PRESIDENT
Dr. Hal and Lynne Mickelson
Hal was a research scientist at the University of Minnesota’s Northwest Research and Outreach Center located near Crookston Minnesota before retiring in January 2021. He focused on facilitating the center’s field-type research with responsibilities for various administrative activities plus his own research. Hal was previously employed with BASF Plant Science L.P., Pioneer HI-Bred Int., and CIMMYT Int. located in Mexico. He operated his own farm in Northwest Minnesota during the fifteen years prior to his attending graduate school. The perspectives that he brings to SEED Ministries Inc. trace from a combination of both production-agriculture and research experiences. Lynne had an extended career teaching: 24 years in a kindergarten through eighth grade Christian school and later teaching sixth through twelfth-grade English courses in a public school. Currently she is the administrative assistant for a Lutheran church. and has provided academic tutoring at the University of Minnesota. They have four adult sons, two daughters-in-law, and three grandsons.
TREASURER
Dr. Joe Kopec
Joe Kopec, PhD, retired high school principal. Joe and his wife, Karen, live in Durango, Colorado. Frantz and Joe at Texas A&M University while Frantz was completing his undergraduate degree in Agriculture there. Joe currently serves on the US Board of Directors for SEED as Treasurer and describes it best as "a front row seat to miracles."
SECRETARY
Dr. Jennifer Juzwik
Dr. Jennifer Juzwik-Larmour is a Research Plant Pathologist with the Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, in St. Paul. She has conducted research on the etiology, epidemiology, and management of hardwood tree diseases and of conifer nursery seedlings in the USA since 1978. Between 2017 and 2020 she worked on two newly discovered diseases of the tropical hardwood ohia lehua in the Hawaiian archipelago. She has also served as major advisor for M.S. and Ph.D. students in Plant Pathology as an adjunct graduate faculty member at the University of Minnesota. Jenny is married to John Larmour and they have two adult children, Laura and Collin.
BOARD MEMBER
William Stoller
Bill Stoller was raised on a farm. He has an Associate degree in Agriculture. He also is a Certified Financial Planner.
Bill and his wife, Kathy, have been married 48 years. They have 2 children and 8 grandchildren.
Bill has been a part of the SEED board for over 10 years.
Bill and Kathy live in Sarasota, Florida. He spends quite a bit of his time volunteering at a Mennonite thrift store
BOARD MEMBER
Dr. Raymond Porter
Dr. Raymond “Raymie” Porter is the Director of Academic Programs for the Haupert Institute for Agricultural Studies at Huntington University, a Christian College in Northeast Indiana. He began his role as founding Director in the Spring of 2015, overseeing an undergraduate program with Agribusiness, Ag Education, Crop Science & Agronomy, and Animal Science majors. He teaches several courses in agriculture (mainly crops), while seeking to integrate agriculture with Christian principles.
For 26 years before moving to Indiana, Porter conducted research and led the wildrice breeding project at the University of Minnesota’s North Central Research and Outreach Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. His research activities involved plant breeding, agronomy, plant pathology, and seed preservation. Porter's plant breeding research resulted in the release of improved commercial varieties that are now widely grown in Minnesota.
Porter earned a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from Cornell University, with minors in Entomology and International Agriculture; an M.A. in Science & Religion from Biola University; and a B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Human Needs and Global Resources from Wheaton College. He was raised on a grain farm in the Texas Panhandle. He has also spent time in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. He and his wife Natalie have two grown sons.
FIELD DIRECTOR
Frantz Clotaire
Frantz Clotaire is the founder of S.E.E.D. Ministries Inc. After finishing his studies in Theology and Missions at Bethany School of Mission he earned a BSc at Texas A&M University in Agronomy and a Masters at U of Minnesota in Genetics and Plant Breeding.
He and his wife, Doris, oversee the daily functions at the SEEED Campus in Les Cayes, Haiti. Pastor Frantz is a native of Les Cayes. While attending the university in the US, God planted the vision for SEED in his heart so that he could return to Les Cayes to equip the Haitian people to make a better life for themselves. Their sons, Daniel and Manuel, were born and raised in Haiti.