Professional Documents
Culture Documents
McCRANN
bmccrann@gmail.com •• 970.689.5960
Writing Sample: With both executive management and entrepreneurial background, I have written in a range
styles and covering a range of perspectives. For the purposes of this application, I’m including 3 sample excerpts:
one technical sample - introduction for a federal grant request, one editorial sample – synthesis of research for
marketing purposes, and one creative sample – project reflection for a blog.
1. Technical:
On behalf of the City of -----, the ----- Community Foundation, and ----- Unlimited, the community’s economic
development agency, thank you in advance for your consideration.
----- is a relatively small community of 50,000 residents yet features representative samples from throughout the
food system, including major food manufacturers, agricultural producers, a regional Feeding America food bank,
mass feeders, and grocery and restaurant outlets.
In response to your announcement in September 2015 that the U.S. would pursue a goal of 50% reduction in food
waste by 2030, a diverse and committed Food Waste Solutions Committee formed in ----- to generate a viable and
unique contribution toward this goal.
After an intensive review of national activity and research related to food waste reduction and recovery, including
investigation into the empirical achievements of the Rural Iowa Food Waste Reduction Project, we propose for your
consideration the development of a comprehensive test market laboratory in ----- to demonstrate how a zero food
waste community may be achieved.
A Food Waste Solutions Institute would build upon and innovate existing research and activity and would
coordinate a mixture of both ‘upstream’ reduction initiatives and scaled ‘downstream’ recovery technologies.
Benefits to communities nationwide would include access to: tested and aggregated tools and resources, active
demonstration of best practices, and technical assistance related to applied, value-recovery technologies such as
anaerobic digestion and composting.
-----’s unique history as a “food community” with food science assets and expertise, coupled with its competency in
test market research and subsequent scaling and replicating of food production systems, make it the ideal community
to develop such an Institute.
The research and development of this concept has been underwritten by the ----- Community Foundation. The Food
Waste Solutions Committee now intends to identify and secure appropriate funds to establish the initiative, which
would be sustained by earned revenue and segmented financial support from other funding agencies, once
operational.
We believe our concept aligns completely with the vision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in its overarching
goal of national food waste reduction. As such, ----- respectfully requests your consideration in how the launch of
the Food Waste Solutions Institute might be funded. This request is detailed in an attachment to this letter and is
formatted to reflect a Rural Utilities Services grant proposal.
2. Editorial:
Current social and political emphasis on commercial composting as a progressive response to food waste in the
United States is too often placebo. There is no progress in swapping one linear, centralized model for another.
Factors causing or resulting in food waste are vast and diverse and so too will be the solution factors.
Blue Terra is concerned that landfills and commercial composting facilities both rely on transportation, heavy
machinery and expansive infrastructure - and both emit methane. Furthermore, only 600 of the 2,400 MSW landfills
in the U.S. are actively capturing and utilizing landfill gases. Both represent linear models and contribute CO2 and
CH4 molecules to our atmosphere at alarming rates, trapping solar rays en route to exit our atmosphere and radiating
their heat back down to the surface of the earth, where the heat is absorbed by oceans.
According to Inger Anderson, Director General for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (1,300
government and NGO participants, including U.S.), "Ocean warming is one of this generation's greatest hidden
challenges - and one for which we are completely unprepared." Warming of our oceans, which can be tied directly
to methane emissions, has led to species die-offs, dramatic shifts in migration patterns of both marine and avian life,
BRENDAN M. McCRANN
bmccrann@gmail.com •• 970.689.5960
thermal expansion and dangerous shifts in pH. 3 Billion people rely on marine food systems for more than 20% of
their overall nutrient intake.
Mainstream messaging around environmental impact is diluted and misleading. Blue Terra synthesizes current
scientific research data for the purpose of understanding how concrete human behavior influences acute
environmental factors.
3. Creative
Several years ago a friend gave me a copy of a crudely produced – though still astonishing - 2004 PBS special called
'Alone in the Wilderness.'
At the age of 52, Dick Proenneke moved to Twin Lakes, Alaska and began constructing a log cabin alone, and by
hand. His vision was to stay a few seasons and experience the wilderness. 30 years later, at the age of 82, he moved
back to civilization.
As we launch this project, meant to challenge externalities as well as ourselves, I’m reminded of these profound
questions.
I don't mean to suggest that our “waste-farm” project, as an examination of things agricultural, sustainable, social,
spiritual, and “discarded,” harkens to Proenneke's time or goals living beside Twin Lakes. After all, we’re neither
really alone nor in the wilderness here. But still, it feels powerful and promising to put distance between ourselves
and the world system, to strike out along a new trajectory, to touch the frontier of something.
The farm we envision here will awaken underdeveloped human potential and repurpose community food waste to
strengthen local agriculture. It will be a frontier in its own right.
We of course hope to evolve and stabilize new systems, formalize partnerships, and demonstrate an economically
sustainable, community-based model for integrating old food and new food.
But even if it goes nowhere beyond this place, we will create; we will face fears; and we will learn what we’re
capable of. Work with vision enriches the internal frontier.