Keynote: George Howell
George Howell founded The Coffee Connection in Massachusetts in 1974. For the following 2 decades, he grew Coffee Connection into 24 company-owned stores throughout New England, emphasizing coffee as a noble beverage, worthy of the same respect as fine wine. In 1994, Howell sold his high-quality popular coffee company to Starbucks.
After being awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Specialty Coffee Association of America in 1996, he returned to coffee-traveling world-wide, and from 1997 to 1999 worked with the United Nations and the International Coffee Organization on models of economic sustainability for coffee farmers. This led directly to his conceiving the first international green coffee competition in Brazil, followed immediately by a green coffee internet auction to roasters around the world. The competition-auction program became the Cup Of Excellence, a non-profit organization he co-founded, designed to help break the commodity/price cycle and to give identity to coffee farmers in the specialty coffee industry.
Howell, educated at Yale University, lives in Wayland, MA, and travels extensively to coffee producing farms. He has written for many food and beverage publications, guest lectured at Harvard University, Boston University, Johnson & Wales, the SCAE and the Norwegian Coffee Association. After leaving the Cup of Excellence he created the George Howell Coffee Company (www.GeorgeHowellCoffee.com) and its Terroir Coffee brand in 2004. His company emphasizes single estate coffees and is a pioneer in raising quality coffee standards to much higher levels. In 2007 Howell was awarded the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s highest honor, the Better Coffee World Award.
Sebastien Lafaye
Sebastian left France in 1999 to do a 1 year training period with a Coffee exporter in Costa Rica. He received a job offer at the end and decided to accept it. Since then, he has been focusing his job around coffee trading, mainly with co-ops. He spent 2 years in Nicaragua with the ICO before coming back to Costa Rica to create and manage the specialty coffee book of Cafecoop. He was named General manager on the top of Head Trader in 2005 and opened STC in 2010 to bring tailor made services and transparent/direct business to local co-ops. On the top of that, he has been hired by the Dutch Government as technical consultant for their ‘Export Coaching program’ in Central America. He got married in 2003 and has 2 kids (Amelie 6 and Fabien 3).
James Schoenhut
Jaime is President of Royal Coffee New York, a specialty Green Importer. Jaime has been working in specialty coffee for over 18 years, first as a roaster/retailer before starting Royal New York. He enjoys the challenge of discovering great coffees and the people that stand behind them.
He and the Royal NY crew have hosted several Cup of Excellence events at their warehouse as well as various Micro Lot programs in Central America. Royal NY is a proud supporter of the MANE event.
Mike Mowry
Mike Mowry is the Coffee Quality Coordinator at Equal Exchange in West Bridgewater, Ma, where he is responsible for grading green coffees, maintaining quality control systems, production cupping, blending, and a healthy dose of training for both customers and folks within Equal Exchange. He is also part of Equal Exchange’s Chocolate Sensory Panel. He has worked professionally in coffee for twelve years, starting as a barista and café manager, and is passionate about learning as much about coffee as possible. Mike is an SCAA Certified Lead Instructor and Licensed Q Grader. He also loves tacos, beer, and cooking
BethAnn Casperson
Beth Ann is the Quality Control Manager for the coffee importer and roaster Equal Exchange in West Bridgewater, Mass. She is a passionate teacher and loves the opportunity to learn. Beth Ann prides herself on working directly with the quality personnel in the small farmer coops they buy coffee from and working to create a common vocabulary. She is a graduate of the Sensory Science and Consumer Testing program at UC Davis, a Q Grader, SCAA Instructor and a member of the newly created SCAA Coffee Tasters Certificate Panel. Beth Ann is an advocate for women’s rights, enjoys foraging in the forest, eating tasty bits, being with her family and everything about coffee.
Rob Stephens
Rob Stephen is the General Manager at Coffee Solutions and Senior Trader, East Coast for InterAmerican Coffee, Inc. in Hopedale, MA. He is a certified Q Grader, SCAA Cupping Judge and a Q Grader Instructor with over 20 years of experience at all levels of the industry. At Coffee Solutions, he works with all aspects of the industry as a consultant, trainer and a provider of laboratory services. At InterAmerican, he works with specialty coffee roasting companies to provide great coffee and even greater service.
