Lisa Stolarski, National Cooperative Business Association

Lisa Stolarski is the Executive Director of the Co-ops USA Center at National Cooperative Business Association. The Co-ops USA Center is a technical education center serving cooperative organizations and development practitioners in the United States. Lisa’s expertise is in community economic development, cooperative development and cooperative education. She holds a Master’s of Science degree from Southern New Hampshire University’s School of Community Economic Development where she specialized in Cooperative Development. She is currently Chair of the Urban Circle of Cooperation Works, the professional association for cooperative development practitioners. The Urban Circle has co-written a bill that is currently before Congress entitled HR 3367, the National Cooperative Development Act of 2011. Before landing at NCBA Lisa was a cooperative development consultant with Keystone Development Center, a nonprofit cooperative development consulting firm serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. At KDC she helped to develop consumer food co-ops and farm co-ops. Lisa is also the founder of Jane Street Housekeeping Cooperative Corporation, a worker-owned cooperative and is past Board President of the East End Food Co-op in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. At East End Food Co-op Lisa was the producing editor of A Discussion Course on Cooperatives, a manual for community self-directed education on cooperatives. A Discussion Course on Cooperatives won an ACE Award in 2008 from the Association of Cooperative Educators for “best new co-op curriculum.”