My preface to  Brewing Change: Behind the Bean at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters  began this way, "The book is Rick's; the idea was mine."         

 

By 2007, I  had known Rick Peyser for 15 years. We had shared dozens of long Saturday morning runs as we prepared for marathons. He had spoken several times to my class in American Foreign Policy. By then, too,  he was  becoming quite an influential figure in the coffee industry as Director of Social Advocacy and Coffee Community Outreach at Green Mountain. He was  on track to become president of the trade organization, the Specialty Coffee Association of America.    

 

In his work with coffee growers, Rick was appalled by the farmers 'food insecurity" where even with higher prices for Fair Trade and/or organic coffee, many coffee farmers could not earn enough money to feed their families properly. I thought Rick had a good story to tell, and on one of our runs,  I asked him if he wanted to write a book together. At first, he said "No," but when I said I could help him get over the hump of Ego and focus on what he was doing, not his own personality, he gave in. When the book was published in 2012, Rick worked with Marcela Pino  and Janice Nadworny to found Food4Farmers, a non-profit dedicated to putting his passion to work. He assembled a board of academics and employees in the coffee industry, and included me as a ringer.