Charles Baldridge

I am hoping to receive your vote to continue serving as a member of the Onion River Co-op Board of Directors. Over six years of my board service I served on the hiring committee that hired and welcomed John Tashiro as our general manager and I have been treasurer during the process of opening the South End store. I love the city market community and hope to make it stronger.

With another three-year term, I will continue to help ensure the overall mission of ORC and City Market, our “ends,” being achieved through policy governance. I will continue to serve our members directly by guiding City Market’s thoughtful and stable growth and ensuring healthy, quality food is available in our stores at competitive prices; and indirectly by enhancing the local food system, supporting local nonprofits, and investing in our local and regional economy.

Please describe any professional skills you have that will help you to be an effective Board Member. How would you help the Board to balance the business needs of a $50 million business with the need to meet our Global Ends as a community-owned cooperative?

City Market is lucky to have an excellent general manager and operational staff that handle the day-to-day operations in the stores and at the organizational level. As board members, our responsibility is working with the management team to set long term vision and direction, and to ensure that the operations team is delivering on those goals.

In that environment, my deep familiarity with financial statements (e.g., balance sheets, profit and loss statements) is important. I listen carefully and make thoughtful decisions that represent the members’ wishes. I use the policy governance structure to stand up for decisions that are best for our members and community. With a grocery and tech background, I can ask deep questions and bring new ways of looking at opportunities within the store and the industry.  

Describe your prior involvement with community organizations and/or cooperatives. What did you learn from these experiences?

Even before serving on the City Market board of directors, I lived in housing cooperatives and have been a member of City Market and other coops. I love the idea and model of member ownership, democratic control, and policy governance that define most cooperative organizations. In the years I've been on the City Market board, I have been inspired by our members’ participation and wonderful ideas and actions. I've learned to use policy governance to make an organization stronger and board of directors more functional.

Over the last 6 years, I have met with board members, general managers and staff from other local and national cooperatives at conferences and workshops. This has given me the chance to recognize and share City Market's national cooperative leadership. I have incorporated ideas from other co-ops that have already gone through expansions or member loan campaigns into our programs.

What opportunities and challenges do you see in the future of City Market?

It has been an exciting time at City Market. The South End store is exceeding sales expectations and the co-op continues to have record sales. In reality, expansion puts stress and debt on our balance sheet. It will be several years before we regain profitability. Over the next several years, it will be important to make tough but thoughtful decisions. We’ll choose which opportunities to pursue now and which to pause and pursue in the future.

Opening the South End store has increased our membership and our operational flexibility. We can now offer more community classes, enhanced catering and make a bigger impact with existing programs like Rally for Change, Food For All and our member worker hours in the community. Our experience with expansion and the recent member loan campaign mean we have valuable lessons to share with the broader cooperative community. As we look farther into the future, there are opportunities to continue growing our community and to bring good food to new neighborhoods.

Click here to view Charles's resume!