Laura Tourte is County Director in Santa Cruz County. She is also Farm Advisor for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito Counties for the University of California Cooperative Extension. In addition to administrative work as County Director, Laura's Farm Advisor work includes research, education, and outreach in farm management with a focus on record keeping, financial management, crop budgeting, and marketing. The overriding goal of her farm advisor work is to help strengthen farm businesses—especially those that are small, beginning and/or limited in resources. In order to achieve this, her efforts are focused in two areas: 1. extending knowledge and information to improve business skills for the short-term and 2. performing research and other program activities that will ultimately provide area farmers with research results, thus tools, to help them make informed choices and business decisions for the long-term.