Plenary Speakers

We are excited to announce our plenary speakers for Rally 2011.

Will Allen

Will Allen, son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Will is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture.

At Growing Power and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Will promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, Will trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces.

In 2008, Will was named a John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation Fellow and was awarded a prestigious foundation “genius grant” for his work – only the second farmer ever to be so honored. He is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and in February 2010, he was invited to the White House to join First Lady Michelle Obama in launching “Let’s Move!” her signature leadership program to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in America. In May 2010, Time magazine named Will to the Time 100 World’s Most Influential People. Watch a video (YouTube) about Growing Power and Will Allen.

Will Rogers

Will Rogers is President and CEO of the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, playgrounds, community gardens, farms, historic places, and wilderness. Whether recycling brownfields for new urban parks or playgrounds or conserving remote and inspirational wildlands, TPL brings a market-based approach to its mission of protecting the places that inspire us and where people can connect with the natural world and with each other.

Will is a nationally recognized advocate for land conservation and has given major addresses or interviews to the Urban Land Institute, the National Smart Growth Conference, the National Brownfields Conference, and Talk of the Nation, among others.

Before joining TPL, Will managed infill urban redevelopment projects for a Chicago-based real estate development company, managing both new construction and the rehabilitation of vacant industrial buildings for commercial, office, and residential use. Before becoming a developer and then an “undeveloper” Will was a commercial beekeeper, founding and managing a commercial honey production company in Bogotá, Columbia.  He is a graduate of Stanford University and received his MBA from Harvard University. He lives with his family in Kensington, California, and continues to keep honeybees in his back yard.