Familiar Faces – Kena and Mark Guttridge of Ollin Farms

Familiar faces abound where people gather for food and there's an especially magical food-centric connection that happens when you get to know the creators of your food. Those are the folks who rise at dawn, dig in the dirt, plant the seeds, labor in the heat, and thanks to their expert knowledge and cooperation from Mother Nature, months later you'll enjoy crispy heads of lettuce, juicy tomatoes, and aromatic basil. This month's familiar faces are a couple you're likely to see often in the community – the remarkable owners of Ollin Farms (www.ollinfarms.com), Kena and Mark Guttridge.

The Guttridges and their children are responsible for the increasing number of beautiful fields and regional products offered at their enterprise on 95th Street near Plateau Road. While pesticide and herbicide-free crops may spring to mind, the couple is also regenerating acres of neglected county soil, researching with scientists, supplying schools with vegetables, and educating youngsters.

The pandemic dramatically altered most everything including community farming. Where people once mingled freely on CSA share distribution days, at the farm stand and at farmers markets, safe procedures have had to be put in place including online ordering and staff handing food to customers.

We asked the jefes, Kena and Mark, who are always bobbing and weaving in order to bring healthy food to the community, a few questions to get to know them better.

Left Hand Valley Courier (LHVC) - Where did you each grow up and what are your backgrounds?

Kena and Mark Guttridge (K&M) - Kena grew up between Mexico City and Acatlan Puebla, a big city and rural farming community that shaped her views. Kena's education is in business and accounting. Her passion has always been youth education and empowerment and that's been her focus over the past decade. Mark was born and raised in Boulder County and his education is in environmental and water resource engineering.

Together we moved back to the farm where Mark grew up in 2005 and started Ollin Farms. Our passion since then has been providing nutrient dense food to the community and connecting people with the beauty of the natural world.

LHVC - Tell us how you met and a bit about your family.

K&M - We met working at a restaurant in Lafayette and lived there before moving to Longmont. We have four daughters ranging in age from 11 to 25. We all work together on the farm. The family is involved in everything on the farm from planting to weeding to harvesting to the wash station to packing to CSA distribution. We believe in teaching youth the importance of hard work and self-sufficiency. We work hard, but we also like to relax as a family whether it's movies or swimming or cookouts or spending time with friends.

LHVC - What are your favorite and the most challenging elements of what you do?

K&M - We love providing nutritious food to our community - to be able to put healthy food on people's tables and new and exciting flavors into their lives. That's a lot of what farming is about, but it's also about connecting people to the place and soil around them, to offering jobs to local youth through internship programs, connecting kids to the wonders of nature through our summer classes to bringing the community together for farm-to-table dinners or starting new projects around ecosystem building or carbon sequestration research.

There's a lot going on at the farm and there are a lot of challenges as well...from the changing climate to stacked economic models that have put farmers at a disadvantage for decades. There's really nothing easy about trying to make a living farming.

LHVC - Your lives are so busy, but are there hobbies and passions you have that don't directly involve farming?

K&M - We're involved a lot in our local community; from serving on boards to supporting the local art and music scene. We love what makes our community unique and diversified and we try to celebrate that as much as possible. Kena also stays busy sharing her passions for the Spanish language and culture through classes and programs.

LHVC - What makes life as a couple and business partners go smoothly for you?

K&M - Kena is the face of the farm, always in the community launching new partnerships. She runs all of the educational programs and manages the internships programs. Mark is the soil nerd. He's always in the fields experimenting with new crops and growing techniques and managing the production crew. Our older daughters also play an important management role on the farm managing the harvest and wash station teams.

LHVC - Do you have a philosophy that propels you through life?

K&M - Yes, follow and learn from nature, empower and trust in the youth, and when there is a challenge in your way, make the most of it to pivot to something better. Ollin is an Aztec word that means constant motion or constant change. We like to believe this is always in a direction that's more positive or healthy - an evolutionary step forward. There will be challenges, failures, and regrets but that can't stop us from moving forward. We've learned that from observing nature.

LHVC - What's in the future that you're looking forward to?

K&M - Having more year-round education programs at the farm, healing more Open Space agricultural land, educating more people about the connections of soil health and community health, and having the tomatoes start to ripen up in a couple weeks.

LHVC - What's something we would be surprised to know about you?

K&M - People know we're working long days at the farm, but are often surprised to find out we actually both have day jobs on the side. People also don't realize how much time we spend complying with government rules and regulations that are prohibitive to small farmers and how much effort we put toward advocating for change in policy or helping to build new farming paradigms. There's a reason family farms have been failing in Boulder County and the USA for decades, we are working hard to help change that.

Is there someone in our community you'd like to see profiled as a Familiar Face? Please send your suggestions to [email protected].