Jasper Smith is the co-founder and cidermaker at Son of Man in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge and a pioneer in promoting harvest-based, natural cider.

Nate Watters is a farmer, cidermaker, and janitor at Keepsake Cidery in the Cannon Valley of Minnesota. While living in upstate New York as a boy, his first successful business involved selling apples from a neighbor’s tree. He made over three dollars in one day, not bad for a farmer! Maybe it was this wild success that planted the orchard seed in his heart. As he grew older, he dreamed of starting an orchard and a farm brewery. After enjoying ciders from around the world, he decided to combine dreams of farming and fermenting by starting farm cidery in Minnesota. He co-owns and runs the farm/cidery with his wife, Tracy Jonkman.

Davey McHenry combines her passion for people and process as Senior Vice President of Operations for Hartman Group. With more than 15 years of food and beverage industry experience and tenure at Hartman Group, Davey is responsible for driving the organization’s operational strategy with a keen focus on its intersection with client relationships and organizational growth. Davey has an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and a BA in International Studies from Willamette University.

Adam Wargacki is a biochemist, orchardist, and winemaker born, raised and living in the Puget Sound.

Returning home from a Bay Area biotech startup where he had helped invent the fermentation of seaweed into commodity alcohols and biofuels. – In 2012 Adam took up care of an old family orchard in Shelton, began foraging for pears on Anderson Island, and undertook an intensive study of remnant homestead orchards in Seattle’s public spaces.

Assembling a “Pomona” of over 200 historic books on fruit variety, horticulture, and winemaking – he learned that the working orchard is an important historic metaphor for thriving families and communities embedded harmoniously in nature. In 2015, Adam planted Empyrical Orchards in Snohomish, Washington. This collection of cider-apple, perry-pear, quince and pome-seedlings has since grown to 7 acres and 1,500 trees. His three children have room to play within its double-spaced rows. The crop from those trees sustains Empyrical Cider, founded with his wife Elizabeth in 2022.

Empyrical starts with respect for the very best of nature and tradition, followed by relentless experimentation to continually elevate the intensity, quality and perceived value of cider and perry.

Autumn Stoscheck co-owns, with her husband Ezra Sherman, Eve’s Cidery– a small orchard based cidery located at the intersection of the Northern Appalachian Plateau and the Southern Finger Lakes on the traditional lands of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, in New York State. Autumn spends her days growing certified organic cider apples and making them into world class ciders.

Brandon Buza is a cidermaker, amateur orchardist, educator, and rare pomme fruit nerd. His journey into fermentation started unexpectedly when natural winemaker Tony Coturri gave him 10 gallons of zinfandel must to make wine at home. A number of years later cider making was added to his repertoire after a chance encounter with Andrew Byers at Finnriver in Washington.  The happenstance all of this alchemy drew Brandon to the U.K. and Peter Mitchell’s Cider & Perry Academy.

Although Brandon doesn’t have commercial aspirations, he has high standards for every bottle of wine and cider that pass through his hands. Brandon is invested in every aspect of the process from picking to bottling. In every season his goal is to craft bottles that cleanly reflect the characteristics of the fruit used. In recent years he’s been particularly fascinated in ciders made with quince and sorbus domestica. He’s won top awards for his ciders at Franklin County Cider Days and GLINTCAP, including a gold, best in class.

Philippe Bishop is a co-owner of Alpenfire Cider, a small, family-run cidery based in the seaport town of Port Townsend, WA. We began planting our orchard in 2003 exclusively for making cider and released our first blends from the 2006 harvest. He primarily handles the sales and education side of things in and out of our region, but with any small company we all wear many hats from blending to pruning and everything in-between. Previously his work included Sales and Operations at a high end craft beer, cider, & sake distributor, plus has sat on the board of the Northwest Cider Association. Currently Philippe lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and two kids and sits on the board of the American Cider Association.

Haritz Rodriguez, aka Ciderzale, is an independent journalist and marketing consultant in the agrifood field with a special focus on cider. He has recently joined the EDA Drinks & Wine Campus team as the main educator on cider within the university of gastronomic sciences Basque Culinary Center. Haritz works for different local and international agents in the world of cider, participates as a judge in cider competitions and co-organizes festivals and fairs such as Sidrama (Portugal), Sagardo Forum (Basque Country) and NICA (Norway). In 2018, he promoted the creation of Ciderlands, the cider tourism network. Haritz has been trained as an Accredited Pommelier by the UK Beer & Cider Academy, as a Certified Cider Guide by the ACA and by the tasting panel of the PDO Euskal Sagardoa. In addition, he organizes trips for cider makers, journalists and writers and has contributed to their works with both photographs and information.

Jill Westra is the Senior Manager of Sustainability at The Boston Beer Company, which includes the Angry Orchard brand. Jill is an environmental scientist with a 20-year career in environmental consulting and corporate sustainability management. Based in the Kansas City metro area, she also serves as an elected board member of her local water utility and is on the governing boards of two local non-profit organizations, Missouri River Relief and Climate + Energy Project.

Devon Hevener started out his career working in the culinary industry as the general manager for 5 years where he used data to better understand trends in the area to help the business grow from a single food cart to several carts and a brick and mortar. Most recently, he has spent the last year working with the American Cider Association as a Consumer and Market Data Research Intern where he was able to learn the industry firsthand through the mentorship of industry experts and various ad-hoc projects which helped connect him to 3-Tier Beverages. One of his most significant projects was the creation of a formal database of all cider producers within the United States. Devon graduated from Portland State University with a degree in Business Technology & Analytics and currently lives in the Portland, Oregon area with his wife Hannah.