The MadWorC board showing some co-op spirit.
The MadWorC board includes representatives from member cooperatives as well as individual members of MadWorC. The 2026 board is:
Meghan Stern, President (Dane Buy Local)
We are facing some significant social economic and justice concerns as a local community and nation. Until we start looking at how we make and spend money differently and more equitably, we cannot improve and become a more autonomous, thriving, and just economy. I want to be part of this conversation now and in the future and to represent the needs of local business owners."
Adam Chern, Secretary (Union Cab Cooperative)
Adam Chern has been a member/owner of Union Cab since July of 1992. He has primarily been a taxi driver there, but has also spent time dispatching, serving on the Green Team, serving as the at-large member and secretary of the Steering Team, and attending many board and committee meetings.
He has served as Union Cab’s representative to MadWorC for several years.
In addition to taxing driving, Adam operates a snow removal operation with his wife, and is a partner in a real-estate management and development company (Accipiter Properties) which has developed cohousing in Madison. He helped found an artist studio coop that still provides affordable working space for artists, and he does freelance building.
Rebecca Kemble, Treasurer (At-Large Member)
Rebecca Kemble has served on the MadWorC Board for the past 5 years as the representative of the Madison Mutual Aid Network (MAN). While she is no longer on the MAN’s Board she continues serving on the MadWorC Board as an at-large member.
She is a 25 year member of Union Cab of Madison Cooperative, and has served on the boards and in leadership of several national and international cooperative organizations over the past 15 years. She is also a founding member of the Solidarity Economy Principles project, established in 2020 to support individuals and groups in learning rooted in practice, no matter how new or how experienced, in the craft of building solidarity economy movements.
Experience has taught her that a cornerstone of strong social justice movements is local organizing bodies that are led by practitioners. MadWorC is such a group that she feels strongly about supporting as we move into even more tumultuous times.
Steve Herrick (Interpreters’ Cooperative of Madison)
Steve Herrick is the treasurer and former president of the Interpreters’ Co-op of Madison. He has represented the ICM to MadWorC for as long as both organizations have existed, which is almost the same amount of time.
Sue Hessel (PermacultureWorks)
Susan Hessel, MA is a longtime member of Union Cab cooperative and a co-founder of PermacultureWorks Cooperative. She runs darnfarm, an urban permaculture edible landscape demonstration and experimentation homestead. She has completed Facilitator and Trainer training through SoFA (Sociocracy for All). After practicing Nonviolent Communication for more than a decade, she is on a Community Path to certification as a trainer.
Nathaniel Blasco (Isthmus Engineering)
Bio coming soon!
Grant Phipps (At-Large Member - Formally of Tone Madison)
Grant Phipps is an arts journalist and was the inaugural film section editor for Tone Madison, after having contributed to other online publications for more than a decade. He hosted a community radio show for progressive music for three and a half years and currently helps program avant-garde shorts with the Mills Folly Microcinema team at Arts + Literature Laboratory.
Paisley Koch (Community Pharmacy)
Bio coming soon!
Our staff member is PJ Chamberlain.