MEET THE CALKINS CREAMERY TEAM
Calkins Creamery at Highland Farm is home to a hard-working team that brings welcoming smiles and years of experience to all we do here. As a multi-generational farm, we take the adage, “know thy farmer, know thy food,” to heart and know that sustaining our farm and crafting artisan cheeses is a labor of love.
Here are some of the people you might just meet on your next visit to Highland Farm…
Emily Montgomery, Owner & Cheesemaker
A cheesemaker for more than 15 years, Emily loves working with her hands and watching science transform milk into a beautiful, value-added product.
Emily’s favorite cheesy dish is poutine. “I have a weakness for poutine. Just something about salty french fries, gravy, and my perfectly melted cheese curds on top!”
While she’s at the Creamery, cheese is Emily’s job. But when she’s spending time at a friend’s house, eating cheese is a party. “I love going to a friend’s house and snacking on our cheese, relaxing, and socializing.”
When asked what she loves most about Calkins Creamery cheese, Emily shared, “It’s 100% the real deal. You just taste it and fall in love with it.”
Click here to learn more about Emily’s experience in cheesemaking and her love for her work at Calkins Creamery.
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Caitlyn Janulis, Customer Service Manager
A team member for three years, Caitlyn is the behind-the-scenes “glue” that keeps the orders rolling in and out of the Creamery. She keeps us all on task to ensure the “cheese wheel” keeps moving forward. If you call the Creamery, you will likely speak to Caitlyn. She may not make the cheese but she absolutely does everything it takes to ensure you receive your cheese. Caitlyn is the unofficial “Cheese Queen” of the Creamery.
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Maggie Keller, Cheese Production Specialist
Maggie came to us quietly a year ago, and all we really knew was that she loves cows. Now, Maggie shares a lot of stories, and she still really loves cows. Since Maggie loves cows, she loves cheese. Because she loves cheese, she’s starting to love all aspects of learning about cheesemaking. And we love that Maggie is part of our cheese story.
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Andrea Dreyfus, Delivery Driver & “Cave Queen”
Andrea takes on long days to deliver cheese to New York City and Philadelphia. She enjoys the scenery and the challenges that come with city traffic. She also tends to our local delivery route and runs numerous errands for us during her travels. She has named herself “Cave Queen” as she spends time each week doing affinage work at the cave.
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Richard “Dicquie” Miller, Delivery Driver
A fan of our cheese since the beginning, Dicquie often stopped at the Creamery to visit for a few hours. He eventually decided that he liked us so much he might as well get paid to hang out with us. Dicquie delivers cheese to our local establishments. We appreciate his vast knowledge of cheese and his quality assurance feedback from the snack plate that Caitlyn prepares for him every Friday.
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Audrey Rutherford, Cheese Assistant
Audrey is beginning her third year of working for us and is a true asset to The Creamery. She comes after school and often cleans, as James really knows how to make a mess when he makes cheese. It’s hard work, but she smiles and moves right along. Audrey may be a little shy but gets the job done and keeps coming back. The cheese doesn’t talk either so they get along great.
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Alyssa Landmesser, Cheese Assistant
New to our team, Alyssa is learning how fun cheesemaking can be. Fact: cheesemaking was featured on the TV show, Dirty Jobs (funny how we always forget to bring that up during the interviews.) Alyssa helps with the end-of-the-day cheese clean-up. She runs around most of her shift with a sponge, a mop, and a positive attitude.
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Molly Diehl, Cheese Assistant
Molly has been a fan of our cows from a young age. She participates in 4-H and shows a few of our cows at the local fair. Molly is also a fan of our cheese, so it was a perfect fit when she chose her first job at Calkins Creamery. We welcome Molly to our crew and hope to continue to develop her love of the dairy industry.
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Chloe Hedgelon, The Creamery’s Job “Filler”
Chloe has worked on and off for years at the Creamery, through high school, college, and now “adulting.” She is the filler, as she fills in when her schedule allows. She has the experience to jump in wherever needed. Chloe is a true animal lover, and we’re fairly certain she only keeps coming back so she can visit the farm kitties.
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Olivia D’Amore, Intern
Olivia is making a pit stop at the Creamery, working as an Intern between her career moves. She is an avid outdoors girl and is a breath of fresh air to work with. Olivia’s energetic and eager to learn as much as possible in her short time here. Because she’s always busy cream-waxing Vampire Slayer, it only seems fitting that we hope she “slays” her next job too.
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Dawn Rutherford, the Creamery’s “Invisible” Worker
Dawn worked for us for more than 10 years. Although she moved on to another opportunity, Dawn visits the Creamery on weekends to assist us with our never-ending to-do lists. She is not seen by most of us, but her work is always noticed and much appreciated.
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Mary Markowski, Cheese Gift Box Specialist
A team member since the beginning, Mary has worn most hats here and recently “retired.” You can find her at the Creamery during the holidays creating gift boxes adorned with her beautiful bows and keeping us on track during the holiday chaos.
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Elyse Montgomery and Rylan Montgomery, Cheese Apprentices
By sheer luck, these two kids have a cheesemaker mother and are learning more about cheese than they would probably like to at this stage of their life. They are hard workers, and we are happy they can jump in when they are needed.
Meet Our Herd of Happy Holstein Cows
At Calkins Creamery we know that the best cheese comes from the best milk. And we believe the best milk comes from happy, healthy cows.
One hundred mature Holstein (black and white) mature cows and 80 young and happy calves call Highland Farm home.
They enjoy time grazing on over 50 of our 330 acres whenever the weather allows, while winters are spent staying cozy and warm in our barn.
Our cows are milked twice daily and fed a nourishing diet to ensure they’re thriving and well cared for, inside and out.
We believe that knowing where your food comes from allows you to have peace of mind and a real connection to the local people, places, and animals that make that delicious food possible.