Sherman Kreiner
Managing Director, University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation.
Last Contribution:
The Wealth of Cities
Contributor Biography
Mr. Kreiner has been a community economic development practitioner for 30 years. His work has focused on enterprise creation, including worker cooperatives and social enterprises, in low-income inner-city communities. He currently manages the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation (UWCRC), the development arm of the University of Winnipeg.
UWCRC has implemented a comprehensive campus/community, including four LEED Silver facilities: 1) a student and community residence, with housing for low income Aboriginal and refugee families; 2) a day care centre; 3) a University science complex and environment college, including the Centre for Indigenous Science Education, which incorporates traditional Aboriginal knowledge into science education and the Model School of Science for inner-city children; 4) a contemporary art gallery and business school. UWCRC, in partnership with a community based economic development organization (SEED Winnipeg), also created a new University food service called Diversity Food Services offering local, organic and ethnically diverse foods, while employing new Canadian and Aboriginal workers.
He also founded a non-profit enterprise development corporation focused on Winnipeg’s low-income communities, and serves on its board and the board of one of its successful social enterprises, Inner City Developments Inc. – a housing renovation company employing individuals from Winnipeg’s inner city Aboriginal communities.
He served on the Prime Minister’s External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, which focused on a long-term vision of cities and communities that are economically, socially, environmentally, and culturally sustainable. The committee’s report, “From Restless Communities to Resilient Places: Building a Stronger Future for All Canadians” was published in June, 2006.
Previously, he undertook replication initiatives for Cooperative Home Care Associates, a South Bronx worker cooperative, employing 1,000 African American and Latina women, and created similar enterprises in Philadelphia and Boston.
He also led a Philadelphia-based initiative to create a network of worker owned supermarkets to save 2000 jobs lost when a supermarket chain closed. For that work, he was recognized by Esquire magazine as one of the “People Under Forty Who Are Changing the Nation.” An authority on employee ownership, he has written and lectured extensively throughout North America.
He is a graduate of Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