Scott Guglielimo
Scott has worked in the coffee industry for the past 9 years, starting in the Bay Area and moving to Seattle to work for La Marzocco USA. When he’s not trying to understand the complex nature of espresso machines, he often can be found pursuing water filtration, gardening, cooking, or alongside the company of his close friends. Scott is La Marzocco USA’s Product Manager and Technical Evangelist. If you run into Scott he’s always interested to hear your ideas on improving espresso machines
Matt Brown
Matt made the jump from slinging roasted coffee to green coffee in 2011 when he joined with Café Imports. Since then, he has been able to work and cup alongside industry professionals from around the glob
e in a wide variety of settings. As a part of the Sales team, he works with Roasters on a daily basis, matching unique coffees with equally unique needs. He has had the privilege of judging at the NERBC for the past two years, as well as speaking at Coffee Fest and last year’s MANE conference
Jay Caragay
Filmmaker, paintballer, photojournalist, talkshow host, cigar aficionado, BBQ-ist, adventurer, raconteur and lover turned barista. Jay Caragay owns and operates Spro Coffee in Baltimore, Maryland offering a selection of coffees from six coffee roasters and a seven method by-the-cup brew bar. His extensive experience has taken him across the United States and Canada to Mexico, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Japan and trained baristas on four continents. Jay’s focus is on exploring and expanding the barista craft and nurturing customers with hospitality while experimenting with new and varied ingredients.
Gerra Harrigan
Trader, InterAmerican Coffee. Gerra started working in specialty coffee at the age of 15 which may or may not be a long time ago. After traveling a long and winding road from Providence to Boston to NYC, this East Coast loyalist landed back in Providence working for a startup wholesale roaster. Ten years later graduating from production to training to sales and marketing she developed a keen understanding of the independent roaster and passion for the industry and people in it.
Gerra sits on the editorial board of Barista Magazine and is a certified Q-grader. She lives outside Boston with her husband Bill and two daughters, Nora and Stella. Their cat ran away last year
Liz Clark
Liz Clark lives in Ithaca NY and works at Gimme! Coffee as the Green Coffee Lab Manager. She loves ephemeral sensory experiences which is probably why she loves coffee people so much. She spends her free time sailing, making homemade pasta and perfuming.
Teresa Von Fuchs
Teresa von Fuchs started in coffee more than half her life ago, and has been happily building a career as a grown up coffee nerd since 2008. Most recently she joined Irving Farm Coffee Roasters in NYC as Director of Wholesale. She loves talking with coffee nerds and non nerd alike about all the ways in which coffee continues to be an awesome mystery. That's why she's committed to never stop learning new things. And sometimes she dances like no one is watching.
Todd Mackey
Todd Mackey is currently QC Coordinator / Trainer for InterAmerican Coffee's Boston Office where he runs the company's training division, Coffee Solutions. Todd is a BGA Level 1 & 2 Certified Barista, Licensed Q-Grader, and serves on the SCAA's Professional Development Skill-Building Subcommittee. He is also a Co-Founder of the Providence Coffee Society. Todd lives in Providence, RI with his wife Grace and daughter Ayla Mae.
Matt Fury
Fury is from Murrieta, CA. He started his coffee career 20 years ago with Spinelli Coffee Roasters in San Franciso in 1993. He currently lives with his dog Willis in Williamsburg Brooklyn. He's been a barista, manager, designer, and buyer with coffee houses and cafes ever since with some landscaping and store window design in between.
Most of his time with coffee has been in New York. When he became the Coffee Director for Think Coffee, all of their coffee was certified Fair Trade Organic. With his program to personalize and connect farming communities and our own, he led Think away from certifications. Fury's work in coffee has focused on responsibility. Think Coffee no longer relies on any third party to determine fairness or standards concerning social, environmental, or financial issues. Under Fury's guidance, coffees of a quality that would have been cost prohibitive in the past are much more available, and profitable, to Think Coffee while always providing the producers with more than they were getting before entering a relationship with Think Coffee.
Fury and three partners formed a green importing company called The Bushwick Seed Company for the purpose of sharing relationships like Think's with roasters around the country.
Simon Ouderkirk
A long time coffee professional, Simon has recently made the jump from cafe-based hospitality to his current position, Happiness Engineer with the web publishing outfit WordPress. Living with his wife and cat in Saratoga Springs, NY, he splits his time between democratizing the internet and the horse track.
Matthew Swenson
Matt started out in coffee in 2000 in the midwest. Since then, holding almost every position in the industry, it has landed him in NYC as the Director of Coffee for Dallis Bros Coffee. Primarily focused on sourcing and quality control, Matt also dabbles in training and roasting for the 100 year old company. Matt is a licensed Q grader and a certified lead instructor for the SCAA
Jim Connolly
Jim is the Service Tech for New Harvest Coffee Roasters. Jim has been a field tech covering the New England area for the past few years. When he's not elbow deep in an espresso machine he can be found researching whiskies around town.
Ana Mallozzi
Ana works with an awesome group of people at New Harvest Coffee Roasters, where she does barista training, customer support, and quality control. Her favorite part about her job is introducing new customers to the awesomeness of coffee. She has a beagle named Jade who is literally afraid of everything, including kittens.
Justin Enis
Justin performs various tasks in the Coffee Quality Control lab at Equal Exchange. He sorts and grades green coffee samples to SCAA standards, sample and production roasts and set ups and participates in pre-shipment and arrival coffee cuppings using the SCAA cupping form. He also trains baristas and staff on espresso extraction, milk texturing, barflow and preventative maintenance.