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Keynote Speakers
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Eric Bowman
Eric Bowman has been a co-op development specialist for 8 years with the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC). NWCDC provides business development support to new and existing co-ops. NWCDC works in diverse sectors of the economy from homecare worker co-ops to resident-owned manufactured housing communities. Mr. Bowman has co-authored feasibility studies, conducted business analysis, facilitated strategic planning, and provided technical assistance and coaching to boards of directors starting up co-ops. His clients have ranged from ranchers marketing beef to farmers setting up an irrigation co-op. He is also the Board Chair of Tulip, a low-income credit union in Olympia, Washington. This background has provided a unique opportunity to engage with co-ops in operating in a wide variety of economic activities.
Mr. Bowman will speak about how the Great Recession, while a painful restructuring of the global economy, is also providing an amazing opportunity for new co-op business development. People are once again realizing the significance of ownership models and governance. Unlike the investor-driven cycles of boom and bust, businesses organized under the cooperative principles provide a more stable and humane mechanism for economic advancement. He believes co-ops are more relevant and dynamic than ever before and can and should exist in almost any aspect of the economy.
Mr. Bowman will argue that cooperatives are both a business model and a movement. Also, that the paths to deepen the co-op’s role in the American economy rely on increasing the deployment of the Cooperative Principles. For example, co-ops must better facilitate “member economic participation.” And members must remind their co-ops that they are served best when “strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional, and international structures.”
Margaret Lund
Margaret Lund is an independent consultant specializing in the areas of community development finance and shared ownership strategies. Throughout her career, Ms. Lund has worked across cooperative sectors including credit unions, consumer co-ops, housing co-ops, worker co-ops, healthcare, and sustainable food systems. Prior to launching her consulting practice in 2008, Ms. Lund spent 15 years as the Executive Director of the Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund (NCDF), a community loan fund and multi-faceted development organization for cooperatives of all sectors across the Upper Midwest. She was a founder and president of the Northcountry Cooperative Federal Credit Union (NCDFU), a community development credit union and was awarded the Howard K. Bowers Cooperative Service award by the Consumer Cooperative Management Association in 2008. Her current projects include working with Latino and Hmong producers in Minnesota, conducting a national research project on the use of multi-stakeholder cooperatives in home healthcare, and writing a primer on cooperative finance with the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives. She is also an active volunteer for the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives, serving on the board of governors for the federation’s training affiliate.
Ms. Lund is a past member of the board of Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the leading national trade association for Community Development Financial Institutions and also of the National Cooperative Business Association, where she chaired a national task force on cooperative capital formation. Currently, she serves on the board of Health Partners, the largest consumer-governed healthcare organization in the United States, and a leader in healthcare quality measures. Ms. Lund is a nationally recognized expert in the field of cooperative development finance, and has been featured as a speaker, trainer, and panelist for a wide range of organizations including the National Credit Union Administration, the Opportunity Finance Network, the National Association of Housing Cooperatives, the National Cooperative Business Association, the Consumer Cooperative Management Association, the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the Meredith Institute for Resident-Owned Communities, and the Association for Cooperative Educators. In 2000, she received a grant to spend several months studying the cooperative development system in Northern Italy and has since returned twice to continue her studies. These experiences profoundly inform her perspective and her work toward building a cooperative economy in an inclusive and systematic fashion.