Anthony Aellen is the co-owner and executive winemaker of Linganore Winecellars, the Mount Airy winery that his parents, Jack and Lucille Aellen, opened in 1976 after planting their first vineyards in 1972. Aellen took over the winemaking by the early 1980s, and his wines have won more than 200 medals in national and international competitions. The winery produces more than 30 wines.

It hosts five major festivals and more than 20 smaller indoor events each year. In 2008 the Jack Aellen family operation was named Frederick County’s Farm Family of the Year. The winery marks its 50th anniversary this year.

A former environmental lawyer, Cleo Braver in 2010 made Cottingham Farm Talbot County’s first certified-organic vegetable grower. She and her husband, Allie Tyler, have run it since 1998, but now about 160 acres, the farm grows organic heirloom vegetables and herbs and raises pastured Berkshire hogs and Freedom Ranger chickens. It sells through a year-round CSA, Easton and St. Michaels farmers markets, and restaurants such as Out of the Fire. The farm maintains an 18-acre wetland and 30 acres of grass buffers.

Braver chairs the Maryland Pesticide Education Network and testifies against per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and neonicotinoid pesticides.

Bob Brennan leads Sea Watch International as president and co-owner, heading a company recognized as the world’s largest harvester and processor of clam products. Founded in 1978 in Milford, Delaware, and headquartered in Easton, Sea Watch runs four processing facilities and distributes through Sysco and U.S. Foods and many of the Top 100 restaurant chains.

Brennan, formerly chief financial officer, assembled the 1999 deal that brought Truex Enterprises into Sea Watch, and the four-partner ownership has held since. The company has worked to establish best practices in fisheries management and supplies clams to processors including Campbell’s and Progresso.

Robert T. Brown is president of the Annapolis nonprofit that, since its 1973 founding, has represented commercial fishermen, seafood processors, wholesalers and ancillary seafood businesses across Maryland. The association works with state lawmakers and agencies on fishing regulation. In 2024, Brown challenged Atlantic states’ striped bass cutbacks as unjust to Maryland’s commercial fishery. Two years later, with a dismal oyster season pushing the state to seek federal disaster aid, he reported demand falling off around Thanksgiving and watermen working one or two days a week.

He sits on Maryland’s Tidal Fisheries Advisory Commission, representing Lower Western Shore harvesters.

Tony Brusco is CEO and co-owner of the Frederick County dairy and home-delivery business that he and his wife took over from her parents as second-generation owners in 2017. Under Brusco, the Middletown-based company has expanded through acquisitions of Washington Green Grocer, 4P Foods and Oberweis Dairy’s delivery routes, growing from 162 to 198 employees over three years and selling 2.9 million gallons of milk in 2024.

The company donates meals, produce and Thanksgiving turkeys to the Frederick Rescue Mission, the Maryland Food Bank and others, and each year welcomes thousands of visitors to its farm for tours, calf-feedings and events.

Mandy Castillo co-owns Prigel Family Creamery, the Glen Arm dairy she helped open around 2010 to sell her family’s own milk and products directly to the community. The creamery runs on Bellevale Farm in the Long Green Valley, where the Prigels have farmed for 100 years across five generations, milking a herd of 150 grass-fed cows.

Castillo casts small local farms as a dying breed that must diversify, and she centers the creamery on agricultural education. Through its weeklong WonderFarm camp and after-school programs, children milk cows, make butter and biscuits, and learn where their food comes from.