Linda Bilsens Brolis is the Senior Project Manager for ILSR’s Composting for Community Initiative. Her work focuses on advancing composting at the community level as a tool for reducing waste, regenerating soils, supporting local food production, and fighting climate chaos. Linda manages ILSR’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program and led the development of ILSR’s new Community Composting 101 Online Certificate Course. She also leads ILSR’s work advancing on-farm composting and its participation in the Million Acre Challenge, a collaborative focused on expanding the implementation of regenerative soil health practices in Maryland and the Chesapeake Region. 

Linda is a certified Compost Facility Operator for the state of Maryland and has trained with the US Composting Council, the University of Maryland Extension Service, O2 Compost, and the internationally renowned Luebke family in Austria. Linda has a B.S. degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is an avid gardener with an interest in agroecology and social justice, and loves adventuring in the mountains of West Virginia where she lives with her husband and daughter. She has worked in various sustainable agriculture, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects in the US and internationally. Linda’s family’s backyard gardening and composting efforts were rewarded by a surprise visit from former First Lady, Michelle Obama in early 2016.

Email her at lbilsens@ilsr.org