Instructor Profiles

Gary Colles
​Cheese Maker

My Story...
I was born in 1942 in the small town of Bellevue, Michigan not long after my father went to serve in the war. When my father returned to us at the end of WWII, we moved to a small farm. Living on a small farm in a small town meant having animals in 4H. I graduated from high school and went into the Air Force. My sweetheart waited for me, and we eventually wed during her 4th year of college. We have been married for 57 years. We have two sons and two granddaughters. My wife and I have always enjoyed traveling. On a trip to England where I ate a lot of ploughman lunches in pubs, I wondered how each Stilton cheese was always a little bit different. It turns out that it was made locally not in big commercial plants. That was the beginning of my interest in making cheese. I have now been teaching cheesemaking for 24 years.

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