My entire life and career has been immersed within food & farming here in the Great Lakes State; some would say I was born to do this. In fact, my family has been farming the bays of Michigan for 6 generations since my great, great, great, grandfather Frank moved to Portsmouth Bay, Michigan in 1854 from Switzerland and met his wife Flora. They fell in love, started a family and a homestead, and my family hasn’t stopped farming in Michigan ever since,  almost 200 years. My great grandfather Leonard truck farmed 40 acres of market vegetables and cash crops just outside of Flint while working at the Buick engine plant at night to make a living, and he was the one who turned the family homestead into a legitimate farming business. My grandfather Robert and his brothers took the reins and grew the farm to a couple thousand acres throughout their careers but still struggled most of the way through, all managing to have children who carried on the farming family legacy including my father Brian, uncles, and many cousins. My fathers generation decided to focus on and master growing one crop rather than being mediocre at a bunch; and that crop was potatoes, and master them they did. My family has perfected the art of farming potatoes here in Michigan and many other parts of the country and is now one of the largest potato producers in the US, growing tens of thousands of acres and selling over a billion pounds of potatoes every year. 

And then my generation begins…

I picked up the farming torch to carry the family legacy ever since I could walk around the farm as a little spud in the 90’s. In the early days of growing up around the family potato farm, life was not financially abundant as we lived in a shoebox house receiving boxes of stimulus government cheese and kool aid packets with my dad farming all day every day and my mom working at a daycare center watching me and my cousins. I watched the farm grow and grow the harder my family worked throughout the years, and I watched how dedicating your life to a purpose and developing a passion can bring an entire family out of poverty and give life meaning. Although I technically started working around the farm as a child sweeping the shop and sorting smelly gooey rotting seed potato pieces from the conveyors during harvest, I started the employment clock when I actually became useful after receiving my driver's license and working on the farm full time after school. I managed hundreds of acres of potato fields in Michigan, spent months behind a welder and torch learning to fabricate, collected more tools than I know what to do with, spent tens of thousands of hours behind the wheel of every tractor you can imagine, and traveled to farms across the country in Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, South Carolina, and the Upper Peninsula. I even learned how to drive a tractor as a kid mowing the runway on the very same 1957 Massey Ferguson tractor my great grandpa bought, the very first new tractor my family ever owned. 

In my early twenties, I decided that I wanted to explore and understand farming beyond just potatoes and I wanted to know everything there is to know about plants and food as a whole. This was when I decided I was going to leave the potato world behind me to begin pursuing a career in education by going to Michigan State University to study Plant, Food, and Agriculture Education to become an adjunct college professor. I worked at a handful of other farms throughout the years teaching myself everything I could about plants and I began to ask myself how I would start a farm if I had to start from scratch in the modern age and how to create first generation farms.

This is also when I fell in love with food and the culinary arts. I began working as a Chef de Partie at a high end tasting menu farm to table restaurant called Red Haven next door to Michigan State Universities campus. The better I got as a chef, the better I got at farming; and the better I got at farming, the better I got at cooking. I obsessed about growing plants and making food for close to a decade, and managed to experience a lot throughout the years in the kitchen and fields. I would ride my custom built electric fat tire bike to MSU’s main campus library and just read books about farming and food for free on a weekly basis. I would ride through all the botanical gardens on campus where every plant is labeled and learn about plants riding through the gardens and fields. I began growing a half acre of vegetables and flowers across the street from MSU’s farm and campus while working as a high end chef next door at the farm to table restaurant where I would bring in that produce to use.

After years and years of pursuing a career in teaching and education to educate people about the wonders of plants and food, I decided that maybe I should put this pursuit of becoming a professor on the back burner. I decided that I wanted to actually farm and cook food, and show people how to do it by doing it myself. I decided that I would abandon the idea of college to start farming on my own, so I took out a business loan instead of a student loan, started Heron Creek Farms LLC, named after the nature preserve behind the house I lived at on MSU’s campus where I taught myself how to farm and cook for almost 4 years, and then moved to Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan to become part of the very special farming community here.

