Our Staff
We are a small team, working toward a big mission.
Virginia Ortiz (she/her)
Executive Director
For more than 30 years, Virginia has developed, directed, and sustained non-profit and faith-based organizations. A graduate of the National Community Development Training Institute, she is skilled in the areas of executive level non-profit management, fund development, program development, affordable housing, and community economic development. She has held executive level positions with Bayaud Enterprises, Mile High Ministries, Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics, ACCESS Housing, The Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado Foundation for Families and Children, and NEWSED Community Development Corporation. Additionally, she has held mayoral and gubernatorial appointments on the Denver Zoning Board, Colorado Correctional Industries Board, and the Denver Neighborhood Health Program Board, and has served on numerous charter school and other non-profit Boards. Current board involvement includes Denver Basic Income Project, The Denver Foundation Community Impact Advisory Board, and Activate Work Solutions.
%20(1).jpg)
Tessa McCusker (she/her)
Director: Farmer Development and Support Program
Tessa is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, where she enjoyed growing up in a diverse community with easy access to both nature and city. She has spent the bulk of her career in the environmental nonprofit world, working for organizations including Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy and School Garden Project. She and her family lived in the Willamette Valley of Oregon for many years, where Tessa was able to realize a longtime dream of owning and operating a small, diversified vegetable and flower farm. Craving a change, she and her family decided to move to Denver, where the sunshine can't be beat! Tessa is thrilled to be a part of the GoFarm team and appreciates the opportunity to use the lessons learned in her farming operation to help beginning farmers achieve their own farming dreams. In her free time, Tessa loves gardening, reading, making pottery and spending time in nature with her human and canine family members.
Sarah Berger (she/her)
Value Chain Manager
Sarah recently started her farming career after looking for a more meaningful personal mission during lockdown. She is incredibly passionate about justice in the local food system and wants to see a world where food equality is a reality. Sarah worked as a GoFarm Market Farmer Intern in the summer of 2022 after participating in GoFarm’s whole farm planning course the previous winter. Now she operates a small urban farm in Lakewood. She moved to Colorado in 2019 after graduating with a Bachelors in Economics at the State University of New York at Albany. Her and her partner live in Arvada with their corgi, baby girl and his 8 year old son. On the weekends you can find them enjoying bass music at Red Rocks or camping and fishing out in the mountains.