Core Team

Michael Straus - President
Michael began his PR career in a field he knows best: organic foods and farming. He first guided the Straus Family Creamery to become one of the most well-respected and successful organic dairies in the nation. In doing so, he created an enduring brand that continues to command loyalty, good will, and steadily increasing sales, while maintaining its pioneering roots in organics and sustainable farming.

In 1999, Michael launched Straus Communications. Since then, he has worked with a vast network of businesses, community-based organizations, non-profits, foundations and other groups that work together to advance the cause of sustainability in food and agriculture. Along the way, he has earned a reputation as a credible and knowledgeable industry expert, gaining him access to major editors in the food, environmental consumer, and trade press.

Michael has also consulted on organic and sustainable agricultural marketing internationally, including the Republic of Armenia, Russia, and Ukraine where his Russian language skills come in very handy. He has served as a Board member for the Marin Conservation League, the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program, and serves on the Capital Campaign Committee of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. His professional affiliations include the San Francisco Professional Food Society.

Michael attended UC Santa Cruz, graduating with honors in Russian Studies.

Haven Bourque - Managing Partner
Haven brings her 17 years of experience directing marketing and communications programs to her role as Partner and Vice President at Straus Communications. In addition to directing communications for prestigious non-profit organizations ranging from the arts to social justice, she spent 10 years working in corporate marketing positions -- a fine balance to her upbringing as a mostly-willing child laborer whose chores included planting, harvesting and cooking what seemed like an enormous annual crop of butternut squash on her family's organic farm.

Prior to joining Straus, she served as Director of Marketing and Communications for TransFair USA, the certification and marketing agency for Fair Trade food products in the United States. There she worked with leading companies, including Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Dunkin' Donuts to drive consumer awareness of the Fair Trade Certified label to an all-time high.

Haven has utilized her effective communication strategies to help revitalize the San Francisco Symphony by reaching new audiences for contemporary classical music. At 3Com Corporation, she brought cutting-edge technologies to the global market. And in her early professional life, she guided several start-up technology companies from initial launch to category leadership.

She also has a history of passionate personal and professional involvement with sustainable food and socially responsible purchasing, honed while living and working in Japan, Israel and Guatemala.

Haven holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kansai Daigaku of Osaka, Japan. She served the PR advisory board of Slow Food Nation, is a member of the San Francisco Professional Food Society and SLOW Food USA, and advises on communications and marketing strategy for the worker-owned green business cooperative WAGES.

Mark Magers - COO & VP Strategic Services
Mark brings his strategic thinking and problem-solving skills to Straus, honed through a wide range of experience in strategy consulting, business development, management, and marketing. In recent years, his consulting and management focus has been on environmental and social justice, specifically on developing consumer-driven and commerce-based solutions to address poverty and dignity issues in developing countries, through Fair Trade.

Mark developed and executed the US go-to-market strategy for Divine Chocolate, the world's first, and only, grower-owned chocolate brand. Prior to Divine, Mark was VP of Business Development at TransFair USA, the US Fair Trade certification agency. He led the Business Development team through a period of expansion from a solid base in coffee to the inclusion of other food products like tea, cocoa, and bananas. His role included managing national account relationships with Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Procter & Gamble. TransFair won two Fast Company Social Capitalist awards in 2005 and 2006.

Mark has engaged in strategic consulting work in a number of industries, both at Mars & Co, and at Swander Pace, where he focused on strategy development and M&A support for clients in the food and beverage industries. He also served as Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the largest coffee grower in the US, Kauai Coffee, and was a founding partner of both greatcoffee.com and The Coffee Review, which won two Forbes Best of Web Awards in 1999 and 2000. Back when oil prices were higher in real terms than they are even today (well, maybe not anymore), Mark was a geothermal engineer at The Geysers in Northern California, the world's largest geothermal development. He has an engineering degree from the University of Oklahoma, an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, and is an avid scuba diver and ultrarunner.

Vanessa Barrington - Senior Account Manager
Vanessa's lifelong interest in gastronomy evolved into a commitment to sustainable food and agriculture. She's a cookbook author, chef, food blogger and recipe developer specializing in artisan foods and sustainability. Her first book, Heirloom Beans from Rancho Gordo, co-authored with Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo, was published Fall 2008 by Chronicle Books. Her next book will publish in Fall 2010, also with Chronicle Books. She also worked on the award-winning Fish Forever: The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Preparing Healthy, Delicious, and Environmentally Sustainable Seafood by Paul Johnson.

For over five years, she was Marketing Manager for the Northern California and Pacific Northwest Regions of Whole Foods Market.

Because good, healthy food is a right, not a privilege, Vanessa volunteers for two different food justice organizations in Oakland, CA. She harvests produce and digs vegetable beds for City Slicker Farms and does research for and contributes to the Food First newsletter, People Putting Food First.

Vanessa is a member of Slow Food, The International Association of Culinary Professionals, The San Francisco and East Bay Bicycle Coalitions, and is a working member of the start-up Cooperative Grocery in Emeryville, CA. She was one of the original founding members of the Noe Valley Farmers' Market in San Francisco. She earned a BS in Marketing from San Francisco State University.