The story of Heron Creek began on 2/22/2022 when I officially filed to start the business. I sketched out the silhouette of a few Great Blue Herons until I created my first logo and took that to the computer to create a brand. I named the business after the 9 herons that would come behind my farm next to MSU and raise their young in the nests every year. The Heron Creek Nature Preserve represents the property where I lived and farmed on my own and taught myself about plants and food while living across the street from the best farming school in the nation and becoming a chef at a high end tasting menu restaurant next door.

I then immediately took an opportunity to start growing vegetables and flowers on a cherry orchard on Old Mission, so I moved to Traverse City and that's what I've been doing ever since.

I grew a couple acres of vegetables and managed a greenhouse to sell produce at a roadside stand and the farmers market. I participated in the Sara Hardy Farmers Market and sold produce at Peninsula Market. I created a CSA style produce box subscription delivery program for locals.

I had a you pick flower farm on Old Mission where I sold to local florists and created a flower bouquet subscription delivery program.

I'm certified in Plant Based Nutrition, MSU Master Gardener, Mushroom Identification, Permaculture, Ecosystem Mimicry, Forestry, Pesticide Application, Food Handling, and a Google Educator.

I've worked as a Chef at Red Haven, Black Star Farms, Bonobo, Chateau Chantel, and Peninsula Grill; and was the Head Chef for a catering company too.

I sold vegetables and edible flowers to the Cooks House, Boathouse, Mission Proper, Amical, Poppycocks, Bahia, Pepe Nero, Sugar 2 Salt, Stellas, and Modern Bird.

Currently, I'm starting the newest chapter for Heron Creek because now the farm is adding on food service and basically starting a restaurant of its own. Starting April 1st, 2025 I will begin to provide the nightly food service for Seven Hills Old Mission Distilling. I will also be growing vegetables and flowers less than a mile away on Old Mission, where later this year we will become Old Mission Peninsula's first fully Certified Organic Farm, located on Blue Water Road.

Heron Creek's menu will be a love letter to plants and the natural world, using food to tell a story about living and farming on the bays of the Great Lakes in Michigan. 

Creativity is amplified within the bounds of limitations, which is why I continually limit myself to only use what's available seasonally and locally to create new dishes that can tell a story through flavors you may never experience elsewhere. I take all of my culinary training working with three different culinary college instructors, studying all the classical cooking techniques, and my 500+ cookbooks to create inspired dishes utilizing what's available and transforming it with all my culinary tools & techniques. 

Heron Creek Farms is part of the MI FARM COOP who has banded together a bunch of local farmers to create a CSA style produce box weekly subscription and offer bulk produce to restaurants online. 

The MI FARM CO-OP drops off their CSA box delivery every week at the Seven Hills building on OMP. Heron Creek Foods would like to work with the MI FARM CO-OP to sponsor a weekly dinner series at Seven Hills for a limited number of guests one day a week on Wednesdays which is the same day for CSA deliveries, who are provided with a 3-5 course menu with the main entree utilizing ingredients found in the CSA box from the previous week and other produce from the MI FARM COOP. The entire dish will revolve around what's available that week in Traverse City and showcase Heron Creeks current menu items. Old Missions Distilling at Seven Hills will curate a drink pairings for the menu.

Heron Creek is welcoming in 2025 with Heron Creek Food Service at Seven Hills while also starting a new Farm down the road on Blue Water Road growing Food, Fruit, & Flowers with Farm Fresh Flavor.

2025 marks an era where I get to pursue all of my passions and  my life's purpose of farming, cooking, & teaching with Heron Creek Farms, Food, & Academy. I'm honored to begin my journey in the food & farming community here on Old Mission in Traverse City and hope my experiences and knowledge bring value and help preserve farming & food on the bays of Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan.