Michelle is a storyteller who spreads the word about Minnesota’s small businesses through social media, a monthly newsletter and her website, Meet the Minnesota Makers. The website is the home of the Minnesota Maker directory full of features about the people behind our local food, farms, artistic and artisanal businesses. The website is also the home of the "Shop Minnesota" gift guide, updated five times a year to make it easy to gift locally all year long.

Michelle is an Army veteran and a former college Spanish professor. Years of experience in team building, communications and logistics inform her methods of coaching and creating digital marketing content for small businesses. 

Madeline is the Fruit Crops Extension Educator for the University of Minnesota. In her role, she supports a wide range of fruit growers across Minnesota, focusing on both new and established growers. Her work emphasizes supporting new growers and helping established growers adopt practices that support sustainable production, which has led her to a broader interest in sustainable agriculture. Each fruit crop has their own unique needs and culture, and through her work, Madeline hopes to leverage the effort it takes to understand the basics of caring for fruit crops, so growers can more easily adopt best practices.

Joelle Liddane (lid-on) is a 7-12 agriculture education teacher and FFA advisor in Royalton, MN. Joelle lives in Rice and also runs Fields of Plenty Farm, a diverse agricultural operation which includes cut flowers, harvest share boxes, and a newly established blueberry operation. When she isn’t doing ag teacher things or farming she is visiting her family and their beef and cranberry farm in Tomah WI. Joelle was involved in her local ag program as a student and FFA member and served as a Wisconsin state FFA officer before attending UW- River Falls for agricultural education.

She taught in Wisconsin for 4 years and then moved to central Minnesota in the summer of 2023. Joelle is an enthusiastic teacher passionate about connecting students with real-world opportunities in agriculture, food and natural resources. Teaching all pathways of ag, food, and natural resources she works closely with local agribusinesses and industry partners to help students gain hands-on skills. Joelle believes strong partnerships between ag programs and local professionals not only strengthen agricultural education but also build the future workforce our industry needs. She is excited to share with you today how agricultural education works in Minnesota and how to build a strong partnership with your local ag program."