Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening by Maria Rodale

Maria Rodale is the CEO and Chairperson of Rodale Inc., the biggest independent book publisher in the United States and the world's top multimedia firm focused on health, wellness, and the environment. Rodale serves a global audience of 70 million people with brands including Prevention and Men's Health, as well as books like The South Beach Diet and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and a variety of digital domains. She is the founder editor of Rodale.com, the company's newest online initiative, which contains the latest news and information about healthy living on a healthy planet, as well as Maria's Farm Country Kitchen, her personal blog. Maria Rodale joined the family firm in 1987, initially working in circulation and direct marketing before becoming the director of Rodale's own direct marketing agency. She was named director of strategy in 1998, and she oversaw the firm's strategic assessment, planning processes, and management reforms that refocused the company on producing material on healthy, active lifestyles.

She was also the Editor-in-Chief of Organic Gardening and managed all of Rodale's gardening books as part of the company's Organic Life business, Rodale's first integrated brand division. She became a member of the Rodale board of directors in 1991 and was elected Chairman in 2007. She has received various honors, including the Rachel Carson Prize from the National Audubon Society in 2004 and the United Nations Population Fund's Award for Women's Health and Dignity in 2007. She was awarded one of Pennsylvania's Top 50 Women in Business in 2009.

She is also a member of Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project's board of directors, the Rodale Institute's co-chair, and the Lehigh Valley Health Network's board of directors. Maria is a mother, an activist, and a businessman who has made it her personal mission and business to promote the benefits of an organic lifestyle. She lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with her husband, three children, one dog, one cat, and six guinea fowl in an environmentally friendly home.