Board of Directors

Marcie Boyer
Co-Founder, Flavours of Life, New London, CT

Towards the end of a 10 years career developing IT systems in the pharmaceutical industry and getting burnt out from corporate politics, Marcie and her life partner David spent a weekend “discovering” their passions.  Celebrating differences, respecting others & their culture, exotic travel, fairness, justice, living life to the fullest - sense of purpose, a meaningful existence were top of their list!

Four years ago and with this list in hand, they started a new adventure with a fair trade retail store.  Since then, Marcie has grown her business from a part-time venture selling at festivals & markets to a regionally-known fair trade store.  They have also forged partnerships with local schools, universities, and other community organizations by speaking about fair trade as invited guests, sponsoring student events, working with research students on global issues, as well as assisting the development of a 4 year program on social entrepreneurship.  Through her work, Marcie has also sponsored an interscholastic fair trade conference, hosted the Peace & Justice film series, helped to start a food co-op and supported community gardening/farming projects. As they grow, Marcie will continue to promote an awareness of history and an appreciation of culture through the provision of art, crafts, food, and music.

Cecilia Dinio Durkin
Founder and Director, Women's Work, Cold Spring, NY

After 15+ years in publishing, including full time jobs at Scholastic and MTV, Cecilia started freelancing as a journalist - opting to stick closer to home to raise her children. Ironically, an assignment that took her to the middle of the Kalahari Desert showed her to what lengths women there would go in order to fulfill that same desire.

That trip would draw Cecilia and her family to a remote town in Botswana to live and work with the San Bushmen communities which in turn dictated their return to the USA in order to market the San crafts.  Nearly five years later, Women's Work, the Durkins' retail and wholesale business, continues to promote and sell the crafts from the San. Today, WW also carry various crafts from artisans in Botswana, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, Peru and more. After less than two years in operation, Women's Work received the award for Innovation in Business by the Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce in recognition of their fair trade initiatives. Cecilia is also working toward making Cold Spring a Fair Trade Town.

Along with her husband, Peter, Cecilia gives cultural and fair trade presentations, participates in fair trade bazaars, and, this summer, will begin to host eco-edu-safaris to meet the producer groups Women's Work features.

A graduate of City University of NY at Hunter College with a double BA in Human Communications and English Literature, Cecilia is currently working on telling her own story by writing a memoir of their experience in Botswana in the hopes of inspiring others to follow their hearts and further promoting the fair trade movement.

Monika Firl
Producer Relations Manager, Cooperative Coffees, Montreal, QC

Monika Firl is currently the Producer Relations manager for Cooperative Coffees, a green coffee importing cooperative comprised of 24 independent, Fair Trade coffee roasters in Canada and the USA and serves as the manager of CoopSol, the Special Projects and Communications office of Cooperative Coffees, located in Montreal, QC.

She comes to the FTF Board with 18 years of hands-on experience in Fair Trade, traversing diverse terrain such as: founding and directing a center in San Salvador for the exchange of information on alternative technology, coordinating a regional program within the Campesino network for information exchange on production practices for organic coffee and market alternatives and direct support in technical training, and cooperative development support, (while living in Central America and Mexico from 1991 to 2000); to conducting the pre-launch promotion of TransFair USA and participating in the formation of FLO (1996), and recently (2007) serving on the FTF strategic planning committee.

Monika comes to the FTF Board from this perspective of diversity and with the expectation that we can bridge our collective wisdom to strengthen FTF as a network serving dedicated Fair Traders across product and geographic lines.

John Flory
Founder, North Country Fair Trade, St. Paul, MN

John Flory founded North Country Fair Trade in 2003 to promote the distribution of apparel products produced by fair trade businesses in Latin America.  The business distributes blank t-shirts sweat shirts and tote bags to schools, churches non-profit organizations and small businesses, for their use in promotional events.  North Country Fair Trade currently works in partnership with two fair trade manufacturers: Dignidad y Justicia in Piedras Negras, Mexcio and COMAMNUVI in Nicaragua. North Country has played a significant role in the development of Dignidad y Justicia, acting as an investment partner, technical assistance provider, and marketing agent, as well as by distributing their product.

John has a background in micro-business development, as a founder of a Minnesota based loan fund that provides financing to cooperatives, and as a staff person for 20 years with community development corporations in Minnesota.  In addition to operating North Country Fair Trade, he also currently works as an employee of Latino Economic Development Center, an organization dedicated to the development of small businesses owned by Latino immigrants in the State of Minnesota.  Previously, John was active in the cooperative movement serving as a retail store manager for seven years. He holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.

