The general manager at The Farm Institute will leave his job due to restructuring by The Trustees of Reservations, which took over the nonprofit Edgartown teaching farm two years ago.
Chris Ward, the Trustees director of business operations for the eastern region, confirmed on Wednesday that Jon Previant will step down. Previously the executive director, Mr. Previant has held the top post at the Farm Institute since 2010 and has played an active role in the Vineyard agriculture community. His last day on the job is Friday. His departure shakes up leadership at the farm at the outset of the busy summer season.
“As an organization we are restructuring our management here, and as a result that position was eliminated,” Mr. Ward told the Gazette following a meeting of the Edgartown conservation commission Wednesday.
The Farm Institute operates on 186 acres at Katama Farm, leased from the town of Edgartown.
Speaking to the Gazette by phone Thursday, Mr. Previant had no comment about his departure. He said he and his wife, Sundy Smith, who has also been involved in the farm, will remain on the Island and involved with food and agriculture. Mr. Previant also said he is “as committed as ever to the mission and ideas around what the Farm Institute tried to bring to the community.”
On Wednesday Mr. Ward came before the conservation commission to outline new leadership plans. He said the Trustees will hire an Islands general manager to oversee the farm and six other Trustees properties on the Vineyard along with one property on Nantucket. The changes are part of what he termed a “general manager model” that the organization is using across the state.
Members of the conservation commission had questions about the organization’s leadership and whether there are other changes on the way.
“The staff out there is remarkable and now with Jon being gone I hope you stay in close contact,” commission member Lil Province told Mr. Ward. “They are the ones that are out there every day and they are hard workers and I think they should be listened to.”
Mr. Ward said staff morale remains good despite the changes. “They all have been certainly sad and sympathetic for the situation with Jon, but also very excited and saying up front, I want to be a part of whatever we do moving forward and I have a ton of ideas,” he said.
Mr. Ward said he will take over this summer as interim general manager for the farm and will be on the Island three or four days a week. The Trustees hope to hire an Islands general manager by Sept. 1, he said.
Longtime Trustees superintendent on the Vineyard Chris Kennedy will continue to oversee beaches on the Islands. “I have no plans for going anywhere anytime soon,” Mr. Kennedy told the conservation commission Wednesday.
Mr. Ward said going forward, the farm will also have a livestock manager and an engagement site manager —some commissioners later wondered aloud what that meant. Mr. Ward said the engagement site manager is Lindsey Brown, who among other things will continue to oversee farm camp programs.
Meals in the Meadow, the farm’s annual fundraiser, is still scheduled for July 15,
“We’re not looking to change anything operationally at the Farm Institute at Katama Farm,” Mr. Ward said. “We still will have a working farm production . . . still running the camp as we have planned to.”
He spoke about planned improvements that include a new concrete floor in the children’s workshop and construction of a teaching kitchen.
He acknowledged that the big questions might center on Mr. Previant’s departure and the transition. The new general manager will live on the Island, he said, and will be responsible for creating stewardship plans, ensuring risk compliance, managing operations, budgets and staff, and developing property policies, according to a job description.
Koya Leadership Partners, a recruiting firm with an office in Newburyport, is managing the search process, Mr. Ward said. He encouraged the conservation commission to pass the word along to Islanders who might fit the job description.
Other issues discussed Wednesday included staff housing, which Mr. Ward said is a priority. Responding to questions from the commission, he said there are no plans to sell Trustees merchandise or beach stickers at the farm. However, the Trustees might take a close look at whether the herd size is too big, Mr. Ward said, and they might also look at bringing back more belted Galloways, the signature cow that appears on the Farm Institute logo.
The merger between the Farm Institute and Trustees was announced in March 2015. At the time Trustees spokesmen said Mr. Previant would continue as executive director and the Trustees would oversee the farm. The merger aimed to bring financial stability to the farm and allow the Trustees to expand in the area of farming and food production.
About a year ago the town reached a new 40-year lease agreement with the Trustees. The plan calls for $12,500 a year in rent, approximately the amount the town would receive in taxes if the land was privately owned.
Founded in 1891 as a Massachusetts conservancy dedicated to protecting open space and historic landscapes for public use, today the Trustees are stewards of more than 100 properties around the commonwealth. In 1959 the organization acquired its first Vineyard property with the gift of land at Cape Pogue on Chappaquiddick.
Vineyard properties now also include Wasque reservation, Cape Pogue Wildlife Refuge and Mytoi Gardens, all on Chappaquiddick, Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury, and Menemsha Hills and the Brickyard in Chilmark.
The Farm Institute opened in 2000 and first operated at Herring Creek Farm before moving to the town-owned Katama Farm in 2005. The windswept land has a long agricultural history, historically serving as a farm. A residential subdivision was planned for the area in the 1970s, but in 1979 the town acquired the property.
The town also owns the nearby Katama airfield and South Beach, both of which were also spared from development.
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