Serving as executive director of the Nutrients for Life Foundation since 2008, Harriet directs the day-to-day activities of the Foundation, including its strategic planning, educational efforts and fundraising initiatives. Harriet is passionate about the value of soil nutrients and sees their impact every day on her strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and pumpkin farm. Previous professional experiences include Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association, the U.S. Apple Association and The Fertilizer Institute. She is a graduate of Cornell University and native of Coldenham, N.Y. She resides in Hamilton, Va., with her husband and three sons.
Tiffany Thibodeaux Ballow has served as the Louisiana Regional Representative and Program Manager for the Nutrients for Life Foundation since 2013. She enjoys getting back into the classroom educating students and teachers about the importance of agriculture and fertilizer’s role in food production as we feed the growing world population. Growing up in the city, Tiffany understands how urban and suburban students can be detached from the importance of farming and how plant and soil science needs to introduced into these classrooms.
Tiffany’s role at NFL involves developing and presenting teacher professional development workshops and educating students. She creates and maintains teacher and industry relationships in the community as well as distributes Nutrients For Life resources.
Tiffany graduated from the University of New Orleans with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Southeastern Louisiana University with a master’s degree in Psychology before beginning her career as an administrator in the school system. Tiffany resides in Belle Chasse, LA, with her husband and three sons.
Rick Phillips represents the Nutrients for Life Foundation in California, Idaho and Washington. He works as manager of public affairs for the JR Simplot Company, who donates his time to the Nutrients for Life Foundation. The Simplot Company is a family-owned food and agriculture business with major operations in North America, Mexico, China, Australia, and New Zealand, with 11,000 employees and sales of over $6 billion.
Phillips received degrees in Agriculture Economics and Journalism from Utah State University. He worked as a regional agriculture banker in Eastern Idaho and served as assistant to the Idaho Director of Agriculture before joining Simplot in 1990.
Active in education and civic affairs, Phillips has served as chair of the Greater Idaho Red Cross Chapter, the board of the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, and was appointed to the Idaho Governor’s Economic Advisory Council in 2018. He served as District Governor of Rotary International’s District 5400 in 2014-15. He chaired Idaho’s School to Work initiative under former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus, and has served on the Nutrients for Life Foundation’s Advisory Council since its inception.
Haley Siergiej is the Illinois Regional Representative for Nutrients for Life. Since 2012 she has been working with Illinois teachers and professionals in the
agriculture industry to reinforce how important fertilizer is as an ingredient in food production. Being raised on a farm, she loves that she can continue to share the importance of agriculture with others. Her roles involve developing and presenting teacher professional development workshops, educating students, creating and maintaining teacher and industry relationships, as well as distributing Nutrients For Life resources.
Prior to her role at Nutrients For Life, Haley worked as the Director of Ag Literacy and Public Relations at the Cook County Farm Bureau and previous to that for a mobile educational tour sponsored by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). She graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in Agricultural Education and Communications with a specialization in news-editorial before beginning her career in the agriculture industry.
Haley serves on various boards and is a graduate of the Illinois Ag Leadership Program. Siergiej is based in Chicago.
Melissa Bigge has been the Kansas Regional Representative for Nutrients for Life Foundation since 2015. Prior to her role with NFLF she spent 6 years as a Program
Technician for the Ellis and Rooks County Farm Service Agency offices. She graduated from Kansas State University with Bachelor’s Degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science. Bigge lives in Stockton, Kansas with her husband and son where they have a cow/Calf operation, show horses and a farming operation where they grow primarily wheat, grain sorghum, and forage sorghum.
Katherine “Katie” Nainiger-Ohio Regional Representative
Through a unique partnership with Nutrien, Nutrients for Life Foundation (NFLF) and the Soybean Council, Katie is the H2Know Coordinator promoting Nutrien’s Caring for Our Watershed program and NFLFs H2Know digital case study as well as NFLFs wide variety of sustainable agricultural awareness and educational resources. She is also the Conservation Education Coordinator at Geauga Soil and Water Conservation District for the past 15 years. Katie assists with education programming and coordinates special projects including the Envirothon, Watershed Ripples newsletter, Ag in the Classroom Grant, Ohio (Geauga) Historic Family Farm documentaries, conservation poster contests, and education brochures. She is on the State Envirothon Committee and the NCF-Envirothon planning committee for National Envirothon which will be hosted by Ohio in 2022. Katie received her degree in Wildlife Management and Interpretive Services from Hocking College. She previously worked at Lake Metroparks Wildlife Center for 12 years as the Wildlife Education Coordinator. She has always had a strong passion for education and awareness. When she isn’t working, she enjoys spending time with her family kayaking, hiking and exploring the outdoors.