Rocky Chenelle

Rocky has a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Cal State University at San Diego and an MBA in business administration.  His experience includes years of engineering, program and marketing management plus general management responsibilities in small business management.  He's never grown anything before and why he would start now, with mushrooms is a question not easily answered....He completed coursework at UC Berkeley in the propagation and growing of edible mushrooms in preparation for this adventure (we still call him Einstein).  Rocky could be found maintaining all aspects of mushroom production 12 plus hours a day, and talking about the farm to anyone who would listen!  He's an entertaining speaker and a 30 minute tour could easily stretch to an hour or more depending on how engaging his tour visitors were!  He loved what he did, his unique solutions to any problem were  testament to that.  The movement to sustainable was not just to find a way to cut costs but to employ current green approaches with waste vegetable oil, solar and water recycling to do our part for the island environment.

Paulette Chenelle

Paulette has extensive small business management experience.  She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cal State University at Long Beach and an MBA in business administration.  Her background includes the startup and management of businesses.  She had been the bridge between the outside workaday world on Maui and the farm up until she joined the farm full time in 2007 (and somehow still managed to keep her sanity!).  Paulette did the support tasks around the farm (riding the lawn mower!), deliveries three times a week, shared bookkeeping, picking mushrooms, maintenancing growing rooms, working on the website, a future cookbook and limited correspondence as time would permit. And, oh yeah... cooking up to 5 pounds of mushrooms per week for breakfast or dinner because deliveries to restaurants have the benefit of culinary idea exchange when talking with chefs and sous preps!!!

Corey Chenelle

Corey didn't realize what he was getting into when he volunteered to help build out the farm growing rooms while on a visit here in 2003.  He figured 3 months....and never left the island! (We call him Late for Whatever; he has "adapted" to Maui Time).  Corey appears not to talk much, just show up and complete necessary maintenance chores.  Don't let that fool you because he can do all aspects of the farm, as he and Rock ran renegade until I joined full time! Nowadays, he can be found managing the local Blockbuster advising his "following" of the latest release or opining on various movies he brings home as "homework" for us to watch.  In addition, his regulars come in just to see what color his hair is at any given time.

The farm was started with the idea of fresh mushrooms for Maui instead of imported.  It gradually morphed in philosophy from providing fresh mushrooms grown locally to a sustainable philosophy as well.  To grow these mushrooms took water and electricity.  We were commited to utilizing and conserving our resources with a Green approach to the farm.  Visitors came see what we did with waste vegetable oil and solar options and discuss what we had future plans for.  Some visitors came back annually just to see what was new!