Author

Lauren Hudson is s a collective member of SolidarityNYC--an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting New York’s Solidarity Economy. Lauren also serves on the board of the Data Commons Cooperative and is a Cooperative Finance Leader for America Fellow at the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. Her interests include participatory action research, human geography, and Patrick Stewart. She lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Tony Patterson lives in Ottawa in a boutique housing co-op called Catalpa. This is where his interest in the world of cooperatives originates. He kicked up his participation a level once the UN declared 2012 the Year of Cooperatives. In July 2012 he wrote Catalpa's submission to the House of Commons Special Committee on Cooperatives. In October 2012 he was a participant at the IYC International Summit of Cooperatives in Quebec City, and also at the preliminary IMAGINE conference on co-op economics. That same month he launched CO-OP CANADA ACCELERATOR, the blog about communications and community engagement. He loves Quebec City, where his first European ancestors landed almost 350 years ago.

Josh Davis is the GEO Content Manager. 

Cliff DuRand is a Research Associate at the Center for Global Justice, located in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and a retired Professor of Philosophy at Morgan State University in Baltimore. For 25 years he has been organizing and leading educational trips to Cuba.  For this work, in 1997 he was made Profesor Invitado by the University of Havana. (See here for information about an upcoming trip in June, 2016) He is editor/author of two books: Recreating Democracy in a Globalized State (2012) and Moving Beyond Capitalism (2016). He can be reached at global.justice.cliff@gmail.com

Hilary Abell is co-founder of Project Equity, a new organization whose mission is to build scalable cooperative businesses and create local entrepreneurial ecosystems that increase worker ownership. Hilary led WAGES from 2003-2011 and was a worker-owner at Equal Exchange in the 1990s. As a consultant since 2011, she has worked with cooperatives including Opportunity Threads and the Evergreen Cooperatives. Her white paper Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale was published by The Democracy Collaborative in June 2014.

Tom Llewellyn is the Network Coordinator for the international Sharing Cities Network, a project of Shareable. He is a co-founder and coordinator of the REAL Cooperative (Regenerative Education, Action and Leadership), is a partner in the Asheville Tool Library and is leading the development of the new Share Asheville initiative. He co-founded and managed the Critter Cafe, which raised money for a small public school and brought the entire community together to share a meal every weekend in 2007 in the small town of Canyon, CA. As the Education and Activism Director of Sustainable Living Roadshow (SLR) from 2008 – 2012 he toured the U.S. producing eco events, leading workshops and participating in a wide variety of actions and campaigns. In addition to being the lead production manager for SLR he was a founding member of A PLACE for Sustainability in Oakland, CA and was on the steering committee and co-lead the Right2Know March (for GMO labeling) from NYC-D.C. in 2011.  He has also spent time organizing to stop the expansion of: the Alberta tar sands, genetically engineered trees and the woody biomass industry in addition to many other causes. Currently working as a consultant for The Dogwood Alliance in Asheville, NC, he organizes in support of the Our Forests Aren't Fuel campaign targeting the expansion of the wood pellet and biomass industries in the Southern US and recently produced the short investigative documentary Wetlands Up In Smoke. Tom graduated Summa Cum Laude from San Francisco State University with a self-designed degree in Mind/Body Studies, is a Certified Massage Therapist and has a Permaculture Design Certificate. Drawing from years of experience as the director of the Canyon After School Program and Clever Scamp Summer Camp, as well as a rich background in theatrical performance and storytelling, he brings his playful creativity to environmental and political causes and actions.