Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman
“2015 is truly a booming co-op year”, according to Jessica Pooley of the Cooperative Development Institute, a group whose mission is “to build a cooperative economy through the creation and development of successful cooperative enterprises and networks in diverse communities” in the Northeast. On this edition of the WERU News Report Jessica Pooley and 2 of her colleagues at CDI- Rob Brown and Jonah Fertig — are joining us to talk about projects they are working on, ranging from resident-owned housing to worker-owned businesses, as well as the recently introduced LD1300 “An Act To Create and Sustain Jobs through Development of Cooperatives” If you’ve ever wonder if your business or residential community could become a coop, these are the experts who can answer your questions.
Jessica Pooley is the Housing Program Organizer under CDI’s New England Resident Owned Communites (“NEROC”) Program in Maine.
Rob Brown is the Director of CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) program, which works with business owners to help them consider whether conversion to a co-op would meet their needs, and with employees and community members to facilitate conversions to worker and/or community-owned cooperatives.
Jonah Fertig is a cooperative developer with CDI in their rural cooperative services program.