Our Roots

Bill McDorman

Bill McDorman has committed his productive life to community-based seed stewardship.  For more than 40 years he has been a passionate and knowledgeable presenter who inspires his audiences with the importance of grassroots seed saving and urges everyone to learn to save their own seeds.

In 1981 he co-founded Garden City Seeds in Missoula, Montana. In 1984 he started Seeds Trust/High Altitude Gardens, a bioregional, mail order seed company he ran successfully for 28 years.  He authored the book, Basic Seed Saving, in 1994.  In 2010, Bill and his wife Belle founded Seed School, an internationally recognized education program now with thousands of graduates from around the world. From 2011 until 2014 they served as Executive Directors of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson, Arizona.  In 2015 they were recruited with friend John Caccia to start the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance.  Bill now spends time in his own garden.  His seed list is available at Cornville Seed.

In 2016, Bill and his wife Belle joined us in the Philippines to lead a 3 day Seed School and Farmer Capacity Building Training for 60 farmers from all over the Philippines. This training was a catalyst to launching our current seed saving educational model and Bill continues to be one of our most trusted advisors.