Cassandra Meyer
Engineer
A lifelong frequenter of Minneapolis co-ops, I’m a regular shopper at the Franklin store. I support our co-op over alternatives because of Seward’s Ends Statement and the social and environmental values the co-op promotes. I’m grateful for my years serving on the board. I’d love to continue for another term.
As an undergraduate, I double-majored in civil engineering with an environmental focus and American Indian studies with a Dakota language focus; attended graduate school for sustainable design and currently work as an engineer. I’ve worked in immersion settings with preschoolers to grandparents learning different topics while immersed in Dakota. Whether discussing gardening, eating, or composting, food is always a great unifier.
In all my experiences, transparency increased both accountability and credibility. The board’s normalized having more open dialog during meetings, and taken steps to increase connections with owners. As a board we’ve made progress in ways that increases accountability with owners, and there’s always room for improvement.
As a director, I served as treasurer for several years and board president this past year. I pushed for and helped start board listening sessions with owners; helped establish standing comment periods during board meetings; and developed the elections candidate guide based on owners’ requests. I’ve helped work on increasing equity in board policies, specifically how the board conducts business and treatment of staff. I’m on the recently formed Financials Committee. I’ve helped guide us through difficult conversations and decisions, as well as exciting and rejuvenating discussions. The co-op continues to face many challenges and I’m ready to support in every way I can.
Many issues the co-op is grappling with are difficult. Equity, racism, challenging economic markets, continuing impacts from the pandemic. Tackling these things and more, while providing constructive feedback and productive asks of management is not easy. I do my best to bring everything I have to board work, to fully engage in difficult conversations, and keep working towards the vision for Seward.
There’s much we’ve started as a board and so much farther we can go. I’d love to continue being part of that process.