Learn a little more about our Board of Directors members by reading through their bios!

Karl Gilbertson: Dad to two darn cool 1 year-olds. Avid home brewer and gardener. Manager of a medical device coating and reagents group at Surmodics Inc with a background in operations, inventory management and project management. Member since 2016!

Christina DeVries: Christina DeVries, she/her, is a Minnesota transplant that landed here after two years in the Peace Corps serving as a Health Volunteer. Since moving to Minnesota, Christina has worked at a large human services nonprofit in employment service grants, and volunteered as a donor organizer. She earned a Masters Degree in Advocacy and Political Leadership from Metropolitan State University. She now works as the Director of Development at Students United, which works to expand inclusive higher education policy for all students within the Minnesota State Universities. She also serves on the Nellie Stone Johnson Program Scholarship Board. Outside of her 9-5, she’s an avid reader and artist, loves to share stories and lives over a beer, and continues to deepen connections to her community. This summer she’ll be attempting her first garden plot with a friend in Loring Park.

Dan Moret: Dan Moret is in his first term and has been on the Fair State Board since 2019. His favorite Fair State beer is Pils. He is a program manager for the Community Reinvestment Fund, a national CDFI headquartered in Minneapolis working to improve capital access to under-resourced small businesses. He has a background in cooperatives, nonprofits, consulting, and communications and is dedicated to helping Fair State thrive. He and his wife live in Northeast Minneapolis with their two daughters.

Jordan Merhar: I’m Jordan Merhar! I work as a Lab Manager which requires me to leverage my soft skills and pair them with my hard skills to become successful in my role by building strong professional relationships and creating a solid rapport with the tradesmen and technicians who work on the systems and equipment in my labs. My job requires getting the right people together to resolve issues, thus building and maintaining strong networks. This experience requires me to have a birds-eye view, a great characteristic for a board member to have. My first year on the board I was elected records officer, and served as interim vice chair for two months. Over the last two years on the board I have served on the Membership Engagement Committee because I’m not a stranger around the taproom (this last year notwithstanding), so I am available to the membership. If you’ve got something to say to the board, pull up a beer and let’s have a chat!

Joe Nelson: I have a finance and management degree from University if Minnesota. I’ve worked for Land O’Lakes (a mn based cooperative) for 7+ years. Started in finance, spent 5 years doing consulting work with land O’Lakes member owners, and now help manage global procurement for one of our business units.