About KDC
Our Team
Board of Directors
Client Highlights
Client List
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The KDC Team

We have a small, but experienced staff with over 50 combined years of experience, ranging from grassroots organizing to running cooperatives to non-profit administration to Fortune 500 consulting.

​KDC also has a unique team of professional consultants, all with many years of cooperative business experience. Our highly skilled experts are available to assist clients with all aspects of business development. We have centers of excellence in business planning, financial forecasting, and legal advising

Peggy Fogarty
Peggy Fogarty, M.S., Executive Director of KDC is the board/organization liaison. She oversees KDC’s funding plan, finances, operations, systems, projects, clients, and our team. Employed by KDC since 2005, she has served as the ED since 2014. Her experience includes over 19 years of program development and administration, 15 years teaching in adult education, and 7 years as a produce farmer. Her focus has been on increasing KDC’s impact and developing systems to measure and report on the success of KDC’s clients. She has been instrumental in expanding the reach of the organization regionally and in the diversity of the projects KDC engages in.

Peggy’s entrepreneurial spirit, vision and ability to leverage community partners are key ingredients to KDC and her client’s success in import phases of development and expansion. Her leadership skills have contributed to the re-establishment of our local food system. A resource to business owners, she brings her skills of developing social infrastructure, including board development, strategic planning and the writing of internal policy, bylaws and marketing agreements. Peggy has worked as an Extension Educator with Penn State in Agricultural Economic Development and as the Program Coordinator. Ms. Fogarty received her MS from the University of Arizona in Family and Consumer Sciences and a BA from Rutgers University in Anthropology and Urban Studies.

Stephen McDow
Stephen R. McDow II,  Membership, Outreach and Education Director
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McDow brings to the position over eight years of outreach and marketing experience. He is a cooperator, has a servant’s heart and has dedicated his life to bringing together rural and urban America for the purposes of achieving an inclusive economy. Previously, McDow managed membership and stakeholder relations for National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA). During his tenure, he turned around a 5-year decline in membership and recruited 20 times the amount of members year-over-year - The largest recruitment over a 5-year period. McDow and his senior leadership helped set a foundation for growth for years to come.  
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Prior to NCBA CLUSA, he handled membership outreach and retention for the Montgomery County Medical Society (MCMS) and MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society, with a primary focus on the development and execution of strategic and tactical engagement plans.
 
Before joining MCMS and MedChi, McDow worked on the Ward 4 City Council campaign of Dr. Edwin Powell in Washington, D.C., offering critical assistance to Powell in the development and execution of his community engagement strategy in order to promote his legislative agenda. Additionally, McDow was a key asset in the development and promotion of the campaign’s character development ballot initiative.
While serving as a committee board member at Open Table – Massachusetts, McDow led strategies that modernized the look and feel of the organization, and implemented a social media and outreach plan that continues to make a lasting impact.

​Heather Hackett
Heather Hackett is an experienced cooperative leader, project manager, and cultivator of talent. Skilled in the governance aspects of organizational leadership, Heather will be working with cooperative boards and staff to clarify roles, responsibilities and to develop internal policies and procedures to grow and strengthen cooperative businesses.

Having grown up in a rural farming community, her interest in local food systems and sustainable agriculture led her to become a member-owner and volunteer at Pittsburgh’s East End Food Co-op, where she eventually became the Marketing & Member Services Manager. Heather has spent the last few years working for The Pittsburgh Promise, a scholarship program benefiting urban public-school students. In addition to volunteering with several nonprofits, she serves on the Advisory Circle of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Cooperatives and is Vice-President of the Ten Thousand Villages Pittsburgh Board of Directors. 

Heather has a BA in Communications and English Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where she is also currently pursuing a master’s degree in Public Policy and Management.

Jen Christopher
Jen Christopher is KDC's IT consultant. She has seven years of experience in the IT industry, with a background in systems integration, software deployment, and technology based business solutions. She has worked with several Pennsylvania based cooperative businesses, including Weavers Way, CreekSide, Swarthmore and Mariposa. Her specialties include point of sale systems, web design, data reporting and analysis, employee training, technical documentation, and inventory management. 

Prior to working with KDC, Jen was Director of IT at CreekSide Food Co-op. During that time she also provided point of sale system and general IT support to Swarthmore Co-op. She briefly worked for an IT company in New Orleans before becoming a full time independent consultant

Anthony Adonizio, Esq.
Anthony Adonizio, Esq. has served as counsel to KDC, and has advised KDC clients on a broad scope of cooperative formation and other legal matters, for a number of years.  He has 38 years of experience in cooperative, energy, corporate, tax and administrative law, as well as related project development, regulatory, acquisition, finance and legislative matters.  He maintains a private legal practice in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, focusing on cooperative, utility, transactional, municipal and corporate law matters.

 As part of his legal practice, Mr. Adonizio represents, advises and acts as counsel to a number of cooperatives, corporations, associations and municipal entities.  In his energy law practice, he serves as counsel to electric, gas, telecommunications, broadband, renewable energy and fuel supply clients.  Additionally, over the course of his career, he has advised and represented virtually all types of cooperative businesses on a broad scope of legal matters.  He has served as special counsel in a variety of business acquisition matters, corporate formation and restructurings, and project and corporate financing matters for his clients.  He is the author of all of Pennsylvania’s current laws relating to cooperative corporations and cooperative contracts.
 
Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Adonizio served as Vice President and General Counsel to the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association and Allegheny Electric Cooperative, Inc.  In that capacity, he was responsible for all aspects of the organization’s legal matters, directed the risk management, environmental, property and human resources functions of the organization and advised and represented all of the electric cooperative distribution systems in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 
 
He has served on the Advisory Committee of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, a national publication for lawyers in corporate practice, and the Editorial Board of Competitive Utility, a nationwide utility trade publication.  He has been a frequent guest speaker on cooperative, energy and corporate law subjects before various management and lawyer groups.  He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Waynesburg University, and is active in various civic groups in the Harrisburg area.

Kurtis Groff
Kurtis Groff, CPA, is a Partner at Simon Lever LLC, one of South Central Pennsylvania’s premier public accounting and consulting firms. He has more than 16 years of accounting and tax experience serving agri-business and cooperatives. He specializes in the unique accounting and tax rules for cooperatives, including patronage allocations and dividends, equity targets, domestic production deduction, 1099 reporting to patron members, and financing. Kurtis has considerable experience establishing budgets for cooperatives and offers guidance to board members on managing finances for success. His goal is to provide exceptional service, honest value and original thought in every client relationship and to maximize the success of those he partners with. He is a member of the AICPA, PICPA, Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and is president of the Farm & Home Center of Lancaster County and a member of the Lancaster County Ag Council..

KDC Board of Directors
KDC continues to be governed by a volunteer board of directors mostly comprised of professionals in rural development, economic-community development, and education.  They are a hands-on board and regularly assist in KDC projects.