Luke is a writer, organizer and lifelong Spokanite who has spent his career telling stories, building community and working to make the region more just and livable for all of our neighbors. He is the founder of RANGE, a worker-owned newsroom, and co-founder of the Spokane Workers Cooperative, a holding company designed to scale cooperative ownership as efficiently as possible. He is the co-founder of the arts nonprofit, Terrain, and a founding board member of Feast World Kitchen, an incubator that helps immigrants and former refugees start food businesses. He founded Fellow, Spokane's first coworking space, and helped launch Treatment in 2015, a branding and storytelling studio, which he and his partner sold to its employees in 2022.

Brian is a principled and high-integrity builder of extremely impactful teams with over 15 years of leadership experience in technology solutions. He excels in high growth early stage companies and situations requiring creative leadership. He has demonstrated expertise in hiring and scaling teams across product strategy, engineering, marketing and operations, and has successfully built two multibillion dollar businesses. Brian is passionate about developing diverse talent.

As a WACEO steering committee member, Cindy is participating in the evolution of business thinking that promotes thriving communities. Supporting business and community ecosystems grounded in meaningful assumptions like local ownership are essential to building regional capacity in times of change. She is a student of Regenerative theory and practice, applied in professional development, business and life.

Andrew Cline is a leadership and organization-development consultant, coach, trainer and mediator.

Based in the Pacific Northwest and working worldwide, Andrew helps individuals and teams develop their ability to lead and work collaboratively. Leading with empathy, candidness and authenticity, he brings a calm and focused demeanor to the issues, solutions and processes of organization development.

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Chris Cooper is the Director of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) at Kent State University. In his 20-plus years at the OEOC, he has done almost everything at one point or another, but now focuses primarily on ownership culture education and coordinating Ohio’s Employee-Owned Network; working with business owners on succession planning and sales to employees; and business development and employee-owned start-ups.

He was formerly a contributor on the COSE Mind spring website (an online resource for small business in NE Ohio), the Small Business Advocacy Blog of the Small Business Advocacy Council (Chicago), and formerly to Slate.com’s now-defunct BizBox small business blog. In 2010, Chris was designated a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) from  the Exit Planning Institute (EPI).

Chris is also active in the Center’s training programs on employee ownership, developing and implementing the OEOC’s numerous training modules and programs. He has been a featured speaker at conferences and programs across the US as well as Bermuda, Canada, and the UK, and co-written numerous articles and book chapters on employee ownership and business succession planning. Prior to joining the Center, he was a substitute teacher with the Kent City Schools; worked at SEIU Local 47 in Cleveland, OH; and is a graduate of Kent State’s Political Science program.

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After owning and operating A-1 Builders (now A1DesignBuild), a local, design/build, Sub-S, contracting corporation for 43 years, it is the transformation of the company into a worker-owned cooperative that tops Rick’s sense of personal and community accomplishments. In retirement now, nothing surpasses his joy in observing the employee owners thrive and evolve as a team so active in building responsibly and promoting community and environmental well-being. Rick is driven to help other aging business owners embrace employee ownership as their preferred exit strategy into their next phase of life.

John is the Co-Executive Director of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center which he joined in 2014. John has 26 years of practical experience in the worker cooperative world with Union Cab of Madison. John holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and a Masters in Management: Cooperative and Credit Unions from Saint Mary’s University (Halifax) and teaches in the Master’s program as part-time faculty. He co-edited a collection of essays titled Co-operatives for Sustainable Communities (2015) with a chapter on Social Auditing and wrote a chapter in Humanistic Governance in Democratic Organizations (2022). John serves on the Washington Employee Ownership Commission and the Executive Committees of the Union-Coops Council and Policy & Advocacy Council of the US Federation of Worker.

Fred Miller is retired from a career in sales and marketing and numerous volunteer and community causes. His enthusiasm for employee ownership began while he was on the board of the Whatcom Community Foundation, and he continues to evangelize the benefits of EO in both Washington and Arizona.

Shawn is a founding member and current board president of A1DesignBuild, a worker cooperative dedicated to sustainable, high-quality residential construction. As part of the core development team, Shawn played a key role in the organization’s bold transition to a worker-owned cooperative model in 2017 — a story he remains passionate about sharing to inspire others in the industry.

With over 25 years in the residential building industry and a degree in Building Construction Technology, Shawn combines deep field expertise with a commitment to ethical business practices and collaborative ownership. A Certified Passive House Builder, he brings a focus on energy-efficient, high-performance building to every project, while championing a more inclusive and resilient model for the future of construction.

Michael partners with nonprofit organizations and donors to achieve their philanthropic goals through endowments, supporting organizations, and fiscal sponsorships. His personal philanthropic interests and passions include social justice, undoing racism and oppression, youth development, health and wellness, and the environment.

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Michael brings years of high-level professional service experience and over 2 years of leading a dynamic and successful community foundation to his work at Seattle Foundation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Montana. During his free time, you can find him volunteering, in one of the nearby mountain ranges, coaching soccer, or trying his hand at woodworking.