Our Team
Carol Manetta, Executive Director
Carol Manetta was born in Michigan, USA and traveled extensively to research Virtual Reality in its early stages. This allowed her to form research protocols for other topics, including worker owned cooperatives, farming organically, hydroponics food production and more. Her master’s degree in instructional design, development and testing prepared her for community work after her tenure at Ford Motor Company and its subsidiary, Ford Credit, was completed. This degree and work brought her experience to other topics: airline personnel training, prisoners returning to society, hydroponics tower production, worker owned cooperatives functioning, and more.
Her current path emphasizes the capability of trios of cooperatives to restore large swaths of Earth in a hurry by combining forces to capture and manage rainwater, grow permanent food sources within food forests, and clean up waters from roadside ditches, ponds and other land waters for the safety of humans and all beings into perpetuity. Carol is presenting on this to European and North American audiences upon invitation from a variety of organizations.
Carol's current book publications include Worker Cooperative People Skills; Worker Cooperative Technical Skills; Saving Earth: Regenerated Land, Clean Water, Food for All; and a contributing chapter in the book developed for the COP26 United Nations Climate Summit, Climate Adaptation: Accounts of Resilience, Self-Sufficiency and Systems Change. She is a member of the Planetary Health Alliance, Harvard University, and the International Institute for Performance Improvement. In 2017 she received the Spirit of EPICS Award (Engineering Projects in Community Service) from Arizona State University.
Al Gargano, Board President
I am a results-oriented leader with more than 20 years of success directing high-performing, cross functional teams to grow market share and exceed KPIs. I have expertise in all facets of business leadership, including strategic planning, revenue growth, P&L management, customer relations, talent development, financial stewardship, and process optimization. I am a tech savvy, creative problem-solver with astute business acumen and an aptitude for innovating high ROI initiatives that maximize profitability and productivity in both domestic and international organizations.
I understand the frustration with bad processes and operations that create barriers to success. I’m proud to say that I have built and led teams in numerous organizations to overcome these obstacles and deliver sustained results. Your business deserves these same results to create competitive advantages that drive growth, profitability, and best in class service.
Ina Lee, Board Member, Director of Development & Communication
Ina Lee is a seasoned fundraising professional. To her, fundraising goes beyond the dollar amount. It is about developing an organization into a sustainable, impactful force for community good.
Driven by her passion for making a positive impact on society, Ina is determined to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector. With ten years of experience in the fundraising and development arena, she offers a wealth of knowledge in individual and corporate giving, grant development, campaign management and donor analytics.
Ina holds an MA in Social Service Management from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. At Reap Goodness, she is dedicated to optimizing the organization’s strategic approach to raising community awareness for ecological restoration and conservation.
Ina enjoys spending her free time exploring towns along the East Coast, volunteering and gardening. She currently resides in Boston.
Joe Colborn, Board Strategist
Joe Colborn is a seasoned executive with extensive experience in non-profit work, having served as treasurer for his local apartment association and collaborating with government agencies on policy creation.
Hailing from a small town in Ohio, Joe learned at a young age the damage of food and housing insecurity firsthand and has since developed a passion for sustainably meeting the basic needs of every human.
He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Applied Psychology from Franklin University and has spent the last 20 years working in the housing industry; striving to provide safe, accessible, and sustainable housing to as many as possible. During that time he has directed efforts for over 13,000 apartment & single family home dwellings internationally, oversaw a $500M portfolio of assets under management, collaborated with over 75 businesses for effective strategizing, and has directly contributed to $2.3B of economic impact throughout his tenure in the housing sector.
Joe now turns his sights to another basic need of humanity, food & water security. He is excited to leverage his innovative and problem-solving skills at Reap Goodness, aiming to combat the increasing challenges of food and water scarcity.
Gregory B Smith, PE/PS, ENV SP, Advisor
Greg Smith is a project manager with over 4 decades of experience in leading multi-disciplined project teams in the planning, design, and construction of private development and public infrastructure projects in Arizona, Michigan, and elsewhere. He is a licensed professional civil engineer and surveyor in Arizona and Michigan. He has served as the City Engineer for several communities in Michigan as a consultant and Arizona as staff. He is Past President of the Arizona chapter of the American Public Works Association, APWA, the civil engineering society.
As City Engineer and as a firm principal his projects have included individual residential, commercial, and industrial sites of various sizes, as well as various subdivisions. As a senior project manager, Mr. Smith has led teams in the planning and design of master-planned communities in both Michigan and Arizona. In his current capacity as City Engineer, he continues to oversee the development of infrastructure master plans and infrastructure extensions. His commitment to Reap Goodness includes civil engineering guidance at the Tolani Lake Enterprises Navajo greenhouse project over its four years duration, continuing grant facilitation, and advising.
Bunny Hodas, Supporter
Bunny has been a dear to Reap Goodness for many years. Her background includes a degree from Michigan State University where she concentrated in horticulture among other subjects. In recent years her career in real estate has intertwined with her various charitable causes. Her long-standing relationship with Reap Goodness includes facilitating a grant from a family foundation in Michigan. Bunny remains actively supportive in civil society both locally and nationally.
She has continued to treat Reap Goodness with kindness by way of facilitating working space for its operations over several years. This treatment plus offering connections to a number of professionals over the years has assisted Reap Goodness in its growth and spreading its influence in the world. She has connected Reap Goodness with other advisors who have brought complexity of operation to simpler mode. These connections are priceless.