Staff
Andrea Earley Coen
Executive Director
For over 25 years, Andrea’s professional background has been in the experiential education nonprofit sector, working with schools, nonprofits, outdoor and agriculture education centers, farms and wilderness programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, and Colorado.
Since joining Guidestone’s team in 2008, she has worn many hats, and is thrilled to have stepped into the role of Executive Director. She is passionate about agriculture education, traditional homesteading arts, growing healthy local foods, a thriving local food system and forwarding Guidestone’s mission to grow a vibrant agricultural future. Andrea is also a musician, a mom, and an active member of her local community.
Monica Pless
Education and Agritourism Director
Monica has worked on education and production farms, dairies and bakeries producing organic veggies, tree fruit, meat chickens, eggs, pork, beef, maple syrup, raw milk, salves, tea, herb blends, and pie. As Guidestone’s Education and Agritourism Director, she leads the youth programming and camps, adult education, and special events at the historic Hutchinson Homestead and in the broader community.
Monica brings lessons learned from two decades of homesteading and farming, mentoring over 150 teens and adult apprentices, teaching thousands of younger students about the history and future of agriculture, and engaging countless volunteers into this role.
Amanda Laban
Colorado Land Link Director
Amanda is a food systems educator, advocate and organizer. Her work has taken her from coast to coast in the US food system: apprenticing on a diversified fruit and vegetable farm in northern California, coordinating demos in Boston for a national grocery chain, running a cottage food bakery business, and managing a café in Denver, a food store on Cape Cod, and a summer CSA for a food hub in the San Luis Valley. For 5 years, she was involved in all aspects of an organic seed and vegetable farm on the Front Range. Since 2014, Amanda has been a certified Farm Succession Coordinator through the International Farm Transition Network. She was certified as a Land Access Trainer through the American Farmland Trust (AFT) in 2022, and is currently working with AFT on the pilot curriculum for Land Transfer Training.
She holds a masters’ degree in environmental management from Western Colorado University and a bachelors’ degree from Colorado College. She sees land access as one of the greatest obstacles to running a successful ag business and welcomes innovative solutions for providing beginning farmers and ranchers with the land opportunities they need to get growing!
Emma Lietz Bilecky
Farm to School Director
Emma Lietz Bilecky joined Guidestone as the Farm to School Director in November 2022. Prior to returning home to Colorado, Emma worked on campus farms: at Duke University, while pursuing degrees in Environmental Management and Theological Studies, and at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she developed a farm-to-dining partnership, taught classes on religious land use, and designed on-farm educational experiences for students of all ages. She is passionate about building farm and food system partnerships to foster equitable and ecologically-attentive communities.
2022 AmeriCorps Members
Caroline Beaton
Farm Production Lead
Caroline is a New Hampshire native and has spent almost the entirety of her life there. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire after studying Environmental Conservation & Sustainability with focuses in Sustainable Agriculture and International Affairs. Caroline has a passion for travel, and spent the six weeks prior to joining Guidestone road tripping the US – visiting national parks, hiking, and sampling the local cuisines. Caroline has put her goal of hiking the forty-eight 4,000-footers of New Hampshire on hold to move to Salida to work with Guidestone Colorado and could not be more excited. She has worked at a women-owned farm-to-table brewery in NH and loved being a part of a team that focused around community, good beer, and locally, sustainably grown and created food. In her free time you’ll find Caroline hiking, running, cooking, baking, seeing live music, or just soaking up some good sunshine.
Jordan Stewart
Garden (Farm to School) Educator
Community Food Systems Coordinator
Jordan graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Global Health Studies and is excited to start her journey into the workforce with Guidestone! Through her studies, she has become passionate about food equity, sustainable systems, and alternative and holistic forms of medicine.Being a native flatlander, she is excited to explore the mountainous trails and the many other outdoor activities that Salida has to offer!
Sam Kaelin
Land Link Coordinator
Sam was born and raised in Woodbury, Connecticut, where he grew up exploring the meandering streams and rolling hills of the Berkshires. He moved to Vermont in 2015 to study at Middlebury College, where he earned his B.A. in Geology before moving west to Colorado. He finally wound up in Leadville, where he worked for the High Mountain Institute as an outdoor educator before coming to Guidestone as the Land Link Coordinator AmeriCorps member. When Sam isn’t out exploring the backcountry, he can usually be found making maps and appreciating rocks.
