Cole Carney: Director, President of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 202
Currently a farmer, wife, and mother of 2 toddlers. Cole became a farmer in 2019. Prior to farming, she spent eight years traveling the country for non-profits from the Washington, DC area, and sat on the board of Sustain Liberia. Today, she raises heritage animals from the Livestock Conservancy list, while raising her small children, and selling pork, beef, lamb, and turkey at 5 farmer’s markets across Virginia.”
April Prusia: Director, Vice President of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2016
April Prusia raises pigs on pasture seasonally in SW Wisconsin. She focuses on the GOS hog for many reasons, but their grazing abilities along with the GOS gentle nature attracted her to the breed. She runs a vacation rental with an optional farm-stay where folks get to interact with the GOS pigs and people get to learn more about what it takes to bring food to their table.
A past vegetarian CSA farmer, she is building a meat cooperative in her region that focuses on humane harvest and fully utilizing animals. Prusia when possible works with a tannery and gets hog hides tanned into leather, and offers local leather goodies. Along with selling breeding stock, feeders, she sells pork , lard, lard soap and leather earrings.
Andy Meader: Director, Past President of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2016
Andy and his wife Christy and their 4 children live on an acreage in SE Iowa. They raise GOS pigs and heirloom chickens and heirloom turkeys and dairy goats. Professionally, Andy works as a technical director for a family owned broadband company. His areas of professional focus are highly available Linux systems and fault tolerant IP networks. Andy has served on for-profit, non-profit and public boards. Andy and his family found GOS pigs while looking for an ideal animal for their acreage and for charcuterie. Their GOS journey has introduced them to fantastic folks from all over the US. Their GOS focus is improving the Black Group. Andy is excited to help GOS America by volunteering technical resources and time communicating with members.
Loretta Heath: Director, Secretary of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2020
Loretta Heath has been raising GOS pigs since 2009, one of the longest GOS breeders in the USA, and was instrumental in the 2nd import of UK stock in 2016 & 2017. Loretta is retired and lives with her family on a small ranchette in Northern California along with some guardian dogs, assorted poultry, and fruit trees.
Rachel Breeden: Director, Secretary of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2018
Rachel Breeden manages Hampton Ridge Farm, a 50 acre farm in Kentucky alongside her spouse, Jay, and parents Earl and Rebecca Hampton. She and Jay Breeden revitalized her parents farm about five years ago starting with just two pigs. They now keep around 30 hogs with a trio of registered Gloucestershire Old Spots, along with two Large Black sows, producing high quality pork along with breeding stock. Their farm also produces beef, chicken, turkey, duck and goat all with a focus on utilizing heritage breed livestock. Rachel maintains their farm website, social media, and enjoys networking with families and chefs alike. One of her favorite aspects of farming is engaging with customers week to week. She is very detail oriented and enjoys organization and designing systems to promote success. She also has a passion for marketing along with designing their farms promotional materials. As a budding farmer she is looking for even more ways to invest in and promote heritage breeds particularly Gloucestershire Old Spots.
Registrar
Position filled by multiple volunteers
Sally Doherty: Past Director, Past President of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2008
Sally has served in several GOSA volunteer roles spanning a period of nearly 10 years. She started out as Communications Coordinator, followed by Registrar and Treasurer, then Vice President, and most recently has served as GOSA’s president. Sally lives with her family on a small farm in Afton Minnesota – Little Foot Farm – just 15 miles outside of the Twin Cities. By day, she is a working professional in the electronics industry. At the farm, she and her family run a commercial greenhouse business, and raise Berkshire and Gloucestershire Old Spot hogs, and heritage breed sheep, beef cattle, and chickens. Little Foot Farm sells pork to Twin Cities Chefs, primarily for charcuterie. They have had a ~8 sow pork operation for many years (75+ hogs per year harvested). Sally is enthusiastic about working with this rare heritage breed, while making good local food that serves the Twin Cities, and teaching her children about such important endeavors. Some of Sally’s accomplishments, as a volunteer and leader of GOSA include: Sally established GOSA as a Non Profit Corporation in June of 2011, prior to that GOSA was a club. In her various roles of GOSA leadership, Sally has established and maintained important connections for GOSA by visiting and working with these organizations, GOS Pig Breeders Club in the United Kingdom, Livestock Conservancy in North Carolina, Ayershire Farms in Virginia, and Swiss Village Farm (SVF) in Virginia. Sally and Little Foot Farm worked with Dr Thomas Parsons of UPenn in collaboration with Swiss Village Farm on a project to build a bio-secure founder population of rare breed animals including GOS hogs. SVF is working to create a frozen library of genetic material from farm animals in danger of being lost to extinction. Sally’s family worked with GOSA and SVF to ensure that important GOS genetics were included in that project . She and her family have been laying the foundation to do something useful with her small diversified farm, and GOS hogs in particular. The last decade has been fruitful in this regard.
Hilary Smith: Past Director, Past Treasurer of GOSA
Serving GOSA Since 2012
Hilary Smith along with her husband Greg Smith own a 54 acre ranch in Bend, Oregon dedicated to raising Gloucestershire Old Spots and practicing bio dynamic farming. Along with the GOS pigs they also raise a variety of other heritage hogs, chickens, turkeys and cattle. Their farm is focused on producing top quality meat to local restaurants and individual buyers. To preserve the GOS genetics they breed for and are highly selective when identifying which purebred GOS to sell as premium breeding stock, all other pigs are integrated into their meat herd or sold as wiener pigs. They are very passionate about educating people about the importance of the breed and the quality of the pork. In addition to help running the farm Hilary owns her own accounting firm. She has worked as a public accountant since 2004 doing taxes, business consulting and auditing. In 2006 she decided to open her own firm enabling her to provide a more personal approach to her work. She enjoys running her own practice because it allows her to give individual attention to her clients and time on the farm. She is very proficient in a variety of accounting and tax software including QuickBooks, Lacerte and Ultra Tax. She approaches everything in life with a high level of honesty and integrity and brings those values to both her work and personal connections. Living in Bend does allow for a good work life balance and Hilary makes sure to still get some time to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. In her off time she enjoys skiing, biking, hiking and boating. Her accounting background combined with her passion for the GOS pigs makes for a perfect fit as Treasurer for Gloucestershire Old Spots of America.