Board Member Profile: Matt Hass

-by Anne Holzman

A shopper’s first glimpse of Matt Hass is likely to be around the corners of a box of vegetables, from behind which he might be calling instructions to a volunteer, answering a customer’s question, or exchanging quips with a passing acquaintance.

Assistant manager and produce manager Hass serves as Hampden Park Coop staff representative on the board of directors, a post he’s held for three years.

He shares with other managers the day-to-day buying, selling, recordkeeping, and coordinating of volunteers that keep the store running.

Hass grew up in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, where he didn’t have any co-op experience but did work in a grocery store during high school.

He came to the Twin Cities for college, studying microbiology at the University of Minnesota. “I had shopped at North Country Co-op when I was in college,” he said. He moved to Seattle, then came back, settling in St. Anthony Park in 2002 with his partner, Melissa Williams. Hass had accepted a university research position.

They soon discovered the co-op grocery just a few blocks away. “I liked the small feel of it,” he said. “And it was close, convenient.”

“Through the spring of 2005 we were shoppers, we weren’t members,” Hass continued. “Then we became members and started volunteering.”

Just as they became active in the co-op, Hass said, he was laid off from his job and decided not to pursue another research position. When manager Kathy Vaughan invited him to apply for a position at the co-op, he recalled his high school job in the grocery store and realized he’d enjoyed it.

He got the co-op job, starting off closing the store and cleaning up. When he added produce to his responsibilities, “that was something that was really exciting for me,” he said. “You always have new items. You can always display them different ways.” He liked being out on the floor, interacting with customers.

So in summer 2008, he took over produce management from General Manager Helen DuFault. “In the past year, my focus has been produce,” Hass said.

He works with the co-op’s two main distributors plus a few local growers, placing and receiving orders, setting up specials, making sure every piece of paper and computer file goes where it needs to go—and above all, making sure the displays stay fresh and inviting.

He also continues to coordinate volunteers as part of his weekly duties.

And the job keeps growing. “Now that we’re into the summer, I’m the point person for the CSAs (community supported agriculture businesses) that are always being dropped” at the store, he said.

Williams, his partner, has continued volunteering and also served on staff, working in the deli. She recently completed a Ph.D. in American Studies and found a job, Hass said. She also serves as the board’s recording secretary.

HPC isn’t the only neighborhood organization to have discovered Hass’s talents for managing both people and information.

In 2008, as the HPC board was moving quickly toward expansion and building ownership, Hass was also reading reams of studies and attending meetings about the Rock-Tenn company’s plans for a new energy source, as he served on a citizens’ advisory panel.

He’s also an alternate for Karlyn Eckman on the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization board.

And he serves as an elected representative on the city’s District 12 Council, St. Anthony Park Community Council, in which capacity he could recently be seen parading in a grass skirt with the council’s contingent in the St. Anthony Park Fourth of July Parade.

Perhaps as something of an understatement, Hass made the Community Council’s 2009 “Local Heroes” list.

Meanwhile, DuFault is retiring from her position as general manager, and so Hass’s job has grown again as he, Vaughan, and Marcia Hanson form an interim management team. “For the short term, we’re basically keeping the ship steady—picking up everything Helen was doing and making sure we’re on the same page about that,” Hass said of his new role.

While the board searches for a general manager, he said, “We’re not going to be doing any big changes. We’re more along the lines of stewards.”

[After a series of interviews with HPC board members, Anne Holzman, freelance writer and mom-at-home, has decided she should stop complaining about being too busy.]