Siobhan Moynihan
Ranch & Homestead Experiential Educator
Siobhan grew up in Massachusetts playing sports such as soccer, basketball, and gaelic football with her two older sisters. Her love for the outdoors led her to major in Natural Resource Conservation at UMass Amherst, and has brought her to incredible places, such as Bocas del Toro in her study abroad program where she was a livestock manager for a regenerative agriculture pig farm in mid coastal Maine. Siobhan feels a strong connection towards children and young adults and has enjoyed working as a teacher’s assistant in a public school. She loves to play outside back home in MA with her two brothers, ages 7 and 8. Siobhan also sees the value in listening to our elders and learning from the stories that they share with us about the land, as it changes over time. Siobhan is very grateful to get the chance to keep alive the story of the Hutchinson family and how they’ve shaped Central Colorado over the past 154 years, and are continuing to do so.
Board of Directors
Elizabeth Little, President
Elizabeth relocated to Louisiana from Illinois as a RN volunteer and found a second home with her husband, Patrick, where they raised three children in the rural south. In 2010, Salida became their second home where they can actively pursue hiking, biking, running less 98% humidity! Elizabeth has maintained an interest in the importance of agriculture and nutrition through the co-founding of a school garden in New Iberia, Louisiana in 2008. Elizabeth is also an active supporter of the New Iberia Community Garden and a board member of the Iberia Parish Foundation. Her interests spread into textile arts, cooking, and travel.
Paul Alexander, Treasurer
Paul Alexander is Missioner for Development and Financial Stewardship, Office of the Bishop for The Episcopal Church in Colorado. Previous to that he was Director of the Institute on the Common Good at Regis University. He has extensive experience in facilitating community dialogue and collaborative processes and teaches in both the College of Business and Economics and the Regis College. He served for eight years as the Degree Chair for the Master of Nonprofit Management Program (MNM) at Regis and has over twenty years’ experience in the nonprofit and public sectors. He has traveled extensively and lived and worked in Spain and Latin America. Paul loves the land and has dabbled in agriculture on several different continents.
Katy Grether, Secretary
Katy currently serves both as a Guidestone Board Member and on the Hutchinson Homestead Steering Committee. Previously of Salida Area Parks, Open Space and Trails (SPOT), Katy was the lead applicant for all prior History Colorado State Historical Fund proposals in support of the preservation of the Hutchinson Homestead; her involvement maintains the continuity of administration and historic preservation emphasis in our educational projects. Katy Grether and her husband are semi-retired residents of Salida: they have a deep love of the mountains and Colorado history which they have enjoyed all of their lives.
Steve O’Neill
Arriving in Chaffee County in 2001, Steve soon opened The Pilates Studio to continue the help that Pilates gave to him in rehabbing a back injury. As the business grew he helped many of his clients in their physical wellbeing, overcoming injuries, allowing clients to enjoy physical activities that were enjoyable to them. Prior to coming to Salida Steve was involved in Non-profit organizations covering areas of Environmental Education for kids to Mentoring programs to support childhood development. In Salida he joined a local Rotary club to enhance community support though volunteer hours and club financial involvement to help non profit organizations through difficult times. Along with 45 years of corporate business and life experience, Steve wants to support the growing of local food education and community ranch activity with his work with Guidestone.
Becky Cassel
Becky hails from rural Pennsylvania and a career in the aerospace industry with a focus in operations, program management, and systems engineering. After living in Conifer for 13 years, she and her husband, Andy, now call Chaffee County home and enjoy exploring the mountains on foot, bikes, and skis. Becky currently works for Kiss the Ground, a regenerative agriculture non-profit, and on a ranch in Nathrop. Her enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture principles and practices blossomed from her interests in functional medicine and systems thinking. She holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in systems engineering from Penn State University.
Founders and Advisors
David Lynch
Judie Anders
Jennifer Visitacion
Jane Fredman
Matt Heimerich