Colleen Matts

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Assistant Director for Strategy
Department of Community Sustainability

Colleen is the Assistant Director for Strategy at CRFS. She recently served as the Director of the Great Lakes Midwest Regional Food Business Center, which worked to foster success for food and farm businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin as well as on tribal lands across the region. This USDA-funded project ran for two years before being terminated through the federal grant review process in July 2025. Colleen will continue convening these project partners through funds separate from the USDA, beginning in September 2025.

Previously, Colleen was the Director, Farm to Institution Programs at CRFS, working throughout Michigan and beyond to help cultivate local food purchasing programs at institutions — such schools and hospitals — by connecting partners, developing and sharing resources, and providing direct assistance and evaluation support. She coordinated the Michigan Farm to Institution Network and its local food purchasing campaign, Cultivate Michigan, since their launch in 2014 until 2023.

She also served as co-lead evaluator for 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan's Kids & Farms, a local food purchasing incentive program. and supported farm to school efforts at CRFS since 2007. Colleen served as a long-time Michigan Partner for the National Farm to School Network and a member of the National Farm to Institution Metrics Collaborative. As a Michigan co-lead, she also helped to launch the Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub, a grant-making initiative funded by USDA in 2023 and led by the Illinois Public Health Institute to support collaborative community-driven efforts to reimagine school meals across four states (IL, IN, MI, and WI).

Colleen has an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment with a specialization in community development from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She also loves to bring people together with delicious food and completed an associate in applied science degree in Culinary and Hospitality Management at Washtenaw Community College in 2019.