Maryland State Coordinators

Jeff Semler

University of Maryland SARE Coordinator

Washington County
7303 Sharpsburg Pike
Boonsboro, MD 21713
Phone: 301 791-1304
Voice Mail: 25
Fax: 301 791-1048
Email: jsemler@umd.edu

Jeff Semler joined Northeast SARE as the state coordinator for the University of Maryland in College Park in 2010. Jeff is an Extension educator in Washington County, in western Maryland. He is an alumnus of West Virginia University where he holds a Bachelor's Degree in Animal Science. In addition, he earned a Master's Degree in Animal Science from the University of Connecticut where his emphasis was in the area of the Physiology of Reproduction.

Jeff began his career with University of Maryland Extension as a 4-H Agent in Baltimore County in 1988 and has been at his current post since December of 1996. Jeff brings his lifelong love of farming and his goal of assisting farmers with their livelihoods while maintaining or improving their soil, plant and animal resources to his position as state coordinator.

Jeff also has two on-going research projects at the Western Maryland Research & Education Center. The first of these is the Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test Link. The second investigates various forage production methods under both conventional and organic management. Jeff has also recently begun some work with small poultry flocks.

Berran Rogers

University of Maryland Eastern Shore SARE Coordinator

Maryland Cooperative Extension
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Room 2141; Richard A. Henson Center
Princess Anne, MD 21853
Phone: (410) 651-6693
Fax: (410) 651-6207
Email: blrogers@umes.edu

Berran Rogers started coordinating the University of Maryland Eastern Shore SARE program in 2009. He is the small farm coordinator at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. He also directs a program at the university on outreach for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. Berran has more than 10 years of experience in extension programming with a majority of his background working with the Cooperative Extension Program at Virginia State University (1997-2008).

His current responsibilities include providing leadership and support in developing educational programs that improve the economic and social well-being of limited-resource and socially-disadvantaged farmers in Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Berran completed his BS degree in agriculture at Virginia State University, with a concentration in agribusiness and economics.

Jason Challandes

Regional SARE Educator Delaware and Eastern Shore Maryland

Delaware State University
Dover, DE
302/388-2241
Email: jchallandes@dsu.edu

Jason Challandes became the Regional SARE Educator for Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland in March 2009 as part of the Northeast SARE Professional Development Program (PDP). He is based at Delaware State University (DSU), but partners with the University of Delaware and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. He worked in the small farms program as a student at DSU and graduated in Spring 2008 with a B.S. degree in Environmental Science . During his college career, Jason's interest and ability for creating multimedia outreach projects grew as he produced two short educational videos: one for the promotion of a field course in Belize entitled Tropical Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Conservation, and another describing the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve. His efforts at creating more entertaining versions of educational videos with very limited budgets have been presented to the international Interdisciplinary Environmental Association (IEA). Jason now hopes to bring some of these ideas and experiences to the outreach efforts of SARE.

Jason's SARE activities focus on promoting sustainable agriculture techniques in the region. This goal is accomplished largely by educating agriculture service providers in the area so that they, in turn, will share this knowledge with the farmers that they assist. Three current areas of focus are reduced-tillage systems, season extension, and small-scale ornamental production. Jason also assists farmers directly, promotes SARE grant programs, and maintains research and demonstration plots.