Our Staff

ANGEL GARCIA | Workshop Instructor

Angel Garcia, founder/owner of Bramble & Vine, a local SF boutique gardening business, began his love for nature at a young age, inspired by his time spent in the garden with his grandmother. With a lifetime of horticultural training, he is passionate about organic practices, environmental justice, wildlife promotion, habitat restoration, sustainability, and urban farming. In addition to practicing these values at Bramble & Vine, he also helped to found Tunnel Top Park in Potrero Hill, a thriving grant-funded and volunteer-operated greening project where there was once little more than debris and trash.

CAREY CRADDOCK | Workshop Instructor

Carey Craddock is a garden coach, consultant, and horticultural enthusiast. She has been teaching at Garden for the Environment since 1998, first as a Get Up! intern, and then as a staff member until 2003. She trained in both CCSF and Merritt College’s landscape horticulture programs, and loves to combine her passion for art and horticulture into creative projects. She runs Carey Craddock Gardens where she specializes in ecological garden design and growing food.

ELLYN SHEA | Workshop Instructor

Ellyn wears a number of hats as a gardener, garden coach, Certified Arborist, consultant and educator in San Francisco. Her checkered professional background includes landscaping, bookkeeping, teaching abroad and community urban forestry with Friends of the Urban Forest. Visit her at www.garden-guidance.com.

EMILIE WINFIELD | Workshop Instructor

Emilie is an agroecologist whose work focuses on agricultural sustainability, soil health, and impactful collaboration. She currently serves as the Regional Coordinator for the North Coast Soil Hub, a network of farmers and ranchers, educators, researchers, and technical assistance providers who share the goal of stewarding agricultural lands for diversity and resilience. Previously Emilie managed diversified vegetable farms for restaurant partnerships, including Love Apple Farm and Fresh Run Farm. She has an M.S. in Environmental Policy and Management and a B.S. in Plant Sciences. Emilie joined GFE as an instructor in 2016 and loves connecting with the local community around gardening and sustainable food systems.

FERNANDO AGUILAR | Workshop Instructor

Fernando Aguilar is a native San Franciscan who’s been keeping bees for 10 years. He’s an active member and former board member for the San Francisco Beekeepers Association. He currently keeps four beehives in San Francisco and two in Mendocino County. He’s a GFE Get Up! alumnus (2010 graduate), and has studied organic gardening at Occidental Arts & Ecology Center and Alemany Farm, and earned an Environmental Horticulture certification from City College of San Francisco. Fernando taught English as a Second Language for City College of San Francisco for 20 years and is an alumnus, board member, and longtime volunteer for The Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco.

HANNAH SHULMAN | Workshop Instructor

Hannah loves facilitating, teaching and gardening. Previously, Hannah led community engagement, land use and youth environmental programs in prisons, school districts, and the public sector. She holds a Bachelor of Art in the Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College and studied at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz.

HERMAN YEE | Workshop Instructor

Herman grew up in San Francisco in a mostly rural immigrant family that carried the love of horticulture with them. He remembers many family trips to orchid sales and the vegetables and herbs his aunt grew in the community garden. Herman has been growing food since he took a class in Urban Garden Ecosystems in college and started working in his school garden and farm sites. He has been hooked since then and has continued to be fascinated with learning about ecological horticulture and building communities in which we can learn and share the work together. He is the Director of Operations at Urban Sprouts.

JAMIE CHAN + BLAS HERRERA | Workshop Instructors

Jamie & Blas are natives of San Francisco. They tend a small homestead in San Francisco with their two girls, complete with honey bees, chickens, greenhouse, mini orchard and vegetables. Blas has a degree in environmental studies, a certificate in sustainable design from the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco and currently is teaching high school science in the Jefferson Union School District. Jamie has an MS in science and a doctorate in educational leadership from SF State University. She is a certified UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener and currently Executive Director of Planet Bee Foundation. In their free time you can find them volunteering at their local community greenspace Sisterhood Gardens and running their garden education company @FogCityGardener.

JAMIE WOLLUM | Garden Educator

Originally from Denver, Jamie grew up exploring the beautiful state of Colorado and developed a deep connection with the natural world. She established the outdoor education program at Francis Scott Key Elementary School with Education Outside, teaching hands-on environmental science, gardening, and cooking to students in grades K-5 while transforming an unused corner of the schoolyard to a thriving garden classroom. After 2 years as a Program Manager for Youth + Outreach here at GFE, Jamie managed the elementary school garden program in SF public schools and surrounding Bay Area school districts with SEI. She now has her own backyard gardening business.

JORDAN KUSHINS | Workshop Instructor, Illustrator

jordan kushins (she / her) writes about creative places, people, and things; draws everything from seagulls to salvias; makes ceramic jewelry and other crafts; and gardens weekly with Carey Craddock, and kids at the Up On Top! program at the Tenderloin Rec Center. She’s a proud Garden for the Environment Get Up! grad, and has since designed sweatshirts, hats, pins, and signs for GFE.

