Beatriz Ordaz
Voces de Nashville, Southern Regional Representative, elected 2022 – 2024 term
I am the Membership Director and Spanish Teacher at Voces de Nashville cooperative. I am originally from Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. I was an accountant in my country. I came to Nashville in 2007. I have worked in different types of jobs in Nashville including housekeeping, construction site cleaning, office cleaning, selling food from home. I am a woman with the desire to help our community in whatever way I can. If I don't have the solution to what is required at that time, I share the information so that someone else can help. I am a loyal admirer of all women because I can see that each and every one of us has special talents which are worthy of admiration. I really enjoy spending time with my family. I believe that family is the basis of everything. If we are all well, things and life will flow better. In my spare time I work in my garden, I love flowers and I enjoy growing vegetables and fruits.
Emmanuel Pardilla
NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives, At-Large Director, Elected 2021 – 2023 term
Emmanuel is a communist, vegan, writer and the son of black poor-working class Dominican immigrants that found their way to the US after enduring years of dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. He is a volunteer tenant organizer with a grassroots mass organization known as the South Bronx Tenants Movement where he organizes Black & Brown tenants in his neighborhood of Mott Haven. Being involved in a range organizing fights throughout the years has shaped and molded his worldview and commitment to social change. He graduated with his Master in Labor studies from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. And in his free time, you’ll find him either riding his bike around or out of the city, or chilling at the Uptown Veg juice bar drinking a random natural juice with a lot of ginger.
Lucha Luisa Silva, Vice Treasurer
E-Quality Homecare Co-op, At-Large Representative, elected 2021 – 2023 term
Marina Maldonado
Boston Cleaning Collective, At-Large Director, Elected 2021 – 2023 term
Marina is the founder, first member, and President of her worker co-op. She is originally from El Salvador and currently lives in Boston. She enjoys being part of a strong community of friends and is active in the anti-eviction organization City Life/Vida Urbana. She is involved in the movement of immigrants in Massachusetts fighting for the right to access drivers licences with Movimiento Cosecha. She is a seamstress and worked in a sewing factory before starting the Boston Cleaning Collective.
Hilary Johnson
Nexus Community Partners, At-Large Director, re-elected 2021-2023 term
Araceli Dominguez
Brightly Port Richmond Cooperative, Eastern Regional Representative, elected 2020 – 2022 term
Araceli is a founding member of Brightly Port Richmond cooperative, where she serves in the finance committee. She is on the board of Cooportunity, the first cleaning cooperative franchise in New York, and is also a founding member of Up & Go cooperative, a digital cooperative platform where cleaning service reservations are made online. Araceli is from the state of Mexico and migrated to New York at the age of 23 in search of opportunities. She loves her origins and arrived with many aspirations and dreams, some already realized, and others are yet to be fulfill. She studied nursing at the Faculty of Higher Studies Zaragoza UNAM, Mexico, and she spent 5 years working in the carpentry industry. She has been in the cleaning industry for more than 20 years. She has two teen-age daughters and her life partner present with her. She is proud of the family she has formed, not the best or the perfect family, but a family that is unique and important to her. She is proud of what her cooperative family and hopes to continue growing in the movement and contribute as much as she has to offer to the cooperative world and beyond.
Anna Boyer
C4 Tech and Design, Southern Regional Representative, re-elected 2020 – 2022 term
Anna Boyer is a worker-owner of C4 Tech & Design, an employee-owned, democratically managed cooperative in New Orleans, Louisiana that provides web design, IT, and computer repair services to local residents, small to medium sized businesses, and non-profits. Anna joined C4 Tech & Design in 2008. In 2011, she joined the board of directors of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives as the Southern regional representative, and has also served as the board Secretary and Treasurer. Prior to working at C4, Anna has worked as a movie theater concession salesperson, mail clerk, landscape maintainer, conservation biologist, insurance consultant, union steward, and telephone system programmer.
