PFM Staff

Portland Farmers Market is managed and operated by our dedicated, year-round staff. Full-time staff are assisted with market-day operations by a seasonal crew. Our everyday staff members include all of the charming folks listed below.

Trudy Toliver

Executive Director

Trudy Toliver is a life-long Oregonian, environmentalist and leader.  She believes that eating healthy food changes people lives. Her professional career has been all about sustainability. She built her management skills in public transit and with environmental groups.  At TriMet, Portland, Oregon’s transit district, she held several positions over 16 years in areas such as transit planning, community relations, and marketing. Her favorite “claim to fame” is having been TriMet’s liaison with the community to assure that bikes were welcome on buses and trains. Her final years there were spent on the leadership team as Executive Director of Human Resources.  

In 1999 Trudy shifted her career to environmental non-profits starting as Development Director at Friends of Virgin Islands National Park on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. After returning to Portland in 2002, she joined EarthShare Oregon as Executive Director.  At EarthShare she led a federation of 70 conservation groups for the purpose of fundraising in the workplaces of 100 Oregon public agencies and businesses.

Her Bachelor’s degree is in Geography from Portland State University.  She got her Master’s in Business with focus on organization development from Marylhurst University. Trudy teaches yoga and is pursuing certification as a nutrition therapist.

Jaret Foster

Operations Director

Jaret Foster is the Senior Market Manager for Portland Farmers Market. Beginning in 2005, his love of farmers markets went from a preoccupation to an occupation when he was hired by GreenMarket, New York City’s renowned network of open-air farmers markets. Raised in Montana, he initially trained as a chef at Portland’s Western Culinary Institute. Jaret worked for over ten years in fine dining kitchens on both coasts. In 2004 he completed an internship with Grinning Goat CSA Farm and lived and worked on a small vegetable farm while cooking at Fore Street Restaurant in Portland, Maine. After relocating back to Oregon from a year in New York, Jaret joined PFM as Site Manager for the Buckman Market in 2006. Jaret’s love of culinary and agricultural endeavors bring passion to his work with the markets. He lives with his son, Silas, in Northeast Portland.

Anna Curtin

Program Manager

Anna Curtin, Program Manager, is charged with building and maintaining relationships within Portland Farmers Market communities and fostering awareness about the organization’s seven distinct markets. This includes working with like-minded parties to strengthen our regional food economy, organizing Market education initiatives, and planning food celebration events throughout the market season. A native of rural upstate New York, Anna grew up eating from the family garden and wild woods of the Adirondack Mountains. Her search for outdoor adventures, wholesome food, and warmer winters led her to settle in the Rose City where she accumulated a wealth of public education, sales and administrative experience before joining the PFM staff in 2007. Prior to joining the PFM family, Anna was a dedicated Market volunteer for a number of years. When she is not seeking out farmer’s markets on out-of-town vacations, Anna enjoys life in Northeast Portland with two enthusiastic dogs and an unflappable cat.

Alodie Spires

Bookkeeper & Office Administrator

I grew up in North County San Diego and then moved to San Francisco for cooler weather and urban life. After 7 years I wanted to move to a more “livable city” and Portland, on a cool, grey and misty spring day seemed like just the place. I moved to Portland in 2000 and now live with my boyfriend and two cats in Southeast Portland. I have been involved in accounting work for over 20 years. That satisfies the organized and meticulous side of my personality. I also have many avocations including: singing, dancing, jewelry making, crafts and cooking. I studied culinary arts at Western Culinary a few years back. I look forward to adding gardening to that list when I plant an herb and tomato garden this spring. I developed a love for locally grown produce while assisting my Mother with her organic garden and several fruit trees. My favorite was an old avocado tree where I set up a neighborhood fort for my friends.

Mona Johnson

Communications Manager

Mona was delighted to join the talented and dedicated Portland Farmers Market team in 2009. Originally a native of Oregon, she spent the previous 15 years in New York City denying her rural roots. After years of sitting in front of a computer in the name of market research, Mona decided to fulfill her lifelong dream of attending culinary school. After graduating from the Institute of Culinary Education, her love of food and cooking led her from the kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant, to a celebrated catering company and, finally, to help launch a new eco-luxury chocolate brand. Craving a kinder, gentler way of life, she decided to leave New York and return to her roots. She wonders, what better way to do so than to work with an organization that literally has roots in Oregon? At PFM, she enjoys indulging her passion for produce and helping to spread the word about Oregon's bounty and the benefits of local, seasonal eating. Mona lives in Northwest Portland where she tries to convince her husband, Mark (a true Brooklyn Boy), that Portland is the new Brooklyn.