Ian McFaul (Leader and Bay Area Regional Governor)
Growing up in Phoenix, Ian began life eating from chain restaurants and supermarkets. Spending grade school summers on an apple orchard in Door County, Wisconsin, it planted the seed for future growth first at Apple and ultimately leading him to the apple orchards of Western Sonoma County.
Some years later, after reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his worldview changed to understand necessity of good, clean, and fair local food and the Slow Food movement. It drove him to volunteer at Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard and made him a devoted locavore. Subsequently, travels near and far include seeking out the best of what’s local, invariably delicious food, often varieties boarded to the Slow Food Ark of Taste.
Ian dove deeply into Slow Food after years volunteering at the Gravenstein Apple Fair, and joined Slow Food Russian River after the 2017 Annual Meeting. He has interned for Slow Food USA in Denver, and been a USA delegate in Chengdu, Copenhagen, and Torino, and has joined the board of Slow Food California. Ian is also the Regional Governor for the Bay Area for Slow Food USA.
Paula Shatkin (Leader and Coordinator, Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple Presidium)
A community social worker, Paula Shatkin has been an active member of the Slow Food Russian River leadership team for 19 years. An advocate for local biodiversity, she started the Gravenstein Apple Presidium, the first Presidia project in California. She continues to coordinate the Apple Core and the Free Community Apple Press and represents this project on the Leadership Team.
Brad Whitworth (Treasurer)
Brad first connected with Slow Food at the Come to the Table event staged by Slow Food Nation in San Francisco in 2008. He’s been a member and a volunteer ever since, first with the South Bay (formerly Silicon Valley) chapter. He connected with the Russian River convivium in 2013 when he and his wife Peg Champion (the original Slow Foodie of the family) moved to Windsor. In addition to serving as chapter treasurer, he has worked on the annual heritage turkey event and on the communication/social media team. Brad has also been on the Slow Food California committee focused on communication. He attended Terra Madre/Salone del Gusto in both 2012 and 2014.
Brad has served on the boards of several other non-profits: the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County; Kara, a Palo Alto-based non-profit grief therapy organization; and the International Association of Business Communicators, a 16,000-member global trade association. Brad is a marketing and communications executive and holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and speech and an MBA.
