Patty Cantrell is Principal and founder of Regional Food Solutions LLC, an organization that specializes in communications and consulting in regional food system development. Prior to this, Patty served as Program Director at the Michigan Land Use Institute, a statewide public interest advocacy organization based in Traverse City. Under her leadership, the Institute's Entrepreneurial Agriculture program helped a new local food economy emerge in northwest Michigan through a significant regional network of local farms, food businesses and community organizations. Since its inception in 2004, this Taste the Local Difference effort has grown to include more than 250 farms, nearly 150 food retailers, dozens of school cafeterias and 90 community-based sponsors from Manistee to Mackinac . Patty began her career at the green energy Rocky Mountain Institute, where she developed community organizing tools for keeping family farms alive and growing. She later earned an MBA from Springfield, Missouri's Drury College while learning the journalism profession as a business reporter and columnist at the Springfield (MO) News-Leader and as a freelance writer for national publications.