Manish Gupta, Board Treasurer
Founder, Handmade Expressions, Austin, TX

Manish Gupta has a professional background in engineering and operations. He has extensive work experience as a plant manager for a chemical industry company in India, and Operations Manager for Dell in Austin, Texas. Before working at Dell, Manish earned his Masters in Operations Management from the University of Michigan at Ann Harbor. His professional life had been enriched by his experiences, yet he felt like something was missing.

Manish came across the concept of fair trade while helping his family with a marketing project. He took some time off and traveled within rural India. He met a number of artisans and realized that they needed help. He saw immense sadness in those hands that create such beautiful things. Not only were these people suffering, but a number of traditional art forms were fading away. He realized he could use his skills and opportunities to create a difference in their lives and at the same time create a fulfilling path for him. That is when he decided to form Handmade Expressions. He now leads the company and is in charge of the overall business development.

Allen Joseph, Board Vice-Chair
Founder, Living Wage Fair Trade, Tallahassee, FL

Allen Joseph has worked on fair international trade and economic development issues for thirty years. He has four undergraduate majors in Economics, Philosophy, Political Science and International Affairs from the University of Wisconsin. An International Affairs masters degree in Economic Development from American University. A Political Science masters in International Relations and a Sociology masters in Political Economy from Florida State University. He has worked with the Foreign Affairs Committee and African Subcommittee for the U.S. House of Representatives. He has years of economic development and policy experience working for the Florida Senate Commerce Committee and the Florida House of Representatives. He currently does economic research and policy analysis for the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy while running his fair trade import company Living Wage and Fair Trade Gift Card. He has given hundreds of lectures on fair trade and the movement away from the colonial tariff trade system towards a standard based trade system.

Brian Smucker,
Co-Owner, Baksheesh, Sonoma, CA

Brian Smucker is the president, co-owner, and manager of Baksheesh,  a fair trade retailer selling Third World crafts with stores in Sonoma, Healdsburg, and St. Helena, CA. He helped to build Baksheesh into one of the largest fair trade retailers in North America, with 2006 sales of $1.1 million in 2 stores and double-digit growth every year. Previously, he worked for Ten Thousand Villages as store planter and regional sales manager. He also authored their fixtures design manual, rewrote their retail store manual, and presented a dozen seminars and workshops to other managers. As store planters, Brian and his wife Candi developed the store start-up model that Villages continues to adapt and use today. Brian also serves on the membership screening committee of the Fair Trade Federation and has served on over a dozen nonprofit boards. To support the fair trade movement, Brian produces a report each year based on sales at 8 top-selling fair trade stores and Baksheesh provides start-up consulting for fair traders around the country, as well as internships.

Kevin Ward, Board Chair
President, Global Crafts, Edgewater, FL

Kevin is currently the president of Global Crafts, a fair trade import and wholesale company. Kevin's interest in fair trade took on a practical application when he was placed in Kisumu, Kenya as a Computer Science Lecturer at Kisumu National Polytechnic in 1999. As a VSO Volunteer from 1999 - 2002. Kevin used his interest in e-commerce and Fair Trade to co-founded Global Crafts as an online project to support the local artisans in the community he was placed.

Kevin's first career was as a chef, working in small French restaurants in the UK for about 8 years. He returned to education in his mid 20's, gaining a BA in Sociology, a Post Graduate Teaching Certificate, and a MSc in Computing and Information Systems from Greenwich University, London. He was employed as Area Head of Computing in a Further and Higher Education College in London for several years before becoming a volunteer.

Kelly Weinberger, Board Secretary
Founder & President, WorldFinds, Chicago, IL

Kelly founded WorldFinds after a year-and-a-half spent traveling throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She was compelled to do something positive to help provide income and opportunities to the women she met in the developing world. So, she used her eye for design and her 10 years of marketing experience to put together the plan for WorldFinds - a fair trade wholesaler with a focus on style. WorldFinds became a member of the FTF in 2001 in its first full year of existence. She continues to work closely with her artisan groups on product design and development, while expanding the business's presence throughout North America.

A graduate from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana with a BS in Advertising and a minor in Asian Studies, Kelly directed the marketing for a K-12 social studies publisher, and spent time volunteering at women's shelters and international education projects. Kelly lives in the Chicago area with her husband & partner David and their two small children.