Our Team

Lisa Schwartz, founder and proprietor
Lisa Schwartz is the founder and proprietor of Rainbeau Ridge and is an accomplished cheesemaker and farmer.

Now in its fifth growing season at Rainbeau Ridge, Lisa manages a team that cares for a broad range of farm animals and grows fresh produce. She is the resident cheese maker and herdswoman, taking time to teach cooking courses and children’s farm education programs which emphasize the importance of local sustainable agriculture in our daily lives. Rainbeau Ridge increasingly plays host to many philanthropic and community events, furthering the farm’s goals of keeping land as open space, conserving resources and helping people understand the value of farming, food and sustainable, accessible agriculture.

Lisa, an engaging speaker about sustainable farming and small-scale, suburban food production, gives lectures, participates in forums, and leads discussion-groups on these topics. Most recent engagements were in NYC at the Baum Forum on “Schools, Food and Gardening: Cultivating a Healthy Future” and at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture on “Women in Dairy”.

Before becoming involved in food and farming, Lisa started her career as a management consultant in New York City, eventually becoming a full-time mother and community volunteer in Japan and in Bedford, New York. She holds a BA in economics from Wellesley College.

Lisa resides in Bedford Hills with her husband Mark. Their daughter, Bari, is a recent graduate from Harvard; their son, Dan, is a student at the University of Michigan.

Mark Schwartz, proprietor
Mark Schwartz is Lisa's husband and proprietor of Rainbeau Ridge. He is active in many aspects of Rainbeau Ridge and is 100 percent behind the goals Lisa has set for the farm. He and Lisa always dreamed of owning a farm and the realization of that dream is both exhilarating and fun!

Mark is actively involved in financing alternative energy companies and forming partnerships to expand our energy sources. He is also on the board of several local, national and international corporations and not-for-profit institutions. He is a graduate of Harvard College and has advanced degrees from both Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government.

Karen Sabath, strategy partner
Karen Sabath, also Lisa’s sister, works closely with Lisa at Rainbeau Ridge. Finishing each other’s sentences, Karen and Lisa work hand-in-hand on a daily basis on educational programs and to expand Rainbeau Ridge’s reach consistent with its goals. Karen is best known at the farm for snapping pictures all the time and can often be seen in the kitchen with Sprouts. Prior to becoming involved with Rainbeau Ridge, Karen spent many years in the financial business and ran the mutual fund division for BlackRock, Inc. until 2001. She holds a BA in economics from Princeton University. Karen lives in Katonah with her husband, Bruce, and their two sons, Jeremy and Michael. The three boys can often be seen at Rainbeau Ridge and at other local venues as the band "Lyon's Rock".

Nick Gutfreund, multi-media and technology partner
Nick Gutfreund joined our team in 2005 to add multi-media platforms to extend Rainbeau Ridge's reach beyond the farmstead. Nick has extensive experience in music and video production and applies this experience to his work at Rainbeau Ridge. Nick has been responsible for capturing farm events and programs on video and producing highlight material from them. He is currently pursuing alternative outlets for this programming. He and his wife, Mary Duncan, are the parents of our first Sprout classmember, Sophia.

Eliza McCarthy, public relations director
Eliza McCarthy came to us as a volunteer and intern in our early seasons where she helped start the produce gardens and the berry patches, and she returned to the farm as PR director in 2006. Also a journalist, she wrote the "Health Newsletter" column for ELLE magazine, and has reported on health (and gardening!) for many other publications, including Domino, Organic Style, Salon, and Slate.

Farm Team

Kevin Ferris, Deb Taft, Ron Brooks and Lynn Schofield comprise the team working with Lisa day-to-day. With Lisa's vision, it is the expertise and commitment of this team that enables Rainbeau Ridge to be what it is and to deliver the high quality products and programs that its customers and participants have come to know.

Kevin Ferris, property manager
Kevin joined Rainbeau Ridge when it was just a concept! Kevin is responsible for making sure everything works properly and seamlessly at Rainbeau Ridge. He can make anything happen, fix anything and even alert Lisa & Ron when one of the animals is about to give birth! Always upbeat, his cheerful personality keep everyone on an even keel during difficult times. Kevin’s wife, Diane, has painted the Rainbeau Ridge logo on every slate and ceramic piece we are lucky to have at the farm.

