BC Libraries Cooperative Announces New Managing Director

Today, the BC Libraries Cooperative Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Kevin Millsip will become the Co-op’s new Managing Director.

Kevin’s career has focused on building capacity for social change. In 2007, he co-founded Next UP, a national leadership program for young people committed to social and environmental justice. Over the next 11 years, he helped build Next UP and its sister programs into Canada’s largest training network for social and environmental justice leadership. An advocate for public education and access to education as a right for all, Kevin served as a Vancouver School Board Trustee and subsequently worked for the Vancouver School Board as its first Sustainability Coordinator.

In 1998 Kevin co-founded Check Your Head, which has now worked with over 65,000 young people in BC to become involved in justice issues, and in 2004 he co-founded Get Your Vote On – a project to register new voters in BC. For 10 years, Kevin has served as the Board Chair for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – BC Office, and is currently serving as an advisor or board member with the BC Civil Liberties Association, Theatre for Living, Upstream.net, The Centre for Civic Governance and the Small Change Fund. Kevin is also a Dialogue Associate with Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue.

Kevin’s interest in the cooperative movement was fostered as a participant in Vancity’s Bologna Cooperative Studies program, in 2006. From his experience in Bologna he came to feel that cooperative models could, if utilised more fully, go a long way to helping us tackle some of the most pressing issues we face, and help us to build more equitable and sustainable communities overall.

“We are impressed by Kevin’s vision, passion for developing people and organizations, strong background in leadership and government relations, and deep involvement in, and understanding of, the co-operative model,” said Baharak Yousefi, Co-op Board Chair. “I’m really looking forward to meeting the membership, learning about the work and exploring how we can collectively build community infrastructure for members across the country,” said Kevin. Kevin will be based in Vancouver and will start on March 12, 2018.

Media contact:
Baharak Yousefi
BC Libraries Cooperative Board Chair
byousefi@sfu.ca

PDF version of this announcement