About Working Together Solutions

Working Together Solutions is a consulting firm specializing in co-operatives. While any consulting group can assist your business, Working Together Solutions's mission is to enable co-operatives to learn to manage their enterprise in the spirit of the http://www.ica.coop/principlesStatement of Co-operative Identity. If co-ops simply mimic their investor-owned competitors, then they will lose the competitive advantage of community or worker ownership.

John McNamara is the principle of Working Together Solutions. He has earned a Masters in Management: Co-operative and Credit Unions degree from St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and is a Democracy at Work Network (DAWN) certified Peer Advisor. John has been a member of Union Cab of Madison Co-operative (a worker co-operative) since November of 1988. In his time at Union Cab, he has served as President (fours years), Vice-President (one year), Director (eight years), Marketing Manager (eleven years) and currently serves at the General Manager. He presided over the Strategic Planning Committee for eight years. John also served on the board of the US Federation of Worker Co-operatives for four years (three of them as president) and currently serves on the Board of Governors for DAWN and the Northcountry Co-operative Development Fund. John's strengths include social auditing, marketing, strategic planning, governance, and human resources but is also knowledgeable about finance and equity management.

John currently studies at St. Mary's University and is working towards a PhD in Business Administration. He also works as a research assistant for St. Mary's University and in the US representative for the Co-op Index Tool project. The Coop Index Tool is a measurement tool developed by St. Mary's University to measure worker co-operatives against the Worker Co-operative Identity as defined by the ICA Statement on Co-operative Identity and the Mondragon Principles.