KAT SAWYER | Workshop Instructor

Kat strives to make the Bay Area more resilient by implementing natural water management strategies in homes, schools and public places. As Greening Urban Watersheds Program Manager for The Watershed Project, Kat develops green infrastructure throughout the city of Richmond, constructing rain gardens and bioswales that educate the public and demonstrate ways to manage urban stormwater with landscapes. Over the past decade, Kat has designed and built rainwater catchment systems in more than 25 San Francisco public schools, engaging volunteers from each unique school community in the process. These projects have often been paired with pavement removal to create natural spaces that offer a healthy contrast to the barren asphalt playgrounds that abound in public schools throughout the city. Kat educates the public about water reclamation and re-use, directing her efforts towards tangible activities that encourage people to become better water stewards in an urban environment.

LYNN ADAMS | Get Up! Guest Instructor

Lynn Adams is a highly-motivated environmental steward and educator committed to providing education, engaging the community-at-large, and leading by example to instill environmental stewardship, conservation and sustainability. She became a Master Composter with the County of San Mateo in 2007 and has inspired thousands of people to compost and have worm bins. A 2013 Cox Conserves Heroes award winner, Lynn is recognized for leading the Pacifica Beach Coalition to engage, educate and inspire thousands of volunteers each year to reduce litter, protect the ocean, restore habitat, and use their voices to inspire others to do the same. Her work has helped to unite community groups, transform open spaces to native habitats, and raised awareness about environmental actions that everyone can easily do to help the earth.

MARC JOHNSON + PILAR LEANO | Beekeepers, Pizza Makers

Marc and Pilar went through GFE's Get Up! program in 2010 and have volunteered at the garden since. They first put hives at GFE in early 2015 and manage about a dozen hives, mostly in Western SF. Marc is on the board of the SF Beekeepers Association and both volunteer time and effort to promote urban beekeeping.

MARK CARLSON | Workshop Instructor

Mark served in El Salvador in the Peace Corps from 2005 to 2007. During that time, he kept bees as part of his community agriculture extension work. In 2019, he graduated with the inaugural class of the California Master Beekeeper Program. He is the co-chair and "honey guru" for the Good Food Awards and has been a mead maker for many years. He works and keeps bees in the Bayview.

PAM PEIRCE | Workshop Instructor

Pam Peirce is a San Francisco-based author, photographer, and lecturer. She was a founder and board member of the late great San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG). Pam has been gardening and testing the success of many kinds of plants in San Francisco conditions since 1975. The third edition of her classic regional gardening book, Golden Gate Gardening, was released in 2010, with new planting calendars that carry its usefulness inland as far as Walnut Creek or San Jose. Wildly Successful Plants: Northern California, teaches ornamental gardening in our region through 50 heirloom garden ornamentals. Pam taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for over 20 years and her columns have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle since 2006. She earned a B.A. in Botany at Butler University. Her web site is pampeirce.com and she blogs at goldengategarden.typepad.com.

RICO RUIZ | Workshop Instructor

Rico has been living in the Bay Area for the past 5 years. He studied Environmental Studies and Ecological Restoration at UC Santa Cruz. Upon graduation, he moved to Berkeley where he worked out of Oakland doing biological monitoring and habitat restoration. In 2021, he moved to San Francisco where he pursued a career working as a horticulture instructor for adults dealing with mental health challenges. He joined GFE as a Get Up! participant in the fall of 2021. Since then, he has been able to build upon his involvement with GFE through introducing his classes to the garden and all of the lessons to be learned there.

SHILPA THANAWALA | Workshop Instructor

Shilpa is a San Carlos-based UC Master Gardener and experienced garden educator. She runs a leadership coaching practice, and also serves as a grants manager for Planet Bee Foundation. Her small home garden contains more than 30 varieties of fruit trees, canes, and shrubs, a large herb garden, and a growing number of California native and pollinator plants. She has previously taught pruning to GFE's Get Up! 2024 group as well as to the public, and has co-taught GFE fruit tree pruning workshops.

SUSAN KARASOFF | Workshop Instructor

Susan Karasoff gardens in San Francisco’s clay soil, one of San Francisco’s six soil types. Susan is a member and the Outreach Chair of the California Native Plant Society Yerba Buena (San Francisco) chapter. Susan has an “only the easiest plants survive” approach to gardening. Susan grows a buffet of colorful native edible and pollinator plants, specifically gardening to feed caterpillars, bees, hummingbirds, and people.

SUZANNE BONTEMPO | Workshop Instructor

Suzanne joined GFE in 2013. An Environmental Educator and IPM Advocate, Suzanne, owner of Plant Harmony and program manager for Our Water Our World was recognized for excellence in her field winning with the 2013 IPM Innovators Award. Suzanne has worked in the horticulture industry for 20 years in a variety of capacities, with landscape contractors, leading garden maintenance teams and in Retail Nursery Management. Suzanne loves plants, loves nature, and loves sharing any information she can to help others have success in their gardens.

THOMAS ABBOTT | Workshop Instructor

Thomas is a young aspiring Black gardener, farmer, community organizer and activist who uses his horticultural skills and ancestry to drive social and cultural change. Originally from Sunny San Diego, Thomas has spent the last 10 years in San Francisco honing his craft in a variety of settings. From teacher, to landscaper, urban farmer, marine biologist, and much more. Thomas hopes to bridge social gaps and to educate about the benefits and histories of gardens and the outdoors. Besides gardening, Thomas enjoys playing guitar, eating burritos, and spending time with close friends. Currently, Thomas is a farmer at Alemany Farm.