Chuck Hellmer

President and General Manager

Chuck is perhaps the only Midwestern president of a cheese company with a serious dairy allergy. The Ohio native discovered Haystack in 2003, while searching for an alternate-milk cheese that didn’t exacerbate his allergies to the bovine variety (he succeeded–thanks Boulder Chevre!). Now he runs the joint.

Chuck’s background is in electric utilities, where he’s worked as an auditor, process improvement facilitator, IT project manager and account manager, and financial director. He actually loves that stuff. But he’s quick to add, “How can you not love goats?”

Chuck was Haystack’s operations, financial, and project manager from late 2006 to early 2009. In February 2009, he became President and General Manager. He still gets to play on the computer, and while his cheese consumption is limited by necessity, he’s a big fan of the Haystack culture (no pun intended). In his free time, Chuck enjoys hiking, peak-bagging 14ers, road biking, and playing his family of guitars.

Jackie Chang

Cheesemaker

Jackie Chang spent her childhood in Taiwan and South Korea, eating black market Kraft Cheese Singles and participating in beauty pageants. She moved to the United States in 1982, landing in Boulder in 1989. Jackie visited Haystack founder Jim Schott’s dairy on a school field trip with her daughter, and fell in love–with the goats. Soon she was spending her days at the dairy, caring for the goats and working in the cheese room part-time. Her taste for the craft and trade of cheesemaking continued to bloom.

Haystack’s full-time cheesemaker since 2004, Jackie has developed some of our most popular varieties, including Camembert, Green Chile Jack, and Aspen Ash. Her creations win top awards year after year from both the American Cheese Society and World Cheese Championships. Her ten to twelve-hour days aside, Jackie awes us all with her boundless optimism, energy, and unrelenting passion for cheese.

When not working over a milk vat or on the production line, Jackie loves cooking elaborate Taiwanese feasts, as well as practicing yoga, hiking, cycling, swimming, and drinking wine. She dreams of running a food truck specializing in Asian snacks. With cheese.