Deborah Crooks - Social Media Strategist

A dedicated creative with more than 20 years writing, editing, project management and social media expertise, Deborah brings a unique mix of social media communications skills to on and offline events, initiatives & projects. Having served as both a managing editor of a national print publication and a Creative Catalyst at a new media agency, she has a deep understanding of both traditional and new media as well as a life-long dedication to environmental issues: Raised in a semi-rural area of the Santa Cruz mountains surrounded by agriculture fields, Deborah gained both a deep appreciation of the natural world and firsthand knowledge of the effects of pesticide use. She continued her studies of both at UCSC where she earned a BA in Environmental Studies and worked for the Predatory Bird Research Group to help with the recovery of the Peregrine Falcon population (which had been nearly decimated by DDT use).

She went on to hone her reporting and editing skills as an editor at Inside Communications in Boulder, CO, where she also studied creative writing at the Naropa Institute. Since then, she's written for publications and sites including Yoga Journal, Veg News, The Thinking Girl's Guide to Enlightenment, AOL's Digital City, Green Living Ideas, FYI Nutrition and The Sun as well as stage and radio. Most recently, she's worked on social media campaigns for clients and individuals including Scion, Mattel, Social Media Club and Twestival, and helped to coordinate Bloghaus @SXSW and Blogtropol.us at Web 2.0, as well as a host of community events.

When she's not advising clients she can be seen performing her original music with her band. She recently spoke about the creative process at Macworld 2010 and on a panel at SXSW about People, Passion, Purpose and Performance.

Anna Ghosh - Senior Media Strategist
Anna has a 13-year track record of leading successful communications programs for organizations ranging from Slow Food Nation to a smart grid company, solar power plants to software providers. She believes in the power of a compelling, authentic story to reach the right audience and being a resource to journalists writing about sustainability and social issues.

Anna has been working with Straus Communications since December, 2008. She has focused her energy and talents on sustainable and social enterprise, green building and renewable energy through her work with The Greening of Southie, B Lab, Sunlight Electric and Equator Coffees. Before joining Straus, she was a key contributor to building Edelman's Silicon Valley clean technology practice from the ground up, promoting companies focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency and green building. In 2006, she introduced the media to The California Clean Tech Open, a business plan competition that has since become the leading contest of its kind and has provided more than $70 million in funding and in-kind support to cleantech startups. Anna managed the communications programs to launch solar thermal power company Ausra to the U.S. market and to expand the brand recognition of SolarCity, California's No. 1 residential solar installer, to become a national leader in solar services and financing. She has also provided strategic media and communications counsel to renewable energy inverter manufacturer Xantrex and smart electricity grid, or Smart Grid, technology provider SmartSynch.

Anna's experience as a PR professional spans agencies large and small, in-house work and consulting for leading-edge businesses and non-profits. Before diving into clean tech, Anna managed media programs for Adobe Systems' Acrobat family of products and also promoted the company's efforts to green its multiple corporate offices. She has also advanced the communications goals for Yahoo!, UPS, Emory University, Visa and dotcom darlings Friendster and Bigstep.

While Anna is dedicated to the development of renewable energy and efficiency as a linchpin to protect our environment, it is renewable human fuel - sustainable food - that's nearest to her heart. Her recent work on the Slow Food Nation PR advisory committee, combined with her personal passion and years of experience in restaurants and working with food, has enabled her to use her media relations expertise to advance the cause of responsible food sourcing, personal health and cultural value of food, farms and families.

Susan Coss - Senior Media Strategist
Susan brings more than 15 years of public relations, communications and marketing experience in the socially responsible business, financial and tech sectors to the table.

As the granddaughter of a farmer, and daughter of a man who became a farmer after retiring from the Federal Government, Susan is very well acquainted with the call of the land, and the importance of preserving the environment. In 2007, she made the decision to align her lifelong passion for environmental and food sustainability issues with her career ambitions, and struck out on her own. She soon began working with Sustainable Spaces, a San Francisco-based company focused on improving the energy efficiency and home health for existing housing stock. Working with the management team, she helped shape the company's first public relations campaign, crafting press releases and a media campaign focused on educating the public on the importance of improving the energy performance of existing homes - a far greener and less expensive path than building or buying a new home.

Most recently, Susan worked on the public relations and marketing team for Slow Food Nation. She was responsible for all radio outreach and generated over 30 radio interviews, including coverage on nationally syndicated shows like Whole Living with Martha Stewart and A Matter of Taste. Additionally, she secured extensive coverage on the top Bay Area radio stations including KFOG, KQED, KGO and KPFA. In addition to her pr duties, Susan was also responsible for managing the relationships with the lead sponsors, including Whole Foods Market, The Festival Network and Parkmerced. This project enabled her to fully employ her skills as a communicator, organizer and networker to help successfully launch the first-ever American collaborative gathering that united the growing sustainable food movement and introduced thousands of people to clean and fair food.

Susan holds a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a member of Slow Food USA for two years and has volunteered her services to La Cocina, an incubator kitchen helping low income women launch food businesses and Litquake, an annual literary festival in San Francisco. She is currently looking forward to harvesting the tomatoes growing in her backyard.

Jonathan Bendiner - Web Master
Jonathan is our resident renaissance man, having worked as a hypnotist, paramedic, massage therapist, health educator and web community builder. All reasons enough to have him around. But it's his long-held passion for organics and environmental awareness that brought him to Straus where he builds and maintains our client's digital press rooms; he also designed and manages the Beyond Organic website.