Common Ground Co-op Board Members

Bio coming soon!

Ben was born in the piney woods of East Texas. He moved to Chicago and accidentally became an international banker, a career that saw him wearing a suit and tie in the City of London for eight years. He escaped that world and moved to a smallholding outside of a small village in Leicestershire where the locals were never quite sure if he was weird or just American.

Clint has been involved with the co-op since 2000, and has previously served as a Tuesday night coreworker, an outreach liaison at the farmer’s market, a store operations coordinator, a facilitator for coordinator meetings, and a bread baker. Through his role as board chair he hopes to help build a strong and stable future for the co-op, helping to increase the level of empowerment and accountability within our organization in order to create a co-op that can achieve its goals of spreading the joy of good food and cooperation to a larger and more diverse community.

Lisa Bralts-Kelly joined the CGFC board in November 2006 after working on the staff as an Outreach Coordinator for the co-op from March 2005-May 2006. Her family joined the co-op in March of 2005. Lisa describes herself as "a vegetable-growing omnivore!" Her interests in terms of Board work include outreach, fundraising, and marketing, and she would love to see the co-op become an even more important part of our local/regional food system. Lisa currently works for the City of Urbana as an Economic Development Specialist/Market at the Square Director.

Bio coming soon!

Richard has lived in Urbana 1997 when his family joined the co-op almost immediately after arriving in town. Recently he moved to a house with his wife, Barbara; daughter, Annapurna and mother-in-law. He works at home as a primary caretaker for his disabled adult daughter and assists his aged mother-in-law. He also provides administrative support for Barbara’s health business, which focuses on homeopathy. Food co-ops and buying clubs have been the major source of food for Richard since his first introduction to a co-op in 1971, even in Alaska when one was available.

Bio coming soon!