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10 The Cheese Guide Aldrich and Moss showed up to meet me in Rogue Creamery's retail shop, where we dined together on grilled cheese sandwiches made of Rogue Creamery TouVelle, an American Original named after a local park that showcases the peace and beauty of one of the most pristine river valleys in the country, Moss said. It's the creamery's best melting cheese – sort of Cheddar and Jack meet Gruyere, sweet and light on the palate with nutty notes to give it extra depth. It made a perfectly gooey and delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Moss, 34, who is Rogue Creamery's Production Manager, is a fourth-generation Oregonian who grew up in Portland and went to college for a degree in economics. He was working in software development when he got a yen for open spaces, so he went to work for a Capay Valley organic farm, where he met his wife. The two of them decided to pull up stakes and go out on their own with a few acres and a few goats as the beginning of a cheese business. He still needed more work, so Gremmels hired him as a cheesemonger and assistant cheesemaker, and then Gremmels asked him to oversee the cold storage and packaging operation. Today, in addition to being the creamery's full-time production manager, he also has beef cows on the 40 acres of Rolling Sky Farm in Ashland, where he's also still making cheese. His first focus in life is as a father to Cameron, John and Susanna; then as a husband to Jennifer – a family nurse practitioner in Ashland; then as a farmer and only then as a team member at Rogue Creamery – an order of priorities that raised a nod of approbation from Gremmels when I mentioned it to him later. "I've had three kids since I started working here, so they've grown up with Rogue Creamery," Moss said. "It was this lifestyle – a family commitment to know what we're eating, to support local agriculture and local food. Slow food. ... When I moved here, I knew all about Rogue Creamery. It wasn't until I was here that I realized how comprehensive that really was." "About four years ago, he [Gremmels] told us we were going to be an organic company. Now, 85 percent of the production has been moved to organic," he added. "None of those things were happening when I started here. ... Even bigger than his personality is his vision." Southern Oregon has turned out to be a good place to raise a family on the land, Moss said. Ashland is small, and it's surrounded by other small towns, so the kids aren't subjected to big-city influences. The climate is mild enough to allow a 10-month growing season, and that's encouraging artisans and people who want to learn sustainable and biodynamic farming to settle here. That gives him a unique opportunity to help reshape the food system around caring farmers and entrepreneurs. "There's a lot of people with a similar mindset, so it's about supporting farmers, doing it the right way. ... At Rogue Creamery, we're always focused on continuous improvement, both for myself and the company," he said. "I feel like we've been on the forefront of cheese for a long time. I feel like we have the potential to do some pretty incredible things in the next few years. ... I feel like we could be a showcase for the right way to do agriculture – and the small way to do agriculture." Aldrich, 26, got her introduction to dairy science and cheesemaking as a high school student at the Putney School in Vermont, a progressive school with its own dairy herd and a strong belief in the value of work for its own sake. After a high school education that taught her a lot about milking cows as well as the more usual high school curriculum, she went on to the University of Vermont for a degree in chemistry that she wanted to apply to food safety and regulatory compliance. Eventually, she decided to leave Vermont and move to the West Coast to start her career. After a couple of years in California, she decided that she wanted to come back to cheese and started networking with that in mind. She got in touch with an old friend in Mexico City who put her in touch with Gremmels. "That friend was a close friend of David's, as it turns out," she said. "He [Gremmels] got me into my dream job, and I'm pretty grateful for it. I think he does a lot to make things happen for people." She's putting her education to work as a quality assurance supervisor for the creamery, running analyses on the milk that comes in from the creamery's dairy and working with the farmer to ensure that the cows are raised and the milk is produced with the cheeses' needs in mind. "The quality of our milk has so much to do with the quality of our cheeses," she said. "If our grass isn't right in the pasture, the cheese isn't going to have the flavor we want." She's also an enthusiastic participant in the Nellie Green program. "We work towards setting our own goals for sustainability," she said. "We're committed to minimizing our fuel use by ridesharing and bicycling. ... We really put that as a priority for our own business." Rogue Creamery has given her opportunities to learn a wide variety of knowledge related to quality control, from thinking about how the grasses in the dairy's pastures affect the flavors of the cheese to working on the creamery's HACCP plan to ensure that the cheese is safe. "I don't think that I would have gotten that at a smaller facility or at a bigger company," she said. "The size of this company has allowed me a lot of freedom." Her ambition for her career is to stay in quality control for as long as she possibly can, she said. "I fell in love with the cheese world as soon as I walked into it," she said. "Everyone is so awesome and passionate and generous."