Esther Julia West, Vice President
MadWorC (Boardmember/member), UW Center for Cooperatives, Northern Regional Representative, elected 2020 – 2022 term
Imrana Soofi
Worcester Roots, Eastern Regional Representative, elected 2019 –2020
Tori Kuper
New Economy Coalition / Cooperation Buffalo, At-Large Rep 2019 –2020
Flequer Vera
Sustainergy, Northern Regional Representative, elected 2018 – 2020 term
Flequer Vera is founder and CEO of Sustainergy Cooperative in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Maria Alexandra Garcia
Regional Director - East, 2018
Caracol Language Cooperative, Worker Cooperative | Cooperativa de Trabajadorxs
Daniella Preisler
Home Green Home, At-Large Representative, elected 2017 –2019 term
Maru Bautista
Center for Family Life, At-Large Director, elected for 2017 –2019 term
Pablo Benson-Silva
New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives, At-Large Director, Elected 2017 – 2019 term
Pablo Benson-Silva is Director of Membership and Communications at the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYC NOWC), the trade association of worker-owned business in the New York metropolitan area and the local affiliate of the USFWC. Born and raised in San Juan Puerto Rico, he moved to the New York City more than a decade ago. He is also a partner at Movement Netlab, a cooperatively governed think-do-learn tank on network social movements. He studied Sociology at theUniversity of Puerto Rico and at the New School for Social Research and more than occasionally dabbles in teaching.
Mai Nguyen
At Large Director, elected 2017 – 2019 term
Mai Nguyen owns and operates an organic farm and is a former Cooperative Development Specialist with the California Center for Cooperative Development. They specialize in agricultural and worker cooperatives, and primarily work with immigrant and small-scale farmers to create cooperative alternatives to the conventional food economy. Previously, Nguyen actively participated in housing cooperatives and co-founded the Toronto Sustainable Food Cooperative, which operated Harvest Noon Café. Nguyen’s other professional experience has been in climate research, waste management, and refugee resettlement.
David Morgan
TESA Collective (MA), Eastern Regional Rep, elected 2016 – 2018 term
David Morgan has long been involved with social movements—from public space activism to anti-poverty work—that make use of the kind of everyday democracy that was at the core of his former work at the Toolbox for Education and Social Action. His background is in cultural organizing, as co-founder of the Groundswell Collective, a group of artists/activists who produced and researched critical cultural works, and as a committee member the HONK! Festival of activist street bands for more than five years. After graduating from Hampshire College, he focused on nonprofit communications work with such groups as the Boston-based housing rights organization City Life/VidaUrbana before becoming involved with the worker cooperative movement. David also sits on the boardof the Data Commons Cooperative.
Dana Curtis
Key Figures, At-Large Director, re-elected for 2015 – 2017 term
Dana Curtis is a native Texan and one of the founding members of the Workers’ Assembly at Black Star Co-op Pub and Brewery where she began working in January of 2010, overseeing the membership and investment campaign which brought the Co-op from a dream to reality. Currently sheis the Business Team Leader. Dana attended the University of Texas at Dallas where she studied Literature and Philosophy before attending graduate school at Texas Woman’s University. She taught undergraduate Women’s Studies at Texas Woman’s University before leaving academia to join the labor movement as a union organizer. Dana has committed her life to social justice and strongly believes in the transformative power of the cooperative model.
Vanessa Bransburg
Center for Family Life, Brooklyn, NY, At-Large, elected 2013
Cami Thomas
At Large Director
Julius Jones
Rebecca Kemble
Union Cab Cooperative, Madison, WI
Becca Koganer
Equal Exchange, West Bridgewater, MA
Damon Terrell
Union Cab Co-op (WI), Northern Regional Rep
Damon grew up in Madison Wisconsin. He is passionate about learning and community building. Damon is primarily interested in cooperativism as an approach to securing freedom and sovereignty for the people. He is happiest with family and friends, playing games, eating too much food, dancing, and telling stories.
Max Pérez
Nikki Marín Baena
Cooperation Texas (TX)
Molly Hemstreet
Opportunity Threads (NC)
Ellen Mickle
Equal Exchange (OR)
Michael Girkout
Alvarado Street Bakery (CA)
David Smathers Moore, WAGES Cooperative (CA)
Ben Mauer, Quilted (MA)
Ole Olson
Inaugural Board of Directors
More than one hundred worker owners from around the country met in Minneapolis May 24-26, 2004 to found the first United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives and Democratic Workplaces. Read more about the founding of the USFWC at geo.coop.
Regional Representatives
- Lori Burge of People's Co-op in Portland, OR (West)
- Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, based in Washington, DC and a member of the GEO collective (East)
- Bob Cahill of Arise Bookstore & Resource Center in Minneapolis, MN (North)
- Alice Murphy of Blue Moon Café in Asheville, NC (South)
At-Large Representatives
- Brahm Ahmadi, People's Grocery in Oakland, CA
- Kirsten Marshall, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco and the Western Worker Cooperative Conference
- Omar Freilla of Green Worker Cooperatives in the Bronx, NY
- Tom Pierson of Seward Community Café and the Center for Prosperity in Minneapolis, MN
- Ajamu Nangwaya of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, based in Epes, AL.