CREF Welcomes Two New Staff Members

CREF is happy to announce that it has hired two new people to join its staff.  Both are highly qualified and experienced, bringing to the Foundation the ability to jump right in and start making an impact immediately. 

Kelsea Jacobsen joins the CREF team as a program manager.  She is from Oceanside, CA, and for the last five years she has led composting education in the San Diego region through her work with the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation. In that role, she was involved with teaching and administering Master Composter courses, mid-scale composting courses, and a wide array of other composting and environmental outreach. As CREF's new program manager, Kelsea will oversee activities that support the Compost Operations Training Courses (COTC) and provide broad-spectrum administrative assistance to the organization as it continues to expand.

Jamie Blanchard-Poling is joining the staff in a new role as an assistant project manager for the Compostable Field Testing Program (CFTP).  Jamie started in the composting industry in 2018, founding her own company, Compost Queen PBC. The Colorado-based company, Compost Queen, is both a hauler and a composter, incorporating into their compost all the food scraps they collect locally. In the past few years, Jamie has won the USCC Emerging Composter Challenge in January 2022, and the Small Composter Manufacturer of the Year in January 2023.

If you have questions about the COTC program, Kelsea can be reached at kelseajacobsen@compostfoundation.org or for questions about the CFTP, contact Jamie at jamiepoling@compostfoundation.org.