Mike Proia, Founding Board Member

In 2015, Mike opened Blank Page Café, a small bakery and café located in the farm store at Bread and Butter Farm in Shelburne, VT. Blank Page  Café uses locally roasted, responsibly sourced coffee and partners closely with Brio Coffeeworks in this work. Blank Page Café aims to provide an enriched on-farm experience for customers by emphasizing community and food-based education. Mike’s passion for coffee is borne of his passions for farming, performance-oriented nutrition, and helping his community more carefully examine the complexities of our food systems.

Before opening Blank Page Café, Mike spent nearly 3 years working in small-scale organic farming in California and Vermont, with a brief farming stint in Europe as a WWOOFer. Mike also holds a bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Connecticut, is a Level 3 Chartered  Financial Analyst candidate, and spent nine years working as a fixed-income trader and Analyst at Cigna Investment Management. Mike spent time at Cigna managing portfolios, developing trading strategies,  executing trades, building credit analysis models, and ensuring all investment activity remained in compliance with mandates.  Mike was born and raised in Connecticut but is proud to call Vermont now his forever home.  Mike loves being physically active and tries to get into the mountains with his dog and partner as often as possible.