Meet Our Staff
Meet Our Staff
Kristen Tool (she/her)
Caring for and stewarding land has been a lifelong dream of Kristen’s and her time working alongside husband, Chris, to restore Olsen Farm has begun to bring those dreams to life.
Along with farming, Kristen worked as an Early Education Studio Art Teacher, website designer and writer for Mother Earth News Blog. While running an after school program she hatched chicks in the classroom for multiple years, including the farm’s first clutch of chickens in 2016.
Kristen has her BFA in Textile Design and you will often find her creating art using natural, found and recycled materials. She has designed jewelry using turkey tail mushrooms sustainably foraged from the family lands at Olsen Farm.
Kristen Tool (she/her)
Chris Wheeler (he/him)
Chris grew up on the land at Olsen Farm, a Boy Scout for life, he still loves exploring caves in the neighboring Balance Rock State Park and bushwhacking his own trails.
In 2015 Chris began restoration of his family’s fourth generation farmlands. Along with forest management, raising poultry and gardening Chris is a beekeeper and was the President of Northern Berkshire Beekeepers Association from 2018-2022. Before he started reclamation of Olsen Farm, Chris was an International Society of Arborists Certified Arborist for ten years, working with Race Mountain Tree Care out of Sheffield MA and continues to do fine tree pruning for private clients.
When he is not farming you can find Chris restoring antique axes, Geocaching, foraging for wild edibles or training two wonderful Australian Shepherds, Aspen and Pepper.
Chris Wheeler (he/him)