Deb Taft, garden director
Deb Taft was born in Flint, Michigan. She comes by her love of growing things honestly. Some of her earliest memories are of toddling around the yard behind her mother while she cut bouquets of flowers and eating freshly picked tomatoes, still warm from the sun, as they walked back to the house. Her father, too, was a gardener; first of azaleas, jack-in-the-pulpits and daylilies, and later becoming an award-winning orchid grower.

Before coming to Rainbeau Ridge, she lived for 11 years in Boston and seven in Durham, North Carolina, where she worked for a non-profit community gardening organization that helped to turn urban lots into productive community-controlled spaces where organic vegetables could be grown by folks living in the neighborhood.

In September of 2004 Deb moved to Chestnut Ridge, NY to intern at the Pfeiffer Center under Gunther Hauk, studying biodynamic agriculture and organic beekeeping. Through her training there she gained a firm foundation in organic growing practices, which she is excited to have an outlet for here at Rainbeau Ridge. She feels her purpose to be growing the highest quality, most nutritious food possible.

Ron Brooks, livestock manager
Ron has been part of the Rainbeau Ridge team since 2002. He mostly works with the animals, but since he has a background in painting, carpentry, and horticulture he is very handy in all aspects of the farm.

Ron gained his animal experience from volunteering, and later working part-time at Explorer Post at the Dutchess County Park. There he worked in the petting barn with horses, Pygmy goats, and a variety of other animals.

He also helped injured animals that came through the Park’s wildlife rehabilitation program. After working with the Park, Ron managed a kennel at a pet store. There he worked alongside veterinarians to keep the animals healthy.

Ron’s interests extend to backpacking, camping, cooking (especially camp cooking), edible wild plants, kayaking, canoeing, and boat building. Recently, his interests are expanding into weaving, solar oven construction, and digital photography.

Ron’s love of the outdoors developed early on. When Ron was a child, he and his grandfather went on nature walks. His grandfather taught him how to identify and harvest wild berries. Today, Ron takes his niece Abby on nature walks and passes on his love of the outdoors and of wild berries.

Lynn Schofield, livestock associate, assistant cheesemaker and Buds teacher
Lynn Schofield, the newest member of our animal care staff, first became enamored (some say obsessed) with goats during her first full time job at The Wildcliff Museum in New Rochelle, NY. She was hired at the small neighborhood museum as an animal caretaker and educator. After a gap of too many years (part of the time spent raising human “kids”) she is thrilled to be back working with the objects of much of her affection… the goats of Rainbeau Ridge.

Lynn’s career path, following graduation from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Science, has taken her full circle. She started off working with farm animals at Wildcliff, researched and wrote about endangered wildlife for the World Wildlife Fund, worked as a mammal keeper at The Bronx Zoo and eventually became a pre-school teacher at Briarcliff Nursery School, which her children attended. Now she is back to her favorite occupation, working with farm animals.

Lynn’s work at Rainbeau Ridge is particularly rewarding as she gets to work with her beloved goats, spends some time educating children about farm work and the natural world, and is also part of a growing movement of building locally-based and small scale sustainable agriculture.

When she goes home at the end of a day on the farm, Lynn returns to her own (albeit much smaller) farm in Ossining where she lives with her husband, David, (an avid gardener), two children, Katie and Jake, two Nubian goats, several chickens, and a dog.

Quentin Chollet, intern
Quentin Chollet is an agricultural college student in France and sought us out at Rainbeau Ridge to acquire the hands-on experience of working in a small suburban sustainable agriculture farm. He joined us for the summer of 2007 and in just a few short months, he has already shown great promise in vegetable production and goat herdsmanship.

Teaching Staff

Susan Shaw, Roots teacher and curriculum coordinator, has a deep history of working with children. Mother Goose at the Katonah Village Library for more than five years and mother of four, Susan brings energy and excitement to any group. Her creativity to all themes generates art projects that are exciting and yet age-appropriate.

In addition to Lisa, Susan, Lynn & Karen, other part-time instructors Amy Marshall & Cara Rosenbaum work with all of our kids' programs and can be found handling animals, holding hands, mixing cooking projects, and making great memories with all of the participants.