A Conversation with Gregg Richardson, HPC Board Member

—by Kjersti Hanneman, HPC Member

KH: How long have you been an HPC member?

GR: Nearly eighteen years. I believe we joined in the fall of 1988.

KH: How did you get involved in the co-op?

GR: We had belonged to Bloomingfoods Co-op in Bloomington, Indiana, when I was a graduate student there in the early 1980s. We were very happy to find a thriving co-op community in the Twin Cities when we arrived.

KH: How long have you been a board member?

GR: I am in my third year on the board.

KH: What are your current committee assignments?

GR: This year, I am on Long-Range Planning, Board Development, and Membership. I am also a board co-chair this year.

KH: Do you have family in town?

GR: Well, we’re emptying our nest. My wife, Beth Richardson, is a RE/MAX realtor. Our daughter, Hillary, graduated from Earlham College last spring and moved to Chicago to work, and our son, Emory, (who worked as a storekeeper and cashier at the co-op last year) is in his freshman year at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

KH: What is your current neighborhood?

GR: We’ve lived a block from the co-op on Hampden Park since 1989.

KH: What is your occupation (or previous occupations)?

GR: From 1988 to 2002, I was an academic librarian at the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota, developing collections in biological sciences, food science and nutrition, and rhetoric, coordinating reference, doing library instruction, and coordinating reference services the last several years I was there. I decided to take some time off to rethink my career; and four years later, I am a (more than) full-time volunteer, serving on the St. Anthony Park Community Council and other community and church organizations, taking care of a couple of rental properties we own in the neighborhood, and doing bookkeeping for my wife’s business. I think I’m just too busy to get a job....

KH: Where did you grow up?

GR: I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Hoosier, born (literally) on the banks of the Wabash, far away, where my family has been since the 1820s.

KH: What are your hobbies and interests?

GR: I’m a pretty competent amateur classical pianist, dabbling in composing and musicology. I have been the cook in our home for 20 years and especially enjoy making homemade pickles, everything from bread-and-butters, to fermented dills, to sauerkraut. I’m a serious gardener, growing heirloom tomatoes, among other things. I’m also a voracious reader—of history, philosophy, theology, science, and poetry. Each summer, I also get to indulge my enjoyment of history and baseball simultaneously, when I don a black frock coat and stovepipe hat, as the umpire of the Quicksteps, a vintage baseball club that recreates the game of baseball as it was played in 1862.

KH: Tell me about your most interesting travels.

GR: I wish I had more time and money for travel. Probably my favorite trip in the past 20 years was revisiting, when my kids were young, my own childhood vacation in South Dakota. The Black Hills are a wonderful combination of the most beautiful and the most tacky America has to offer.

KH: What is your favorite thing about the co-op?

GR: It’s personal and local. I know the staff, I’ve met a number of the producers, I meet friends and neighbors every time I visit, and I can walk to it. It’s what community and sustainability is all about.

KH: What is your favorite experience at the co-op?

GR: A couple of years ago, a woman with a toddler got to the check-out to buy lunch, then discovered she’d forgotten her wallet. The man in line behind her told her, “Never mind, lunch is on me.” She was a little chagrined, and offered to arrange to repay him, and he said, “Don’t worry about it, somebody did the same thing for me a couple of years ago. You’ll get your chance someday. Just pass it on.” Can you picture that happening at Rainbow?

KH: What is your favorite “treat” from the co-op?

GR: Cedar Summit mint chocolate chip ice cream. Winter and summer both.

KH: What is your favorite restaurant in the metro area?

GR: The Signature Cafe, hidden on a residential street in Prospect Park and run by a couple of former Wellstone staffers, is really excellent. They use a lot of local meat and produce. I also highly recommend Palestinian carryout from Abu Nader, at the corner of Raymond and Como.

KH: What is your favorite meal to cook?

GR: I don’t actually cook it, it’s raw—gazpacho! I have a very authentic Spanish recipe (verified by a friend who lived in Spain for eight years), and every summer I wait for my first ripe tomatoes to make my first batch. It’s also my favorite snack on a hot August night.

KH: Is there anything else HPC readers should know

about you?

GR: No, they should just use their imaginations. That’s always more interesting than reality...