Alisha Wenger, Owner/Operator

Alisha is a proud Coloradan who grew up in Steamboat Springs and studied English at Colorado State University. After graduation, she fulfilled a dream of serving with the United States Peace Corps, spending three years in Togo, West Africa as an Environmental Action and Food Security Development Agent. During this time, Alisha found her love for empowering communities to find innovative solutions for making our world a better place to live. 

Since returning home in 2013 she has worked in the Denver metro non-profit and government sectors as a grant writing and fundraising professional. Alisha is passionate about food justice and regenerative food systems work. She completed her permaculture design certification with the Denver Permaculture Guild in 2017 and served as board Treasurer for Global Seed Savers from 2017-2019. In 2019 Alisha and her family headed to Western Colorado to head back home and live in Palisade, CO. In 2020, Alisha started a position as the Executive Director for the Community Food Bank of Grand Junction where she continues to lead community food systems work from a permaculture and vertically intergrated design lens — working from seed to table and back again, with a focus on equitable nutritious food access and building resilient regional food systems.

 Alisha started working with Julia in a volunteer capacity in 2016, then buying in 50% ownership of Seeds Trust and focused on improving the storefront and operational efficiencies. In May of 2024 Alisha worked with Julia to assume full ownership and operations of the company.

Be sure to read more below for Alisha’s seed story starting in the Peace Corps! Always feel free to reach out with questions at: alisha@seedstrust.com

Tori Johnson — Operations Assistant

Tori was born and raised in Superior, Wisconsin and has spent the last eight years working on farms. She became passionate about all things food including growing methods and overall access to healthy produce while working at a non-profit farm in Texas. Tori volunteered with AmeriCorps for two years in the Grand Valley and is hoping to continue connecting people to their food. For the last year, Tori has been working to help K-12 students to learn hands-on educational programming regarding food production, plan sciences, agricultural ecosystems, healthy food, and nutrition. In that time, Tori has focused her learning on seed saving and finding ways to help preserve the diversity of vegetable seed available to growers.

Alisha worked with Tori indirectly during her AmeriCorps service and is so thrilled that the stars have aligned for her to help out both in the seed studio helping pack orders, but also in building more educational content to foster new seed growers!

Tori is an amazing production farmer. She will be joining Julia at Early Morning Orchard this coming season as well. We are so excited to be working with them to produce more hardy adapted seed for the Rocky Mountain and Southwest Regions!

Julia Coffey, (ex-officio) — Seed Grower and Farm Manager at Early Morning Orchards, Palisade,CO

Hello to all of you lovely seed people! It is with deep gratitude to all of you, to my business partner, and to all of my incredible seed mentors that I announce my departure from Seeds Trust. I will be leaving the biz in the exceptional hands of Alisha as I pursue my master’s degree in social work and direct a farm and peach orchard in Palisade, CO.

I am excited to continue to keep my hands in the soil and collaborate with organizations in this valley that are dedicated to building more resilient local food systems. I will still be adapting and propagating seed for Seeds Trust, and I will still always be a part of the Seeds Trust family. Thank you all for one of the best experiences of my life! 

Bill McDorman (ex-officio), Original Founder and Director of Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance

Bill McDorman is a seed saver, writer, and educator based in Cornville, Arizona. He is co-founder of The Down Home Project, Garden City Seeds, Seeds Trust, High Altitude Gardens, the Sawtooth Botanical Gardens, Seed School and the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance. He is author of the book Basic Seed Saving. Bill is the former executive director of Native Seeds/SEARCH.

As the original founder of Seeds Trust, Bill is a close friend and continual advisor for Seeds Trust.