Who We Are
Camille Abbe, Vice President
Camille Abbe worked for five years as a Senior Account Supervisor with Hunter Public Relations before joining the Lion’s Tooth Media team. While there, she developed and executed award-winning campaigns on behalf of national brands for companies such as Kraft, Sears, and Hasbro. Her wide-ranging public relations experience includes traveling to Parma, Italy for cheese and olive oil tastings for Academia Barilla; running the successful campaign to have JELL-O elected the Official State Snack of Utah; and hosting the Tailgating Party of a Lifetime with Mario Batali at the Michigan International Speedway.
In addition to her PR experience, Camille hosted and co-produced a travel series for PBS titled Inside the Tuscan Hills.The series focused on traveling to the small towns in the region, with visits to artisan food-producers and craftspeople along the way. Camille and her husband and producing partner, Dakkan Abbe, have multiple series’ currently in production through their production company, Fifty Rubies Productions. Camille, Dakkan and their dog Maggie live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Melissa Waldron Lehner, Founder & President
Melissa Waldron Lehner has been a producer of television, film, and radio for more than 15 years. She is the recipient of the 2006 James Beard Foundation/Viking King Range Broadcast Media Award for best Radio Food Show, as the Contributing Producer for a regular monthly series with Gourmet magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl, on public radio WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show. The series explores the real meaning of food in our lives -- from our childhood memories to our deepest feelings and desires, our cravings, wants and needs – and how it has become intertwined with our sense of self. Special guests have included environmental journalist Michael Pollan, local food advocate and founder of Chez Panisse restaurant Alice Waters, food policy expert Marion Nestle, and Dan Barber, Chef/Founder of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, among others. In 2005, Melissa was the New York City PR Coordinator for TransFair USA, the Fair Trade certification agency for the US. She is also a freelance writer, contributing to the local foods magazine Edible Nutmeg, part of the Edible Communities consortium and SARE, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Eduction non profit based in Washington DC. She is now the editor and publisher of the online ‘zine Fertile Ground USA which celebrates the people who grow our food the sustainable way.