Author

Andrea Cumpston is Director of Communications and Marketing for the National Cooperative Business Association

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"446","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 114px; height: 152px; float: right;"}}]]Micha Josephy is CFNE's Program Manager, with varied responsibilities, including grant writing, communications and networking. He first joined the co-op movement as a member of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, in Oberlin, OH, and later coordinated the development of Boston Community Cooperative’s first housing development, Seed Pod Co-op, in Dorchester, MA.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"442","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 119px; float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;"}}]]Peter Frank is supporting a variety of cooperative efforts locally, regionally, and nationally. He is on the board of a food co-op start-up in Philadelphia, a co-founder of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, and has been working with the Cooperation Works! - Urban Circle to promote and support cooperative development in urban communities. As Advocacy Coordinator, Peter is working to support passage of the National Cooperative Development Act.   

 

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"420","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"297","style":"width: 133px; height: 154px; float: right; margin-left: 12px; margin-right: 12px;","width":"258"}}]]Charles Gould has been Director General of the Interco-operative Alliance since 2010. The world’s largest nongovernmental organization, the ICA unites, represents and services all cooperatives sectors in the world. The organization raises awareness, advocates policy, maintains best practices and provide technical assistance. Prior to his appointment at ICA, Gould was CEO of Volunteers of America a health care, housing and human services organized based in Washington, DC.

Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo got her start in the worker cooperative movement in 2003 when she was elected to fill a vacancy on the Eastern Coordinating Council, the board of the Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy, eastern regional worker cooperative organization, where she served for nine years.  A year after joining the ECC, Ajowa went on to become a founding board member of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives in 2004 where she participated for eight years. She has also served as Chair of the Democracy at Work Institute and trained with the Democracy at Work Network.  She has also served on the boards of NASCO and NASCO Development Services, and the Ujamaa Collective in Pittsburgh.  She had cofounded the Ella Jo Baker Intentionally Community Cooperative in Washington DC in 2002 and lived in that community for eight years, serving as its Secretary and Treasurer for most of her stay. Ajowa joined GEO in 2005 as a co-editor. She has a master's degree in Business Administration and in Community Economic Development, both from Southern New Hampshire University.  She also earned a degree in Mass Media Arts from the University of the District of Columbia.  She traveled to Mondragon in 2011 and continues to do cooperative organizing in the Washington, D.C. area where she is based. She has a particular interest in internalized superiority and inferiority, and the role of love and spirituality in changing the world.

Jim Schenk, founded Imago www.imagoearth.org, with his wife Eileen, in 1978, where he was director for 28 years, and now works as program coordinator. Jim lives in and is involved in creating Enright Ridge Urban Eco-village www.enrightecovillage.org as a local and national model for sustainable living in our urban areas. He edited the book, What Does God Look Like in an Expanding Universe, which examines how our images of God, life and death influence our relationship with the Earth.  He holds Master’s Degrees in Theology and in Social Work.  He is an adjunct faculty member at The Union Institute and University http://www.myunion.edu/.

Doris Lee was formerly the editor of Asia Monitor Resource Centre, an Asian labor NGO based in Hong Kong where she worked for five years. Before that, she worked for four years in banks doing loan syndications in Asia. She has a Master's degree in International Affairs, completed in 1997, just before settling down in Hong Kong to live. Besides promoting No Chains, she is also closely involved in the domestic worker rights' movement in Hong Kong.

John Murphy is a 40-year radio veteran and community media activist. A continuing focus for his work has been on radio station management, consulting and networking, as well as increasing public access to technology in service to human and community development. John is a Goddard College alumnus — with a BA in media studies and community development and MA from the Socially Responsible Business and Sustainable Communities (SBC) Program. John currently serves as Adjunct Faculty in the Communications Department at Eastern Connecticut State University and is producer of the weekly "Pan American Express' program on WECS Radio. John also co-produces and hosts the community TV program series On the Homefront (560 programs in 15 years). John is also Owner/President of Human Arts Media, a community media consulting and production company. In 2008 he received a State of Connecticut General Assembly Official Citation Award for 30 years of public service in college/community radio. In 2011 John received a Wavy Gravy Basic Human Needs Award from the Seva Foundation for media service to the arts and local communities.

John Murphy: EMail; Web; 860-377-7166

Len Krimerman lives, works, dances, and dreams in rural eastern Connecticut, and has helped build bridges between the many varieties of grassroots democracy over the past five decades. In this, he has invariably been mentored by his amazing GEO colleagues, by the imagination and support of his lifelong partner, Marian Vitali, and by the courageous activism of so many of his students and community partners. Marian and Len are now engaged in helping develop the Windham Hour Exchange, a community barter initiative in and around Willimantic, CT.