Chris Hall: "El Jefe," Kensington Farmers' Market Chief

Name: Chris Hall, aka El Jefe. "It’s Spanish for the boss. Most of our vendors are from Mexico. Some people call me Jeff, too, because they can’t pronounce it.”

Age: “I’m ageless”

Occupation: Manager of the , “I also work in my own private agriculture business.”

I’ve been running the marketplace for a few years and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a great gathering place for the community, as you can see we have all ages and sizes here. We have a food explorer program in the elementary schools — Hilltop and Thousand Oaks — the kids come down, and they identify themselves. We we give them a dollar-off coupon to buy anything they want. We go into the classroom and teach them the difference between root vegetables, flower vegetables, fruits, seeds — it’s fun.

How did you get into this? I was on the board of another market for about five or six years. They were having trouble finding someone to run the market. I tried to find somebody — it was kind of like George Bush looking for a vice president, and Dick Cheney said, “What about me?”

No — I just was interviewing people and the market was so small then; it had about six vendors. It’s grown maybe tenfold. The reason I bring that up is because nobody wanted to manage a small market. I did it for a while and I kept thinking someone was going to come take over, and now I’m stuck with it. I love it — it’s fun. We have live music every Sunday. We’ve got people here from ages 18 months to 85 (years old).

What do you do for fun? Besides this, I’m a runner and a diver, and I hang out in the garden.