Patty Cantrell's passion for the strength and necessity of community-based economies has led her from family farm roots to a career of telling the local business story as a professional journalist and policy advocate. Patty currently serves as Program Director at the Michigan Land Use Institute, a statewide public interest advocacy organization based in Traverse City. Patty guides the Institute's work to demonstrate (on the ground) and communicate widely how communities can grow strong with development that values clean water, open land, strong neighborhoods and locally owned businesses. Under her leadership, the Institute's Entrepreneurial Agriculture program has helped a new local food economy emerge in northwest Michigan through a significant regional network of local farms, food businesses and community organizations. Since its inception in 2004, this Taste the Local Difference effort has grown to include more than 250 farms, nearly 150 food retailers, dozens of school cafeterias and 90 community-based sponsors from Manistee to Mackinac . Patty began her career at the green energy Rocky Mountain Institute, where she developed community organizing tools for keeping family farms alive and growing. She later earned an MBA from Springfield, Missouri's Drury College while learning the journalism profession as a business reporter and columnist at the Springfield (MO) News-Leader and as a freelance writer for national publications.