Dan: I was born and raised in the Bay Area before getting an electrical engineering degree at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I returned to the Bay Area to work as an engineer at Cisco Systems and transitioned to Amazon about 5 years later. I also received my MBA degree from Santa Clara University by attending evening classes after work. I’ve always harbored a passion for farm life and finally started an urban mini-farm in our Santa Clara backyard in 2015, raising chickens and tending an orchard. After our daughter was born in 2016 I started reevaluating my life choices and eventually decided we could no longer delay starting a farm.
Miriam: I was also born and raised in the Bay Area. I earned my Masters in Education with a teaching credential in Language Arts in 2009 from UC Berkeley. I taught English at several schools along the Peninsula before settling into 7th grade English at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose. Nurturing was an element of the job that I loved best, so when we found out I was pregnant I felt a very natural shift in focus to our child. With the birth of Leona, I became a full time mom and part time backyard farmer. As Leona grew out of babyhood, it became clear it was time for a change for the family.
