Chairman, Gardener’s Supply Company
Will Raap serves as chairman of Gardener’s Supply Company in Burlington, Vermont, which he founded in 1983, a 300-person, employee-owned firm, now among the world’s largest online, garden center and catalog gardening retailers. Gardener’s Supply has won national and regional awards for its products and services, as well as for its socially responsible business practices. Raap also founded and was past chairman of the Intervale Center, a non-profit organization located in Burlington, Vermont that since 1987 has been developing farm and land-based enterprises that generate economic and social opportunity while protecting natural resources. Gardener’s Supply and Intervale Center have been at the forefront of the transformation of the Vermont and national food systems. More recently Raap bought the iconic Nordic Farm in Charlotte with the aim to establish it as a center of regenerative farming innovation and the “#1 carbon negative farm”. Raap received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Davis, an an MBA in business and MA in urban planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
