Meet the Board: Michelle Peariso
Each member of the Farming for the Future Foundation’s board of directors brings advanced knowledge in agriculture, education or the state of Wisconsin. We’re honored to have state experts informing and guiding our path forward and know that each member is crucial in deepening the relationships between people, their food and growers. Check in each month to meet a member of our team and learn about their role in the future of farming.
Get to know Farming for the Future Foundation: Board of Directors Member Michelle Peariso
Farming for the Future Foundation Board of Director Michelle Peariso is no stranger to agriculture. Her family has been farming since before she was born.
“As every farm kid knows, if your parents farm, the family farms,” Peariso said.
She was raised on the family farm in Central Wisconsin where she spent many days picking rocks to prepare the fields for planting and late nights sorting potatoes for shipping. Peariso credits her work ethic to her time spent farming.
“It’s funny because I didn’t realize until after I had my first corporate job how critical those skills I learned on the farm were and how valuable they made me in the job market,” she said.
Her first corporate job hired her because of her farming background and the “work ethic that gets instilled coming from that community.”
Peariso, a proud Pacelli Catholic Schools graduate, earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech.
Peariso began her corporate career as a process engineer with Procter & Gamble, where she quickly rose to a management position. She then returned to Heartland Farms where she worked as a process engineer for their potato processing plant and as the Director of Customer Service. From there, she was recruited by Kimberly-Clark Products into their Child Care Division, where she led materials development. She eventually moved into a role where she was responsible for finding new companies for acquisition or partnerships to grow our 10–15-year product portfolio.
Peariso was inspired to create her own company, Adventure 212 Fitness, in Stevens Point with her sister Andria. She currently manages Pavelski Legacy Partners, her family’s private equity investment firm, where she focuses on funding new start-up companies largely outside of agricultural investment areas. She also serves in several board positions for some of the companies she has helped establish.
Peariso says giving back to the community is one of her core values.
“Volunteering in many causes is second nature to me,” she said. “So, I’ve been or am currently a part of many charitable boards including United Way of Portage County, Green Circle, St. Michael’s Foundation, Tetherow Golf Club, Pavelski Family Foundation and now of course the Farming for the Future Foundation.”
Peariso said she is involved in Farming for the Future because farming and her family have given her so much, that she also wanted to give back. She is excited about the opportunity to effect change through the Foundation.
"The Foundation has the ability to really change lives both by encouraging young students about the unique, fun, challenging and prosperous careers you can have agriculture as well as educating the community on real-world farming,” Peariso said. “We have too much misinformation out in this social media world and having a reliable source of information is critical. Farming for the Future Foundation aims to become that reliable source.”
Peariso says she is most excited about the opportunities the Foundation will bring to life.
“Being a woman in engineering, I’m most excited about the STEM curriculum we’ll be bringing to the Food + Farm Exploration Center and the continued outreach with schools to further enhance that knowledge,” she said.
When she isn’t working or volunteering, Peariso splits time between Wisconsin and Bend, Ore. with her husband Chris. Peariso said she and her husband, also a Midwest native, discovered Bend while they were racing mountain bikes and fell in love with it.
“We decided to buy property to retire on, but then we had a famously cold winter in Wisconsin where it didn’t get above 0 degrees for like 40 days in a row, and Chris said he was out,” she said. “So, we built a home for “retirement” sooner rather than later.”
She and her husband spend their free time biking, hiking, playing golf and traveling.
The initial COVID-19 outbreak cut a trip to New Zealand short, so she and her husband are looking forward to returning and exploring more of the island.
“We’re also big foodies,” she said. “We love to both go out and entertain guests, I get that from my mom. She was always entertaining and feeding the whole community.”
