Mateo Kehler is 34 years old and has a bachelor’s degree in economic development from Long Island University. He spent 1999-2002 working in the U.S.A., England, France and Spain with farmstead cheesemakers producing both soft and hard cheeses, and developing recipes appropriate for local and regional markets in the U.S.A. Mateo spent a year working in the cellars at Neal’s Yard Dairy in England, learning the aging and retail aspects of the farmstead cheese industry. He has worked on several cow and sheep dairies and has the skills-base to develop and manufacture both soft and hard cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheeses.

Andy Kehler is 33 years old and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont in political science and philosophy. Andy worked on an agricultural sustainability project in Southern Chile in 1993, which included a dairy operation and piggery. He has lived in Greensboro for 12 years and worked as a building contractor and home inspector, which has given him the skills to design, build and maintain a state of the art processing facility. Andy is the Herd Manger at Jasper Hill Farm and is responsible for milk production, genetics development and grass management.

By 2004, we realized that this project was more than what the two of us could handle, so we somehow convinced our better halves to join in our enterprise. Victoria Kehler, cellar manager at Jasper Hill Farm, is 31 years old and has a Bachelor’s degree in German and sociology from Middlebury College. She grew up in suburban New Jersey, but spent parts of her summer vacation in Greensboro beginning at the age of two. She moved to Greensboro full-time in January 1998, after working for a corporate immigration law firm in Boston for two years upon college graduation. She originally moved to Greensboro to gain experience in hospitality and inn management, but after two years of work as a line cook, reservations manager, waitress, and hostess, she found cheesemaking to be her true calling, and began her career in the field at Bonnieview Farm, a local sheep dairy. The feta she developed for Bonnieview finished third in the goat/sheep feta category at the annual judging of the American Cheese Society in 2002. She has also worked for Lazy Lady Farm in Westfield making a variety of goat cheeses and a custom sheep cheese, and has spent time working with producers of cow, sheep, and goat cheeses in the U.K. Affinage is a new skill area in the cheesemaking profession for her, but she is enjoying the challenge.

Angela Kehler is from Pueblo, Colorado where she was the bookkeeper at Ambrosia’s, a natural food market. She is 26 years old and has a bachelor’s degree from Long Island University in women’s studies. She has worked for the last few years at the Clarina Howard Nichols Center and at the Lamoille County States Attorneys office as a court advocate for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Angie also joined us in 2004 and took charge of our Constant Bliss production and our accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Our goals are: To produce cheeses of the highest quality from our own milk; To demonstrate that it is still possible to prosper on a rocky hillside farm; To create a vehicle for the renewal of our local dairy economy in the form of a business model that can be replicated on other dairy farms.