SCAA Event

Outstanding Contribution
Gale Lingle
Born and raised in Long Beach, Calif., Gale Lingle graduated from Mills College with a degree in international relations. After a brief career as a teacher for mentally handicapped children, she returned to Long Beach to take over the management of family trusts from her grandfather, Jonah Jones Jr., a prominent attorney in the area. In 1980, she married Ted Lingle and joined two families: coffee and the Lingle’s. Her coffee career began in 1991 when Ted left his family business to become the first full-time employee of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). Her role at SCAA became filling in for whatever the association needed. She helped assemble and stamp monthly newsletters; provided registration staffing for many of SCAA’s early training seminars; assisted in the planning, promotion and coordination of the association’s origin trips; participated in many origin trips, assisting the tour coordinator with the social dynamics of each trip while meeting with coffee industry leaders; hosted numerous Board and committee events in her home; maintained communication with many of the SCAA’s international members, serving as a “personal secretary” to Ted; worked the “Help Desk” in the registration area at every conference; and, most important, for 15 years, served as the association’s unofficial “First Lady.”

Distinguished Author
Donald Schoenholt
Donald Schoenholt has been writing on coffee subjects for four decades, enlightening and inspiring the specialty coffee community in its quest for the perfect cup. He was the first to be the voice of specialty coffee on the printed page and has contributed hundreds of thousands of printed words to the cause of good coffee. His subjects are as diverse as a history of the disposable cup lid, cupping the districts of Sulawesi, the economics of roasting your own and the joys of peaberry. From his position as Gourmet Specialty Editor at Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, he led the intellectual effort that resulted in founding the SCAA. As the specialty coffee movement created formal institutions, he became the editor of the SCAA newsletter In Good Taste and founding editor of The Flamekeeper, the newsletter of the Roasters Guild. His words have brought coffee expertise to two generations of coffee entrepreneurs and craftspeople. His articles, reports and commentary have appeared in almost every magazine that has focused on coffee, and he serves on the Advisory Board of Roast magazine. His writings are quoted and referenced in several coffee histories, including Mark Pendergrast’s, Uncommon Grounds, along with several college textbooks and scholarly works, and a new generation of coffee craftspeople and coffee lovers read him online in the Roasters Guild forums, coffeed.com and alt.coffee.com. A 2007 SCAA Lifetime Achievement Laureate, Schoenholt has a talent for articulating the specialty coffee philosophy, and moving the trade spiritually.

Special Recognition
Mick Wheeler
Mick Wheeler has more than 34 years experience as an agricultural economist, specializing in tropical commodities, particularly coffee and cocoa. For most of that time he has worked for the Government of Papua New Guinea in various roles ranging from the Chief Agricultural Economist in the country’s Department of Agriculture to the role that he has occupied for the last 28 years that of Overseas Representative for the Coffee Industry Corporation of Papua New Guinea. Representing Papua New Guinea at the International Coffee Organization, Wheeler has distinguished himself taking on a number of important positions, most notably Chairman of the Executive Board, Chairman of the Promotion Croup and more recently Chairman of the Finance Committee. His position as PNG’s Overseas Representative has mainly been part-time, which has allowed him to take on a variety of other roles, including Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE). Under his guidance, the SCAE has expanded out of all recognition and is seen as one of the industry’s major trade bodies promoting coffee. He has also worked as a consultant for a number of United Nations’ bodies, such as FAO, where he worked extensively in Vietnam and China and the ITC, where he is one of the co-authors and moderators of The Coffee Guide. He is also the author of a number of other major publications on coffee and cocoa.