William Kreamer was not thinking about the inner workings of food policy, the political machinery behind the business of agriculture, or, really, any other aspects of farming when he was a Master of Public Policy student in 2006 at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
His plans changed when the family business, a local produce stand founded by his grandfather and operated by his mother, was closing. Almost a year later, Kreamer decided to “give it a try myself and take it in a whole new direction,” taking over the family business and putting his degree to work in new ways.
Since Kreamer took on reinventing Chesapeake’s Bounty, it has moved to a new location and expanded well beyond the humble produce stand of his grandfather. Today, the St. Leonard business is a sprawling 40-acre enterprise comprising a roadside market specializing in local produce, fresh-caught seafood, dairy, baked products, and dry goods delivered by vendors with one thing in common: They are all located within a distance of one-day’s walk.
“That’s one full day,” he said with a laugh. “It could take you 20 hours to walk to some of them, but we’re slowly shrinking that, and have been over the last few years.”
A second storefront location launched by Kreamer is 20 minutes away in North Beach, Md. In all, Kreamer’s business supports 15 employees and about 60 local farmers, watermen, and other producers and artisans.
The Chesapeake Bounty land is not a production farm—save for a retail crop of mushrooms, fresh herbs, and a few other items—but an experimental and educational farm emphasizing “participatory agriculture.” Not only can anyone on any day volunteer to work on the farm, classes are taught on beekeeping, permaculture, wild foraging and “earth skills,” and “alternative, beyond-organic growing methods” for a variety of produce, Kreamer said.
“It turns out that business has been really, really great,” he added. “It’s pretty amazing how much local food goes through our little store.”
As a food retailer with nontraditional ideas, his MPP degree from the Schar School comes in handy, particularly when he’s served on various boards and commissions related to agriculture. In his spare time—a misnomer: he works 80 to 100 hours a week—he has taught at the College of Southern Maryland, guests lectures at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and makes speaking engagements around the region and on local television.
One of his professors, Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell, said he is not surprised by Kreamer’s entrepreneurial ambition or his burgeoning academic interests.
“Will was one of the most intellectually curious students I've ever taught,” said Rozell. “Policy is everywhere and he sees the connections and applies what he has learned to his career. I am not surprised by his success.”
Kreamer attributes the rigor he experienced in the MPP program for giving him new insights to his own abilities.
“The academic discipline that I learned at Mason was much, much greater than anything I learned at academic institutions prior,” he said. “That discipline really helped me, for example, when I had to fully understand the Calvert County [Md.] zoning ordinances and health department regulations.”
Navigating the laws and working with state and local leadership was initially a struggle, but Kreamer succeeded. “My policy experience helped me with that,” he said.
His Schar School professors “were brilliant and inspired me to be more creative in problem solving, and more expansive in the way I think about issues in the world. And I did well, so that helped my confidence.”
And as such, his time at the Schar School also gave him a sense of empowerment.
“It helped me with courage as well,” he said. “I was deathly afraid of speaking in public, but at [the Schar School], at age 22, I was one of the younger students in the program and had to speak as if I knew something in front of older adults with possibly years of real-life policy experience in the government. That was very, very helpful.”