Irene (Rene) Thiel was on the Board of RMM for over 20 years, serving on the Resource Development Committee for many of those years. She first became informed about RMM as a church member of Hitchcock Presbyterian Church which has supported RMM since almost the beginning. After going on a delegation to see some of the farms and talking to farmworkers, she became more interested and more involved. "To see with one's own eyes the condition under which farmworkers live and work was enough to make me want to get involved to better this situation."

The work continues and will continue until state laws are changed bringing equity to those who tend the fields and pick the crops.