Team

Mike Lewis is well known in Canada and internationally as a practitioner, author, educator, and leader in the field of CED and the social economy. His experience cuts across the full range of functions connected to community renewal and development. He has built and advised a wide range of businesses, organizations and governments all over Canada and internationally as well. An innovator, activist and thinker with a penchant for linking practice with policy and the micro and macro, Mike’s leadership in CCCR and elsewhere continues to help us connect the dots and stay ahead of the curve. Contact Mike. Read his resume.

A teacher by training and in spirit, Michelle Colussi has an extensive background in rural and small town revitalization and multi-stakeholder facilitation and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She was team leader in the development of the Community Resilience Manual (2000), a tool that has been adapted for use around the world, and is now co-ordinating a revised edition that will make the process relevant to communities tested by peak oil and climate change. Michelle is a certified facilitator of the “Training for Transition” workshop and is very active in building the Transition Town network in Canada. Contact Michelle. Read her resume.

Ethel Côté is CCCR’s staff specialist in social enterprise. Over the last 30 years she has assisted the development of numerous co-operatives in a variety of sectors, including agricultural, agrifood, housing and childcare. She supported capacity building missions in Mali, Niger, Senegal and Morocco and is deeply involved in the International Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS). In addition to teaching college and university, Ethel has mentored hundreds of communities and social entrepreneurs, is a member of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, and founding member of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada. Contact Ethel. Read her resume.

Stuart Wulff is the co-ordinator of the BC-Alberta Social Economy Research Alliance (BALTA). He has worked for almost 30 years in the management of educational and advocacy coalitions concerned with international development, human rights, environment, and community economic development. An important aspect of this work has been the building of links between organizations and communities in Canada and their partners overseas, including Indigenous Peoples' organizations. Stuart also brings to CCCR the skills of a magazine editor (Tok Blong Pasifik, an international magazine on Pacific issues) and television associate producer (P.O. Box Africa, a community development series set in Africa). Contact Stuart. Read his resume.

Denis Dunn has a passion for local and regional economic development. Through diverse work experiences worldwide, Denis has developed a range of skills to match that passion: sector research and analysis; project planning and management; documentation, communication, and liaison; and negotiation, organizing, and networking. He has acquired particular expertise in the creation of support programs for community-based business, including entrepreneurship, financial services, and human resource and export development. Denis is comfortable in challenging, multicultural environments and renowned for his style of participative people management, good humour, patience, and persistence. Contact Denis. Read his resume.

Dr. Stewart Perry is a CCCR staff associate, and long active in community economic development (CED) in the U.S. and Canada as both a policy adviser and a designer and manager of CED institutions. As head of the (U.S.) Center for Community Economic Development, he helped create the first finance institution for CED, the Massachusetts Community Development Finance Authority. He helped start Canada's first community development corporation, New Dawn Enterprises, and in the years 1988-1993 headed the Community Economic Development Center in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. A consultant, researcher, and author, Stewart currently specializes in community and development finance. Contact Stewart. Read his resume.