Heid Barr is the Co-founder and CEO of the PA Flax Project, a cooperative dedicated to re-imagining the flax for linen industry in Pennsylvania. For over a decade she owned and operated Kitchen Garden Textiles, a Philadelphia based lifestyle brand working at the intersection of food and fabric. This work led to a deep understanding of the connection between textiles and farming. In 2020, with farmer Emma De Long, Heidi took this understanding to the next level and the PA Flax Project began. Her love for textiles and lifelong attention to environmental issues combine into her passion for bringing linen production back to Pennsylvania.

Since the 1990’s Alvin Ulrich has used public and private funding to carry out R&D work related to flax straw, fiber and shive with Biolin Research Inc., a company he founded in Saskatchewan, Canada, the major source location of oilseed flax in North America. His extensive experience growing, processing, grading and finding end uses for both the fiber and non-fiber portions of the flax plant have made him one of North America’s leading linologists. He is a founding member of the North American Linen Association, Biomass Quality Network Canada, Prairie Fibreshed and the ASTM sub-committee D13.17 Bast Fibers and Plants.

Marie Demaegdt is Textile and Sustainability Manager at the Alliance for European Flax-Linen & Hemp [formerly CELC]. She’s in charge of enhancing innovation in linen textiles - yarns, wovens and knits - and supporting designers in sourcing them, thanks to the digital and physical material libraries linendreamlab.com and Linen Dream Lab Paris. She coordinates Life Cycle data across the European flax & linen agro-industry to highlight the responsible practices of European Flax® fibre and Masters of Linen™ textiles and to make reliable data available through key databases. She represents flax-linen in the PEF Apparel & Footwear to co-construct the sectorial rules of the EU’s PEF method.