Meet The Herb Companion magazine team

Kathryn Compton
Editor-in-Chief

K.C. Compton is the editor-in-chief at The Herb Companion. She started working at Ogden Publications in 2001 as the managing editor of Mother Earth News and then began working for The Herb Companion in 2003. In 2004 Grit and Capper’s were added to her department.

Compton brings more than 20 years of experience to The Herb Companion. She has worked as a reporter, a columnist and an editor for The Albuquerque Journal, The Santa Fe New Mexican and The Star-Tribune, the statewide newspaper of Wyoming. She was also a contributing editor to Women’s Sports + Fitness, Women Outside, Indian Artist and Focus Santa Fe magazines.

Compton wants The Herb Companion to be the go-to source for consumers who are looking for information of any kind on herbs. She also wants it to lead the way in deepening and strengthening the plant-people connection. “In the Monopoly game of life, our bodies are our little Scottie dogs. No body = no game. So the idea of doing our best to keep our game pieces functioning and vital is very attractive to me,” Compton says.

“I favor working in partnership with the body-keeping it healthy with great food, giving it supplements and medicines to keep it strong, strengthening the mind-body connection and allowing natural processes to have a chance. Herbs are an enormous part of that process and I am devoted to doing what I can to spread the word about plant medicines so people can make informed choices about their options for health and well-being,” she says.

As an avid fan of herbs, Compton takes herbs as supplements every day, uses them in cooking as a mater of routine, grows them, uses them as body-care products and takes them medicinally. “I cannot imagine my life without herbs, nor do I want to,” she says. “They’re the plants that burst with aroma, that help protect the other garden plants from various pests, and that help maintain the health of animals and humans. Also, they are beautiful and flavorful to boot. What’s not to love about herbs?"

"And the sublimely cool thing about my job is that the more I findd out, the more there is to know, so this exploration of all the different aspects of herbs could keep me busy for as long as I am blessed to keep my little Scottie dog moving around the game board,” she says.

Compton received a Bachelor of Arts in Moving Image Arts with a minor in theater at the College of Santa Fe and attended St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the graduate institute for classic studies.

Allison Martin
Associate Editor

Allison Martin is the associate editor of The Herb Companion.

Gina Souders
Editorial Assistant

Gina DeBacker is the editorial assistant at The Herb Companion.

As a recent homeowner, DeBacker and her new husband are learning more about the domestic life. She has plans to start an herb garden in her backyard and enjoys working at a place that offers daily tips and advice toward getting a head start on her first garden. She is also constantly looking for new ways to incorporate herbs into her cooking and can't wait for her garden to flourish so that she can use fresh herbs from her garden rather than packaged herbs from the grocery store.

DeBacker is also interested in taking care of her body. “Right now my favorite way to incorporate herbs is in my beauty products,” she says. Since working at The Herb Companion, she has discovered the wonderful role herbs play in keeping us healthy. She is constantly on the lookout for new beauty products to introduce to Herb Companion readers as organic, eco-friendly alternatives. Information and reviews on natural beauty products can be found on her blog, The Herbalista.

As the editorial assistant she manages the "List of Likes" department, the "List of Likes" sweepstakes, monitors contracts, invoices, and payments, and edits magazine and web content, including our constantly growing online content. She also manages the magazine's Facebook, Twitter and MySpace sites.

DeBacker is a 2008 graduate of the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. In 2007, she interned at Produce Merchandising magazine. After graduation, she interned at The Herb Companion's sister title, Natural Home, for the summer. After her internship ended, she became a member of The Herb Companion editorial staff.

Amy Mayfield
Senior Editor

Amy Mayfield, former editor of Herbs for Health magazine and contributing editor for Natural Home, is senior editor of The Herb Companion. She lives in beautiful, green Corvallis, Oregon, with her husband and two young children.

Raised in a family of alternative medicine devotees, Mayfield worked at herb stores in high school and college. Now she uses natural remedies and herbs, in conjunction with conventional medicine, to treat herself and family. 

Mayfield and her family live in a small 1922 home in a designated historic district near Oregon State University. The family tries to make the best environmental choices possible, enjoying bike riding, gardening, community-supported agriculture involvement, car-free days, local eating, driving a hybrid vehicle and buying used goods whenever possible. 

Mayfield’s husband, Ryan, is an engineer who designs commercial-scale solar electric systems. Although their roof is significantly shaded by a neighbor’s sequoia, the Mayfields recently installed a 2-KW photovoltaic system on their home that will offset approximately 30 percent of their energy use. 

Mayfield, a native of Santa Cruz, California, studied holistic nutrition at the Institute for Educational Therapy and graduated cum laude from Humboldt State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in news-editorial journalism in 1999. When she's not working and not taking care of her children, she enjoys cooking, reading, thrift store shopping and teaching Jazzercise classes.

Marci O'Brien
Art Director

Marci O’Brien is the art director of The Herb Companion. She began working at The Herb Companion and its sister publication, Herbs for Health, in 2000 and has become an enduring fan over the years of reading articles touting the beauty and usefulness of herbs.

An Ohio native, O'Brien lives in northern Colorado with her husband and daughter where she is passionate about growing and cooking herbs, fruits and vegetables. The O’Brien family uses medicinal herbs on a regular basis for immune system support and preventive health.

She considers her “work for the magazine a natural part of her lifestyle as she finds beauty in the garden and translates its color and style into an illustration of useful plants and their many benefits.” 

O’Brien graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications.