Ted Meinhover

Selamat Datang! Ni Hao! Hola! Greetings!

Ted Meinhover is currently a Project Manager for the CLUSA International programs at the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA). He is working with development projects in Africa, South East Asia especially Idonesia, and Latin America, using the cooperative model to improve the lives of people in a sustainable, democracy enhancing way. Prior to his career in Washington, Ted was the Managing News Editor for the Asian American Press, a weekly newspaper catering the Asian American community in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul, MN metro region.

Ted received his education at the University of Minnesota, where he studied in the Institute for Global Studies and the School of Communication and Journalism, graduating from the Honors program magna cum laude. The University provided opportunities to study, live and work in South East Asia, including a year in Penang, Malaysia as an exchange student at USM, a semester in Kunming, China to study Mandarin at Yunnan University, and 8 months in Indonesia studying Bahasa Indonesia at BIPA UI and working with local and international cooperative organizations. The Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship funded a six month internship at the Bangkok-based Asian Forum for Human Rights in the summer of 2005, where he worked on Civil Society and Tsunami recovery projects. In post-tsunami Aceh, Indonesia, for example, Ted participated in an effort to enhance the region’s civil society involvement in the historic peace process that ended the 30 year civil war between the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia.

Ted’s languages include Bahasa Indonesia/ Malaysia, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.

Growing up in rural Perham, MN, Ted was part of a hard working, values based, caring and competitive community. A family that nurtured an expansive world view and a culture of creativity supplemented these small town roots, instilling both a loyalty to home and community and the desire to discover for himself what lay beyond the horizon. The tight-knit community and vibrant Mainstreet also instilled a deep respect for civil society’s role in a free and prosperous country. Mentors and activities at the University and experiences overseas made clear the absolute necessity of a strong civil society to breed the world of social justice and equality towards which Ted hopes to work each day.

Ted’s unique constellation of capabilities combines his education and real world experiences, making him a valuable asset to any organization or business. Foreign language, technological proficiency, and professional writing skills make Ted a capable communicator. Broad knowledge and a depth of experience makes him highly adaptable, granting an intuitive ability to operate in new situations and overcome challenges in unknown cultures. Experience as a leader and organizer, his work with non profit organizations, and involvement in cooperatives and other development projects gives Ted a working knowledge of social empowerment and the importance of civil society. He understands the real world incentives and disincentives that drive progress socially, economically, politically, etc in his own community and around the world.

This capabilities driven portfolio points to Ted’s role as a change agent and his commitment to overcoming challenges and pursuing goals in innovative ways. A new era requires visionary thinking and new techniques to address both persistent and novel problems.

Projects of note in Ted’s portfolio at NCBA include developing cooperative associations of organic coffee farmers in Indonesia, village level cooperative health clinics in rural Kenya, and grass roots organizing in Mozambique, Ghana and Nicaragua to advocate for cooperative legislation reform. The NCBA is based in Washington, DC, and was founded in 1916 to develop and advocate for coops and to educate about the virtues of the cooperative model. The organization began using the cooperative model model to implement international development activities in 1944.

Ted can be reached by email at tedericco@gmail.com

Ted was featured in the Spring 2007 University of Minnesota Honors Newsletter. Read about Ted