We are a member-run organization with a Board of Directors, operating as a sociocracy with guidance from outside advisors.
Meet Our Leadership Team
(in alphabetical order)
Alyssa (she/her) | Service Team Co-Lead
Alyssa is a paper and fiber artist who has been waiting for the right cooperative for 20 years. Passionate about direct action that brings power to the people, she is also a lifelong creative, producing an abundance of collage and assemblage pieces, expanding to embroidery, rug braiding, macrame and jewelry in recent years. Alyssa lives outside of Pittsburgh, PA with her husband, two boys, mom and cat.
Cathy (she/her) | Team Money Co-Lead
Cathy is a creative entrepreneur and connector with a physics degree. She combines her love of nature and interest in science in many of her photographic art and jewelry creations. Her creative business is Eclectic Design Choices. Cathy has worked as a secondary math and science teacher. In addition to her creative endeavors she currently tutors and continues her volunteer work of almost three decades for her city, in various roles, as a member of the City Council.
Elizabeth (she/her) | Interim Board Director & Security Team Lead
Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) is a jack of all trades, master of none at crafting and in life, picking up skills here and there following her neurodivergent brain. She is currently focused on fiber arts; specifically crochet, knitting, and embroidery. She and her husband opened their store in February of 2023 but she has been selling off and on since 2010. You can find her current wares at DragonTree Emporium with more items being added in seasonally.
Erin (she/her) | Interim Board Secretary & People Team Lead
Erin (she/her) found her niche as a full-time potter, of Stella NC Works after 22 years in personnel roles in the US Army and as a third-party corporate recruiter / small business owner. She finds satisfaction in her extremely hands-on process, endless experimental possibilities where science and art intersect, and exploration of natural and human values in her work.
Mastress (they/them) | Elected Board Director & Team Service Co-Lead
Mastress is a grassroots community organizer with the Workers Revolutionary Collective focused on systemically humanizing and liberating themselves and others. As a skilled facilitator, multi-disciplinary artist, healer, teacher, visionary, and warrior of love and truth, Mastress is committed to quitting capitalism and getting free to thrive.
Miya (she/her) | Team Money Co-Lead
Miya Kressin lives in Wisconsin with her husband and three teenage children, drinks a lot of coffee, plays with her two rescue dogs, manifests glitter, collects and makes shiny math rocks (aka dice for TTRPGs), and tries not to spend all day writing and crafting. Find her at Pixie Wolf Publishing.
Olga (she/her) | Interim Board President & Data Team Lead
Olga is a data nerd studying worker cooperatives by day and a hatmaker by night! She loves sewing almost anything but specializes in 5 and 6 panel hats in her shop, Bean Bros Handmade.
Rhi (they/them) | Email Marketing
Rhi aspires to make positive changes to the world and has been a passionate member of many political and people-driven movements since they were a teenager. Growing up Wiccan taught them to love the dirt beneath your feet which inspired them to create Honeysuckle Witches Brew - a business that brings healthy self-love to any who enjoy their teas. When they aren’t at local markets painting children’s faces, they can be found furiously drawing new sticker designs with their pets.
Thera (she/her) | Interim Board Director & Tech Team Lead
Miss Thera is an Educator, Artist and Playwright as well as a passionate neurodiversity advocate. Her shop Atypically Artistic is her safe place to express herself freely without the confines of neurotypical expectations. She is also a Marketing and Communications Director and Consultant and loves the creativity that goes into communicating beyond words. She has worked with multiple non-profits over the past decade as an administrator and board director and is thrilled to be bringing her experience and knowledge to the team.
Advisors
Danny Spitzberg | Exit to Community Collective (he/him).
Danny leads user experience research for a cooperative economy. He has been lead researcher at ownership conversion collective Exit to Community, staffing co-op Turning Basin Labs, and digital services co-op CoLab. Find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium.
Greg Brodsky and the Entire Team at Start.coop
As a member of the Spring 2023 Accelerator funded by the AARP Foundation, we are grateful for the advice, mentorship, and resources of Start.coop and the nine other cooperatives in our accelerator cohort.
Natalia ("Nati") Linares (she/her) | Art.coop
Nati is a communications and culture organizer based in Salt Lake City, Utah and originally from New York City. Coming to the world of solidarity economy after a decade plus working in the live music industry, she spent 6 years learning and supporting the solidarity economy movement in the United States while at the New Economy Coalition, a network of over 150 groups prefiguring post-capitalist solutions. In 2021, she co-authored "Solidarity Not Charity: Arts & Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy," for Grantmakers in the Arts, which chronicles artists' role in economic justice organizing throughout history and pushes funders to consider making large investments in artists today who are organizing themselves to address the root issues of our system failure. Since then, she co-founded and has been part of an ecosystem of artists and organizers building Art.coop, a future hub for artists making the solidarity economy and systems change irresistible - in the ways they live and what they create - so that they are connected, get resourced and strengthen their communities. Learn more about her at: www.conrazon.me
Shavon Prophet | ICA Group (she/her)
Shavon is the Program Director for MassCEO and an Employee Ownership Advocate at ICA Group, the oldest US national organization dedicated to the development of worker cooperatives. Find her on LinkedIn and the ICA Group.
USFWC Co-op Clinic
As a start-up member of the US Federation of Worker Co-ops and a participant in the Co-op Clinic funded by the USDA, we are grateful for the advice, mentorship, and resources of the clinic’s advisors.
Valerie (she/her) | Founder, Former Interim Board Treasurer, Artisan Member
Valerie was one of the original founders of Artisans Cooperative, which evolved from her work on the #EtsyStrike. She has over 20 years professional experience as a non-profit director, event planner, project manager for multi-million dollar renewable energy projects, and most importantly, 14 years running an artisan business as one-half of the husband-and-wife leathercrafting business, Walnut Studiolo. She is also a freelance writer. Find her on Medium or LinkedIn.
Zia Dione | Trunk of My Car (she/her)
Founder – Trunk of My Car Cooperative; Maryland licensed attorney; MFA student at Pacific University; Writer; Nature Whisperer; a Soul Whose Intentions are Good…