People

Farm Forward Staff

Steven Jay Gross, Ph.D. - Chief Executive Officer

A former Fortune 500 business consultant, Steve Gross helped to pioneer the wave of savvy, new outreach strategies to corporate America that has transformed both animal advocacy and corporate support for animal welfare improvements in the last 10 years. Gross has led negotiations between animal advocacy groups and some of the nation’s largest companies, including Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Safeway, and Whole Foods. Prior to this work, Gross founded and ran the Illinois Humane PAC, passing an unheard-of 10 animal protection laws in a decade with an average annual budget of less than 50 thousand dollars. As a board member of Global Animal Partnership, he has helped to create a groundbreaking five-tier welfare certification program for all animal products.

Congratulations, Steve! Dr. Gross led the negotiations between PETA and Safeway (the third-largest North American grocery retailer) that resulted in a February 2008 decision by the retail giant to preferentially purchase cage-free eggs, pig meat from operations that do not use gestation crates, and poultry slaughtered using improved methods. The Wall Street Journal described the changes as "new policy that will elevate animal welfare as a priority when buying the meat and eggs that line its shelves."1

Aaron Gross, MTS, C.Phil. - Executive Vice President

Aaron S. Gross is a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego and holds graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and the University of California, Santa Barbara's Department of Religious Studies. He has played a leadership role in a wide variety of national and international farmed animal welfare campaigns in North and South America, South Asia, and the Middle East since the mid-1990s. Gross chairs the Steering Committee of the American Academy of Religion's Animals and Religion Consultation. His forthcoming edited volume, Animal Others and the Human Imagination, aims to make a major contribution to the growing new literature of Animal Studies. His articles have appeared in the Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal, Shofar, and Tikkun. Gross founded Farm Forward in 2006.

Ben Goldsmith - Director

Ben Goldsmith began his fulltime animal advocacy work in 2004, helping to lead anti-factory farming campaigns that have generated discussion in the nation’s most important periodicals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Los Angeles Times. Goldsmith’s work—and the large-scale media attention to factory farming issues that it has generated—has helped to bring about industry-wide improvements for farmed animals. From work with both nonprofits and small to midsize businesses, Goldsmith brings substantial experience in corporate marketing and public relations campaigns to Farm Forward.

Tori Okner - Staff Researcher and Writer

Tori Okner compliments her commitment to environmental stewardship with an academic and professional background in socio-economic development and human rights. Whether combing through legal text or preparing for an interview, Tori is eager to work on behalf of the food justice movement.

Board of Directors

John Mackey - Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market is the nation’s leading retailer of humane and organic foods. Its 270 stores worldwide had gross receipts of more than 6.6 billion last year. Mackey co-founded the chain in 1980.

Ian Duncan, Ph.D. - Professor of Applied Ethology in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph and holds the oldest University Chair in Animal Welfare in North America

Duncan was one of the first people to bring a scientific approach to solving animal welfare problems. In his research, he is developing methods of "asking" farm animals what they feel about the conditions in which they are kept and the procedures to which they are subjected. He has published approximately 150 scientific papers addressing animal welfare issues.

Bernard Rollin, Ph.D. - University Distinguished Professor, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Animal Sciences, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, and University Bioethicist at the University of Colorado

Rollin is one of the world's leading scholars in animal ethics and actively lectures all over the globe. He introduced the first university course on veterinary ethics, helped pass the federal Animal Welfare Act, has published seven books on animal protection and consciousness, and served on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.

Frank Reese - Owner and Operator of Good Shepherd Ranch, Founder and President of the Standard-Bred Poultry Institute

A fourth generation Kansas farmer, Reese is the nation’s preeminent expert on poultry. He has received acclaim from, among many others, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and chef Mario Batali for his work raising heritage poultry, and he has been featured in a number of national publications including the front pages of both The New York Times and USA Today. His farm has provided the model for the nation’s leading humane certifications.

Jonathan Safran Foer - Novelist

Foer’s bestselling first book, Everything Is Illuminated, was named Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and won numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize and the National Jewish Book Award. His second book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, also a bestseller, was hailed by Salman Rushdie as "ambitious, pyrotechnic, riddling, and above all … extremely moving." His third book, due to be released in 2009, offers a critique of factory farming and was written in close collaboration with Farm Forward. Foer has taught writing at Yale and is on the faculty of NYU's Creative Writing Program.

Miyun Park - Executive Director, Global Animal Partnership

Park has worked full time in animal advocacy since the mid 1990s. Her leadership in reducing the suffering of farmed animals has driven policies that improve animal well-being into corporate board rooms, international investment banks, academic institutions, courthouses, and legislatures. Prior to her current post as Global Animal Partnership’s Executive Director, Park served as Vice President, Farm Animal Welfare, for the Humane Society of the United States and its global affiliate, Humane Society International.

Bruce Friedrich - Vice President of International Grassroots Campaigns, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

In his 12 years with PETA, Friedrich has managed several of the most publicized and groundbreaking animal welfare campaigns in U.S. history. He serves on the boards of the Catholic Vegetarian Society and the Christian Vegetarian Society.

Rabbi Jonathan Crane, Ph.D. - Rabbi and Ethicist

Crane holds rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College and a Ph.D. in religion from the University of Toronto. Crane has served Jewish communities in North America, India, and China. He sits on the board of the Society for Jewish Ethics.

1. 1. Lauren Etter, "Safeway Embraces Animal Welfare," Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2008.