The Greenbank Farm Management Group has set up a search committee to find a new executive director for Greenbank Farm.

Committee members are Claire Creighton, Mary Kay Chess, Fran Einterz, Elizabeth Guss, Donna Keeler, Jan Whitsitt, Mary Jo Stansbury and Maryon Attwood. Donna Keeler, who facilitated the public outreach effort that resulted in the Greenbank Farm Master Plan adopted by the Port of Coupeville in 2009, will serve as chairwoman.

“We are pleased to have the benefit of the experience and talents of the search committee to guide us as we establish new leadership at the farm,” said Mary Jo Stansbury, the board representative on the committee. “The committee will help us broaden the geographic reach of the Farm from Oak Harbor to Coupeville to Langley.”

The farm’s management group said they hope to build programs and connections with the Whidbey Island community in sustainable agriculture and agriculture training, environmental protection, preservation and stewardship wetlands and other wildlife habitat, and renewable energy. Given the group’s goals, the farm is searching for a new executive director who has strong nonprofit leadership skills and experience.

Creighton, of Langley, is currently managing the capital campaign for WAIF’s new shelter and is a former international employee benefits executive.

Chess is a Freeland resident and teaches leadership and personal development and a series of courses around thriving in systems and in organizational change in the MBA program at Bainbridge Graduate Institute and in the PhD Mind-Body discipline at Saybrook University.

Einterz, a Coupeville resident, is a commercial hay and livestock farmer.

Guss serves as the director of outreach and development for the Whidbey Camano Land Trust. The land trust office is at the Greenbank Farm.

Keeler is the Regional Transportation Planner for Island County and owner of an environmental planning consulting business. She has been a Whidbey Island resident since 1994, and worked on the county’s original growth management plan and has been active with various boards and local organizations.

Whitsitt, a Greenbank and Seattle resident, is a co-founder of the consulting firm Whitsitt Enterprises and is involved with various philanthropic organizations, including serving as a member of the board of trustees of the Seattle Foundation. She also grew up on Whidbey and picked loganberries at the Farm in the 1960s.

Stansbury, also a Greenbank and Seattle resident, has been connected with Greenbank for more than 50 years and has been active in a variety of environmental, arts and community organizations and boards. Her father started loganberry cultivation at the farm and originated the loganberry wines.

Attwood is a Coupeville resident and is currently the program director of the Greenbank Farm Training Center. Before she moved to the Northwest in 2004, she was the longtime executive director of the Worcester Center of Crafts, Worcester, Mass.

According to the management group, the job description for executive director will be posted in the next few weeks on the Greenbank Farm’s website at http://www.greenbankfarm.org/.

The committee expects the process to find a new executive director to take three to four months.