Mike Schechter

Mike Schechter is the production manager and master chocolate maker at Taza Chocolate. He grew up in Newton, MA and attended elementary school with Taza founder Alex Whitmore. Mike went on to study philosophy and theatre at UVM. While at school, he worked at a steakhouse and a clam shack on Cape Cod, and also began to skydive. After graduation, Mike moved to Oahu to escape the cruel Boston winters and gain more skydiving experience. For ten years, he travelled the world as a professional skydiver, splitting his time between the Northern and Southern hemispheres in an endless summer. To date, Mike has completed just under 10,000 jumps in places like Hawaii, California, Australia, and New Zealand, participating in national competitions and world record attempts. Mike returned to Boston in the fall of 2007 to join our team, taking over the reins from Alex as head chocolate maker at Taza. Mike enjoys tinkering with machines and playing bridge, and once took 2nd place on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Greg LaShoto

Greg LaShoto is Taza Chocolate's Production Assistant and has been with the company since June of 2009. Greg grew up in Foxboro, MA, where he spent his summers working on a local farm, so small-scale food production is nothing new to him. After studying Environmental Science at Colby College in Waterville, ME, Greg worked variously as an environmental scientist in Maryland, a digital mapper in New Hampshire, and a temporary research assistant at Harvard University before arriving at Taza. When not working, Greg can often be found running the street of Cambridge and Somerville and in the occasional 5 or 10K race. Greg also considers himself something of an Ultimate Frisbee mercenary, willing to play with any team on any given night, although he has a high degree of loyalty to his BUDA teams and his club team, Molotov. If you need a handler or a deep on short notice, just stop by the factory and ask.

Sara Pethe

Sara Pethé pulls double duty at Taza – she’s our Shipping Manager as well as our Website Content Manager. Sara arrived at the Taza factory in late 2009, after having lived all over the United States, including a long stint in Yuma, Arizona right before she moved to Boston. We’re happy to report that she survived her first New England winter just fine. Once the daily operations manager at a cigar shop (in the middle of the desert!), Sara now makes sure that Taza’s organic glory is distributed to customers worldwide! She hopes to resume her undergraduate studies in the fall – shipping chocolate by day and taking business and psychology classes by night.

Kellie Silsby

Kellie Silsby is the chief production assistant at Taza Chocolate. Kellie grew up in small-town Maine and moved to Boston as soon as she was able. She was working as an esthetician when she came across a craigslist posting for a job at Taza wrapping chocolate bars. Though it sounded too good to be true, she applied anyway and was hired on the spot. Kellie quickly moved up from foiling bars and washing molds to become a full-time production assistant. It’s a good bet that if you’ve eaten Taza Chocolate in the last year, you’ve tasted her handiwork. Kellie lives with her brother Adam in Medford. Outside the factory, she enjoys hanging out with friends and candlepin bowling - she’s even got her own set of pink bowling balls.