Board Member Profile: Michael McKenna

—by Anne Holzman

While he nudges his fledgling law practice toward flight, Michael McKenna has been working to get Hampden Park Co-op settled on ever more solid legal ground.

He’s a member of the co-op board and also of the separate 928 Raymond, LLC, (Limited Liability Company) that has formed over the past two years to purchase and manage the co-op’s building. And he chairs the co-op board’s long-range planning committee.

“I’ve documented about 20 hours a week” in co-op work, McKenna said in early March. McKenna brings to the board a background in management—in the entertainment industry (he lived near Las Vegas for a while) and also as a nonprofit board member.

While living in Milwaukee, he was a member of Outpost food co-op, and he served on the Sierra Club’s local board, then on Wisconsin’s state Sierra Club board. Additionally, he said, “I have a finely honed legal mind forged at Hamline University School of Law, or at least that is what my academic coach told me was happening to get me through to graduation.”

When he moved to the Twin Cities a few years ago for law school, he found Hampden Park Co-op nearby and joined.

“It wasn’t until this year that I felt I had the time (to serve on the board) and that I was feeling committed to staying in the Twin Cities.”

He did eke out time to participate in the co-op’s Master Planning Committee during the building purchase process, he said. “We have some good ideas and plans for the building and the co-op and I want to help develop them further,” McKenna said of his move onto the board. “I want to see the ideas take root and start to grow.”

He said the 928 Raymond, LLC, (named for the co-op’s address and form of incorporation) consists of two board members and two representatives from general membership. The LLC “will release a document shortly” to guide long-range planning.

McKenna finds time for other areas of activism, including recent participation in a movement toward “land permanence for urban agriculture.” He said he met up with other interested individuals at a McKnight Foundation gathering. “There’s no real official name yet,” he said, but the group continues to pursue ideas.

He said he is also hooked up with local Transition Town efforts to plan for sustainable communities as energy sources shift.

In his newly formed practice, McKenna Law Office, he is exploring “negotiation, mediation, environmental law, small business development with an emphasis on food production and urban agriculture.”

McKenna said his favorite meal is breakfast, which is often an omelet with some combination of onions, mushrooms, and garlic topped with barbecue sauce or salsa. “My philosophy about cooking is that if you have good ingredients, you can’t mess it up,” he said. He confessed to watching a lot of television, sometimes catching “Top Chef” as well as favorite dramas including “House” and “NCIS.”

McKenna lives in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood and often bikes to the co-op. He spoke hopefully about plans to improve bike access between the two neighborhoods, especially an alternative to University Avenue crossing the tracks that Amtrak uses. He noted that Charles Street shows up in some long-range plans with a track crossing for bikes.

Some of his favorite foods to bike home with are “Angie’s Kettle Corn, and the dark-chocolate-covered raisins. I eat them by the bag full,” he said. “Alden’s chocolate chip ice cream might last a day, maybe two, in my house.

“Then I usually rotate through all the chocolate bars we stock,” McKenna continued. “The darker, the better. After that I try to buy local products. And chocolate.”

[Anne Holzman likes interviewing HPC board members because it makes her appreciate how hard other people work to keep food on her table.]