Kristine Maier (A.B.)
Managing Partner
Kristine Maier brings to our team expertise in branding, marketing, online retail, and wholesale distribution. As Managing Partner she is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Company. She also ensures our farm products get to market and to your table.
Ms. Maier is the owner of The Great Maier Mercantile, L.L.C (formerly Orange Box Jewelry), wholesaler of artisan handcrafted accessories. She currently produces and distributes her own work to 274 retail stores in the U.S. and Canada and also represents the work of 4 additional independent designers to the wholesale trade. In the last 9 years of operation, she designed weekly pop-up retail spaces and built tradeshow booth displays, created marketing and customer-retention plans, and maintained an online retail website and catalog for wholesale buyers.
Prior to founding Orange Box Jewelry, Ms. Maier was the Marketing Director for an international importing company with an emphasis on resale of fairly traded handmade and agricultural products. In that capacity she designed and implemented social-networking marketing strategy on tight budget to launch an online sales program, created home-based sales program, including a how-To DVD, and organized sales events at faith-based institutions. She also managed team of graphic design professionals to produce cohesive branding including product labels, event-marketing materials, and company website.
Ms. Maier holds an A.B. from Kenyon College, where her synoptic major in the area of American Studies focused on the consumer culture of coffee.
Stephanie Summers (A.B., M.S.)
Partner
Stephanie Summers brings to our team expertise in fund raising, human resources, grant writing, nonprofit governance, organizational development. She also stewards the animals at Still Hills Wait.
Ms. Summers is the current CEO and former COO of an independent, nonpartisan civic-education and public-policy organization based in Washington, D.C..
A member of the advisory board for the Institute for Public Service (IPS) at Pepperdine University, she earned a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Eastern University, where she holds an appointment to the board of fellows for the Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership. She chairs the board of The McIlvaine Fund, an alumni and parent group at her undergraduate alma mater, Kenyon College.
Ms. Summers has extensive experience in managing nonprofit organizations, building strategic partnerships, and working with volunteers to grow organizational capacity and impact. Prior to her current appointment, she spent 12 years with a regional nonprofit based in Pittsburgh, Pa, where her roles included Vice President for the Eastern Region and Vice President for Organizational Development. She began her career in nonprofit administration as executive director of a youth center in Pittsburgh, Pa. Ms. Summers is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Jason Summers (A.B., M.S., Ph.D.)
Partner
Jason Summers brings to our team expertise in acoustics, data analytics, machine learning, proposal development for federal agencies, research design, and signal processing. He is also chief tractor and small-engine mechanic at Still Hills Wait.
Dr. Summers is Chief Scientist and Managing Member of ARiA LLC, a research-and-development firm based in Washington, D.C. and Founding Director of Sound Foundation, a nonprofit based in Culpeper, VA that provides STEM and business education and training for high-school students.
Recognized worldwide as a leading expert in signal processing for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and in theoretical and computational modeling of acoustic processes in rooms, outdoors, and in the ocean, Dr. Summers has been key in the development of both the theoretical underpinnings and computational implementations of multiple computational models now in active use by government and commercial customers. Serving as Technical Lead for the Advanced-Development Team of NAVSEA’s Surface ASW Synthetic Trainer (SAST) Program and Primary Investigator he oversaw development of the first fully physics-based system for shipboard and school-house training on surface-ship sonar. Dr. Summers also provided R&D support for the award-winning Submarine Multi-Mission Team Trainer (SMMTT). Working in the field of room acoustics, he developed and validated improved mathematical and computational models able to address the pressing problem of predicting sound fields in coupled-room concert halls, introducing modifications to one of the primary commercial software packages used in room acoustics (CATT-Acoustic). These models have been broadly cited in the literature and widely adopted by the worldwide consulting community. The new insight and renewed rigor Dr. Summers brought to the problem led Leo L. Beranek to nominate him for the MacArthur “Genius” Award in 2004.
Dr. Summers holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Science (Acoustics) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), an M.S. in Physics from RPI, and an A.B. in Physics with a Concentration in the Integrated Program in the Humane Studies (focusing on the integration of art and science in the Bauhaus and the representation of the self in the literature of Thomas Mann and Max Frisch) from Kenyon College. He maintains close ties with academia, serving on dissertation committees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Aalto University, Finland and regularly lecturing in the graduate program in acoustics at RPI. He further maintains ties to cutting-edge research as an associate editor of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Dr. Summers is a member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), the Audio Engineering Society (AES), the Oceanic Engineering and Signal Processing societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Sigma Xi, and the U.S. Naval Institute and a lifetime member of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).