SPEAKERS

Kristin Hanna | Senior Director of Marketing, Maryland Department of Agriculture

Kristin attended and graduated Cum Laude from Arizona State University with a dual degree in Political Science and Justice Studies. Eager to never leave school, she also got her teaching certificate and taught middle school math for three years in Arizona. She can still help you with your kid’s algebra homework but has promptly discarded all geometry lessons from her brain. Throughout college, Kristin worked in hospitality with the Hal Smith Restaurant Group and received an opportunity to open new restaurant concepts throughout the midwest in Nebraska and Oklahoma. She worked her way from a server to a senior kitchen manager in her ten years of service there and learned invaluable lessons about how to treat guests and manage people in her time at the restaurant. After moving to Frederick, Maryland for a boy (now husband), she started working for a top 25 craft brewery in their tasting room and grew their events program featuring some well-known acts like the Violent Femmes, The Revivalists, and Matt & Kim. Noting her ability for creativity, Kristin started working in the marketing department and eventually became the Senior Marketing Director for the last three years of her eight years at the brewery. She worked on projects like “Tom Selleck-con”, a tribute event to everything Tom Selleck, the Flying Dog Tap House, a full-service bar and restaurant at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and was part of the development team for over fifteen new products that were launched between 2020-2023. In 2023, an amazing opportunity arose for Kristin to join the Maryland Department of Agriculture which included, for the first time ever, actual affordable medical insurance. She currently promotes the Maryland’s Best program, a consumer-facing program that connects consumers to farmers, and is in the process of building the Maryland Native Plants program. Her skill set includes partnership acquisition, campaign building, social media, and event planning which all work together to sell more people on eating locally (hopefully). Kristin shames her friends when they don’t serve local cheese at book club and is an avid hiker with her husband and son.