Margaret Scoles serves as Executive Director of IOIA, maintaining the IOIA office in Montana since January 1999. She has over 30 years of organic inspection experience for numerous certifiers (mostly in the US), including inspection of farms, livestock, and processors and has been teaching organic inspector training courses since 1989.
In 2018, Margaret was awarded the Growing Organic Industry Award by the Organic Trade Association. The nomination letter notes,"It is not an exaggeration to say that most every certified organic product on earth is only a few degrees of separation from Margaret. Whether it's food, textiles, beauty care products; whether it is Europe or Asia or the USA--the chances are that each item was inspected, certified and/or produced by someone who attended an IOIA training, or was trained by someone who attended an IOIA training. The reach of Margaret's leadership has touched all sectors and corners of organic production around the world."
She holds a B.S. in Agriculture (Agronomy Major) from the University of Arizona and has served in many IOIA roles since 1991, including founding board member, Chair of the Membership Committee, and Chair of the Accreditation Review Panel. She serves frequently as a speaker on organic topics. Margaret and her husband manage a cow/calf operation in southeastern Montana.
Sacha Draine serves as the International Training Manager of IOIA. She organizes all internationally cosponsor managed courses of IOIA since 2007 and has been a staff member since December 2005. Sacha speaks and writes German, English, Spanish and French, which enables her to communicate with our cosponsors worldwide. She holds a diploma in business and foreign languages. She gained her agricultural experience while working on her husband’s family ranch for the past 20 years. The family runs a cow/calf as well as ewe/lamb and wool operation, plus raises their own feed crops.