John Middleton

Rock Bottom Ranch Director

John was supposed to become a wildlife biologist while studying at RIT, but got sidetracked with an obsession with the link between agriculture, the environment, and society along the way. After stints at a biodynamic homestead in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and a year as an educator at an environmental and agricultural education center with the Student Conservation Association, he went full gas on production agriculture. He cut his teeth first as an apprentice and then as Assistant Manager at a 1,000-member CSA in the Hudson Valley for four years before taking on the role of Operations Manager at a large wholesale organic vegetable farm in the Twin Cities metro area. While in Minnesota, John and his wife Lidia started their own vegetable operation as part of a farm business incubator project.

Their resulting success led to being headhunted to take on a project at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Wisconsin, where they established and operated a model demonstration farm, restoring historic land use while emphasizing community engagement and education at the intersection of nature, food, art, and design.

In 2019, John tried to retire from farming and pursue a business degree, and was on track to join a large investment bank before realizing this was a terrible idea. He returned his signing bonus and joined a precision-agroforestry start-up as a Project Manager, and stood up their nursery business before stumbling upon ACES and Rock Bottom Ranch, which totally captured his heart and reignited his passion for farming and education.

Outside of farming, you can find John pursuing any outdoor activity from mountain or road biking, hiking, fishing, camping, XC or alpine skiing, or just about any other adventure he can drag his nature-loving kiddo along on.