 Tillers is the brainchild of its Executive Director, Dick Roosenberg. Dick was raised on a dairy farm in Van Buren County, Michigan, spent three years in the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa, and then earned a law degree from Wayne State University in 1976.
Ever since his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer, Dick had nourished the idea of creating a non-profit organization dedicated to the mission which Tillers came to embody. That idea was so compelling that in 1981 Dick withdrew from active law practice and formed Tillers, initially as adjunt to the Kalamazoo Nature Center, specifically the Delano Homestead.
In order to further Tillers mission, Dick realized a need for an independent organization with a farm-based home. In the 1980s, Tillers was incorporated as Rural Futures International d/b/a Tillers, and a Board of Directors was elected.
Having befriended the Abbey brothers, George and Carroll, Tillers was offered a home at the George Abbey Farm on Sprinkle Road in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the opportunity to be a sort of co-adjudicator of Carroll's world-class farm implement collection. Upon the brothers' death, Tillers was entrusted the land and the collection under the auspices of the Kalamazoo Foundation.
The Abbey Farm was, however, surrounded by development pressure. In 2003, Dick and the Board of Directors made a huge leap in purchasing the 460-acre Cook's Mill property near Scotts, Michigan, just east of Kalamazoo. The location is now Tillers' Cook's Mill Learning Center.
Dick continues to work as the vision behind Tillers, not only directing its adminstration, but also as one of its primary domestic and international instructors.
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