Joe Arden, board co-president

​Joe has been involved with AOLC board since 2013. He had served as the Governance Chair for five years and has chaired several AOLC fundraiser dinners before becoming co-President in 2019.  Joe’s background is in software design, project management, and consulting; however, around 2017 he switched his focus to teaching yoga, particularly as a volunteer in underserved communities. Joe also serves on the board of Prison Yoga Chicago, an organization dedicated to bringing trauma-informed yoga to inmates.  Joe is married and has three daughters. In his free time he strums the guitar, hikes, and of course, maintains his yoga practice.

stephanie khanna, board c0-president

Stephanie joined the Board of Directors in 2016 after moving to the Chicago area with her husband and 2 children from Seattle.  It was in Seattle that her experience of growing her family’s own food sparked her passion for deeper connection to her food and community.  After graduating from The College of William and Mary with a BS in Finance, she worked at UBS as a Project Manager.  Currently a stay-at-home mom, she can be found playing with her kids and dog, cuddling baby goats, or practicing yoga.  Holistic nutrition combined with mindfulness initially connected Stephanie to AOLC.  Serving as Board Co-President for 2 years she is continually impressed with the passion and drive of the staff and honored to be a part of the organization’s impact on the local food economy and future of agriculture.

tina williams, secretary

​Tina attended AOLC’s annual fundraising dinner in Fall 2018 and knew immediately she wanted to get more involved with the Learning Center. She is a strong believer in the philosophy: Food as Medicine. Tina is a professional event planner at a sports marketing agency in downtown Chicago. She creates thoughtful and unique VIP experiences for her corporate hospitality clients to ensure their trip to the Masters Golf Tournament or the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four is truly one-of-a-kind. Being on the board of AOLC and co-chairing the annual fundraiser dinner allows Tina to bring her two passions (event planning and food as medicine) together.   

andrew larson, treasurer

Andy is a Farm Outreach Specialist for the Food Finance Institute and SBDC at University of Wisconsin.  Andy works with entrepreneurial farm businesses in Wisconsin to build farm financial management capacity and access the capital they need to grow.  Andy has expertise in farm business and marketing, agricultural lending, and grantsmanship. Prior to joining FFI, Andy worked as an Agriculture and Commercial Loan Officer at a community bank, providing commercial credit to family farms and small businesses in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.  His portfolio included crop farms, dairy farms, and a wide variety of local food farms.  Before that, Andy worked in university extension in both Iowa and Illinois, providing programming on the business and marketing side of small farms, local foods, and sustainable agriculture.  Andy earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from the University of Illinois, and a Master of Business Administration from Iowa State University.  Andy grew up on a dairy farm, and now lives with his wife and three daughters on a small-scale poultry farm just down the road, where they produce free-range brown eggs for local restaurants, retail stores, and farmers markets.

charles johannsen

Charles Johannsen grew up working in his family’s greenhouse business and, later, spent a few years doing organic gardening and farming. His love of plants, the natural world, and good farming runs deep. He has been a small-scale filmmaker for 50 years, putting together numerous pieces about conservation and education subjects. Beginning in 2007, he made a number of videos for Angelic Organics Learning Center and for Roots & Wings. He has a B.A. from Stanford University and an MA in Teaching from Rockford University.

brad kemp

Brad joined the AOLC board in early 2021 after spending much of 2020 cooking at home with the CSA boxes from Angelic Organics. While he has always been a passionate home cook and interested in local food, the pandemic really fertilized (pun intended) this part of his life and drove him to join the board. Brad owns and operates Second Bedroom Studio where he works as music composer and producer in Chicago. He has collaborated on projects with notable artists such as Yvie Oddly (RuPaul's Drag Race Season 11 winner), Shea Couleé (RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 5 winner), and Chris Redd [SNL, Disjointed]. He currently composes music for podcasts with iHeartRadio and has written original music for over 20 musicals that have been produced in New York, Los Angeles and of course, Chicago. Brad is also a member of comedy hip hop trio Handsome Naked (NBC's Bring The Funny, Billboard Comedy top 10, #2 iTunes comedy chart). He loves the Green Bay Packers, his dog Frankie, and his incredible, supporting wife.

Cliff mcconville

​Cliff joined the Angelic Organics Learning Center Board in July 2014.  He is the founder and head farmer at All Grass Farms LLC, a regenerative livestock farm producing grass fed beef, raw Guernsey milk, and pasture-raised pork, chicken, turkeys, and ducks on approximately 560 organic acres with farm locations in Dundee, Illinois and Elkhorn, Wisconsin.  He is passionate about rebuilding a local food system that prioritizes nutrient-dense, chemical free foods, grown in healthy soils, and produced in a manner that respects the community, the environment, and the animals that feed us.  Prior to starting his transition to farming in 2011, he worked in the insurance industry in Chicago for over 20 years.

beth nielsen

Beth Nielsen has been an integral member of the leadership team since returning to the family business. Being an entrepreneur at heart, she founded and operated her own successful business prior to rejoining the family business. For over a decade, she was a restaurant manager in resorts and fine dining as well as financial controller and director of marketing.  As VP of Culinary, her responsibilities with Nielsen-Massey Vanillas have included overseeing the company’s international division and its food service division, including sales and recipe application, research and development as well as product innovation. In line with her entrepreneurial spirit, love for food and avid support of the environment, she is active in several organic/local/sustainable environmental organizations. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Angelic Organics Learning Center, the Co-Chair of the Farm to City Benefit, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Nielsen-Massey Foundation. She earned degrees in Psychology, Spanish and Music from Denison University and studied International Business and Language at one of Europe's top business schools, Esade.

Jamie zimmerman

Jamie is obsessed about the food we eat for our health and how we grow our food for the wellbeing of our families and the planet. She is passionate about learning and serving by assisting families and local farmers grow and provide healthy, sustainable food for our community. Jamie is a CPA and has her Masters in Business Administration and works with a local engineering firm.  She is also an educator in the accounting field teaching at various colleges and universities. Jamie and her family have 5 acres of property where they experiment, grow and share their food sources utilizing and learning as much as possible about regenerative farming. 
Part of their land is also registered as a natural pollinator habitat through the Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation. Any extra time she devotes to being out in nature with family, gardening, reading and trying to master the perfect loaf of sourdough bread.