Kate Bernot is a reporter covering the beverage industry across digital, print, and audio media. She is the lead reporter for Sightlines, which provides insights-driven content and community for beverage alcohol decision-makers. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Imbibe, America’s Test Kitchen’s Proof podcast, Craft Spirits Magazine, and more. She is a Certified Cider Professional and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Kim Hamblin has followed a varied path of self-employed diversification for the last 25 years, bringing many assets to her current role as co-owner of Art+Science Cider & Wine. Like most small business owners, she knows how to hustle- from foraging fruit, milling and pressing, bottling, label designing, sales, marketing and deliveries. In the summer, you can find her on the farm running the tasting room, hosting mini festivals, or in her pollinator garden with her menagerie of cats and a dog. She is also a cut paper artist (look for her design on the CiderCon® t-shirt & watch the in-process video on Instagram!)

Matt Swihart is the founder and brewmaster of Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery in Hood River, Oregon. He is a local orchardist in Hood River, growing heirloom apples for the cidery and dessert pears. In 2012, he was the first brewery on the West Coast to bring back reusable glass bottles as the most sustainable and environmentally friendly package to the beverage industry. He has a BS in Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering and stumbles around on the banjo.

It all started with a pickup truck full of found apples. Nicole Todd and her husband were searching for property when they stumbled across an abandoned apple orchard in Watsonville, CA. Nicole, having a passion for fermenting anything she can get her hands on, insisted they go back at night to collect and use the apple crop that was clearly going to waste. The obvious outcome for this found loot was CIDER! Having worked many years in wine and beer, the production part was easy for Nicole. She teamed up with her sister Natalie, the more business savvy of the two, to create Santa Cruz Cider Co in 2013. They have a tasting room and production space in the heart of Apple City, Watsonville, CA. They use 100% local apples to make 20+ kinds of ciders.

Having been raised in the south in a five-star restaurant, Celeste Varner moved to Napa Valley and worked numerous crushes in the wine industry, before finally settling in Portland where she could blend her two passions of Food & Beverage at Zupan’s Markets. Celeste started with Zupan’s over 5 years ago as the Beer Buyer at the Burnside location where she began working on Zupan’s Farm to Market program; a collaborative program started in 2015, that partners Zupan’s Markets with local brewers to craft exceptional specialty beer & cider. She is now Assistant Store Director at the Macadam location and continues to work on the Farm to Market Program.

Sager Small grew up in the Walla Walla Valley, in a family of winemakers. He is enthusiastic about cider and foraged apples’ potential to break down some of the orthodoxy surrounding wine, and he has been active in documenting and propagating wild and abandoned trees. Sager is currently the vineyard manager at Woodward Canyon Winery and one of four founding members of Mast Year Cider Collective, a worker-owned cooperative. Mast Year works to create hyperlocal ciders from fruit foraged in and around the Blue Mountains. The Collective believes in minimalism in the cellar, with wild fermentations, unamended musts, and low-to-no use of sulfur. 2023 marks our first commercial year; please look for our inaugural releases in the 2024 season!

Kristi Notz is the Assistant Sales Manger for liquor at Albertsons and Companies in the Portland Division. She have been in this position for 1.5 years and has been with the company for 41 years. She is also a Certified Cicerone beer server.

Nick Poindexter possesses a collective of 17+ years of experience in strategic leadership, consultative sales, project and program management, business development, community outreach, and marketing. He received a B.A. in Advertising Management and Marketing with a minor in Design Management from Portland State University and completed an M.S. in Management and Organizational Leadership from Warner Pacific University. Nick is currently the Senior Director of the Empowering Leaders Division at nonprofit organization The Contingent where he leads The Script initiative. He was born and raised in Portland and is extremely passionate about positively impacting the Portland metropolitan area. Nick enjoys spending time with his family, has a passion for creating equitable access to resources for marginalized communities and loves encouraging people.

Amy Wood is Senior Vice President of Strategy at Curious Plot, a marketing agency serving clients in food and agriculture. She’s an experienced marketing strategist with a track record for building award-winning campaigns and driving industry growth. For the past two decades, she’s represented leading agricultural producers, manufacturers, retailers, trade associations and consumer brands. At Curious Plot, she leads a team of food experts passionate about developing innovative campaigns to educate and inspire people to purchase fresh ingredients like mushrooms, pears, watermelon, apples and more.

Sara Sherrer is owner and Sales Director for Graft Cider, Hudson North Cider Co. and Ritual Hard Kombucha. She is responsible for sales strategy for markets and chains and oversees a sales team. She formerly worked with her co-owner/brother Kyle at Millstone Cellars, where she ran front-of-house operations. Sara resides in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband Marlon, son Sebastian and Yuki her dog where they enjoy many outdoor activities.