The ASLF Team
Executive Director
Susie Cover is an entrepreneur, operations and logistics manager, chef, and mother of two living in Brooklyn, New York. Most recently she was the Vice President of operations for Butter Beans Kitchen, a food service company providing over 10,000 meals daily to charter and private schools in New York City. She has served as Executive Director since 2022.
Previously she was the Product Development Chef for Babeth’s Feast, a premium frozen grocery in Manhattan that also ships nationwide. She also founded and was executive chef for an online delivery food service called Susie’s Supper Club, which prepared family friendly meals for customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. She launched a line of frozen meals under the same brand for Whole Foods and also developed a cookbook, The Supper Club: kid-friendly meals the whole family will love. Earlier in her career, she worked for many years as a caterer and private chef. She is a graduate of Denison University.
Susie Cover
Director of Programs & Development
A California native, Kristina grew up snacking on her mom’s home-made granola and farm-fresh produce. She was drawn to hospitality early on, and grew up running restaurants and bars while in school in LA and NY. Before coming to ASLF, she spent time sourcing textiles for Ralph Lauren, mongering behind the counter at Bklyn Larder, and running school food catering operations across New York City. She brings a combined 20 years of experience in program & relationship management, marketing and operations. She has always believed strongly that food is community, and that every challenge has a creative solution. Kristina holds a BA from Claremont McKenna College, and an MA from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she lives with her husband and 2 sons in Ossining, New York.
Kristina Graeber
Arts & Operations Coordinator
Allison started with the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund as an Apprentice in 2023 and now serves as the Arts & Operations Coordinator! She has apprenticed on three farms where she learned to grow vegetables, make cheese, and milk sheep. Previously, she taught at Brooklyn Nature Days, an all-outdoor forest elementary school in Prospect Park. Alongside her work at ASLF, she helps sell produce at the Fort Greene farmers market in Brooklyn and runs a small clothing repair service!
Allison attended Pratt Institute, graduating with a BFA in Film. She has an interdisciplinary art practice, making films, drawings, lamps, clothing, ceramics, paintings, and furniture!
Allison Sirota
Art & Design
Designer
Francesca Richer is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer with 30 years of experience working in art direction, branding, and editorial and graphic design.
Francesca Richer
Illustrator
Maya is a visual artist, farmer, and holistic practitioner from New York. She first came on board with ASLF as Director of Programs, working alongside Patrick to launch the inaugural season, producing the First Annual Benefit with Anna Harrington, and building the Storytelling Program and organization's visual language with her illustrations. She has worked in the world of food and farming for the past ten years, and has witnessed the infinite and cosmic nature of growing food in community again and again.
Maya Netzer
Special thanks to Alexandra Hammond – artist, branding consultant, close friend of Anne's, and designer of the ASLF Logo. The logo speaks to Anne's life and work that transformed the food system in America. The infinite shape of the Mobius Strip symbolizes city and country, humans and nature, and the whole cycle of life that contains contrasts and yet is one interconnected system.
The ASLF BOARD
Ralph Bumbaca
Ralph Bumbaca is the EVP, Regional President of Metro NY for TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank. He is responsible for providing strategic direction and leadership to TD Bank’s local Retail, Small Business and Commercial Banking teams throughout a network of 135 stores and banking hubs across the NY metropolitan area.
Herbert Eisenberg
Herb is a founding partner of Eisenberg & Schnell, LLP. He has practiced law for over 40 years representing employees in all aspects of employment law. He focuses on individual and class litigation involving employment discrimination, equal pay, sexual harassment, and civil rights. He has wide expertise with academic, medical, financial institutions and professional practices. He is proud to have been instrumental in the formation of and fashioning foundational structures for ASLF.
Catherine Greeley
Catherine is currently a co-owner and Vice President of Heritage Foods overseeing retail marketing, e-commerce, and distribution of heritage breed meats nose-to-tail. She works directly with small independent farmers and artisans across the country who foster a culture in which animals are raised humanely, outdoors, on-pasture, and with traditional farming techniques.
Joseph Kaiser
Joseph Kaiser enjoyed a 22-year career as an operatic tenor. He sang numerous roles with The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, The Paris Opera, The Bayerissche Staatsoper and The Vienna Staatsoper. Mr Kaiser is also a partner at Oriole (2 Michelin Stars) and Kumiko (recently ranked the 25th best bar in the world), both located in Chicago. Mr. Kaiser is a board member with the illustrious New York Festival of Song. He lives in Katonah, NY, with his wife Jeanne and is fiercely proud of his wonderful sons.
EUgenie Maine
Eugenie is a second generation expatriate American. As the niece of Harold Launders, she has been a trustee of The Ruth and Hal Launders Charitable Trust since 1996, and served as their Grant Administrator from 2008-2018. Eugenie has also been an educator for 30 years. She is the founding principal of the Semarang International School in Indonesia, and has taught in the US, Sri Lanka, and Italy. In Italy, she was the President of the Parents Association at St. Stephens School and served for nine years on its Board of Directors. While serving as a Trustee on the RHLCT Eugenie continues to be an involved in both the Board and Discretionary Grant programs, actively participating in virtual site visits for Board Level grants and awarding discretionary grants to a variety of grantees.
Patrick Martins
Patrick is the Founder of the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund. Patrick works with an excellent team to run Heritage Foods, a mail-order and distribution business for dozens of farms raising heritage breeds of livestock and poultry, the last vestiges of pre-industrial agriculture in America, the kind you must eat to save! You can order online or enjoy these foods at hundreds of the finest restaurants and markets from coast to coast. He sits on the Board of the Good Shepherd Conservancy, an agri-tourism center in Kansas that is a training ground for farmers to learn how to farm and breed non-factory-farm poultry; a professional kitchen; and a living museum. Patrick is a founder of Slow Food USA and the Heritage Radio Network and author of the Carnivore's Manifesto published by Little, Brown.
Emily Pearson
Emily, after working for a boutique public relations firm in New York for several years, followed her gut — or rather her stomach — and went to work with Tuscan Italian chef Cesare Casella. In 2016 she joined Heritage Foods, an online and wholesale distributor of heritage breed meats, as Director of Wholesale. Emily oversees relationships with over 150 restaurants, artisan butchers and curemasters as well as managing a network of farmers and processors. She is also actively engaged in marketing and social media for the company. In 2019, Emily became a co-owner of Heritage Foods. Emily lives in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn with her husband Dennis and two daughters, Olivia and Sofia.
PaM Saxelby
Pam is an educator with a Bachelors of Science in Education, and Masters hours in early childhood education.
She taught elementary and junior high school, and found her passion as a preschool teacher in Libertyville, Illinois. Her goal was to make school a place of joy!
She is the author of 3 children’s books and was honored to have collaborated with Anne as her illustrator.