability initiatives including conservation, clean energy, social welfare, and waste reduction. She has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and governance and has been instrumental in growing multiple organizations. She enjoys outdoor adventures and can often be found gardening, biking, or exploring with her family. Lotte has an M.B.A from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a B.A. in biological sciences from Wellesley College.
Amanda Cather
Amanda has been a small farmer and gardener since she graduated with a degree in history and science from Harvard University. She lives with her family in Poolesville and loves to run, read, and raise sheep, bees, and vegetables. Plow and Stars Farm is a small-scale family-run vegetable and animal farm. They raise about 30 head of sheep, goats, laying hens, pigs and turkeys for the holidays. She is the Project Director for the Million Acre Challenge, which will put one million acres into regenerative agriculture across the Chesapeake region.
Kai Hagan
Kai is the Director of Envision Frederick County and serves as an at-large member of the Frederick County Council. He was a member of the Frederick County Board of County Commissioners from 2006 – 2010. After growing up in Washington DC, Kai went to St. Olaf College in Minnesota, returning east after a dozen years there and eight more in California, where he worked with a number of environmental organizations. Kai and his family moved to Frederick County in 1995, and he has been highly engaged in the community since then, volunteering with local organizations, serving on many boards and commissions, coaching soccer and basketball, writing columns for the Frederick News-Post and Gazette, hosting a community-focused radio show, and more.
In addition to Fox Haven staff who teach programs and classes, the Learning Center features these instructors in our classes and events throughout the year.
Samantha Feld
Samantha owns The Mushroomworks, a mushroom growing and foraging business in Baltimore. Her fascination with mycology began when her backyard sprouted a garden of colorful mushrooms from the decaying roots of an old maple tree. After learning that they were a cousin to the powerfully medicinal Reishi mushroom, Sam began her research into the complicated, and often misunderstood, world of mycology. Sam is an avid forager and gardener, interested in the medicinal properties of mushrooms and plants. She has taught mushroom focused foraging, cultivation, dyeing, and illustration classes in the Mid-Atlantic area. When not out in nature, she can be found puttering around her row house homestead or teaching art in Baltimore City schools.
Holly Poole Kavana
Holly is a botanist and herbalist practicing in Washington, DC. She is a lifelong plant enthusiast and has a bachelor’s degree in botany. In 2005, she shifted her focus to herbal medicine and studied with a series of experienced herbalists in the classroom, clinic, and outdoors. Since 2010, she has operated Little Red Bird Botanicals, a small business that provides individual herbal consultations, an herbal CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), locally-grown herbal products, and education. Holly also works as a birth assistant and labor doula.
Jared Urchek
Jared lends a hand in teaching the Foraging series at Fox Haven. He holds expertise in mycology and mushroom identification. This year, he is helping to lead a mycoremediation project on Fox Haven’s land. Jared is the owner of Boulder High Country Mushrooms, a purveyor of fine, gourmet fungal food and medicine. Beginning his fungal studies through a basic permaculture course, he furthered his studies with Paul Stamets’ mushroom cultivation and mycoremediation courses. With a mushroom laboratory and cultivation space, he travels the land searching for the most delicious, most medicinal mushrooms to culture and propagate.
Jason Drevenak
Jason grew up on his family’s homestead in West Virginia hunting, fishing, hiking, building shelters and making tools. After serving as a medic in the Army and subsequently returning to college, he made a career of teaching people how to engage with the outdoors through various businesses. As an established teacher and founder of the North American Bushcraft School, Jason is setting new roots here in Maryland and West Virginia!
Natalie Love
Natalie Love is a lover of learning and living things! After completing an internship at Fox Haven Learning Center in 2020, she is joyfully sharing her enthusiasm by stepping into the role of supportive facilitator and teacher. In her upcoming classes, Natalie will share her love and lessons of the natural world of herbalism, plant dyeing, fiber art, toolmaking, and tea preparation.
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