Our Board
Mark A. Anderson
Mark Anderson, currently with the Wessel Group Inc., has more than 30 years of experience working in the U.S. labor movement on a wide range of international, economic policy and collective bargaining issues. Most recently, Anderson held elected leadership positions at the Food and Allied Service Trades Department (FAST), AFL-CIO, a coalition of unions representing some 3.5 million workers. He began his union career as a construction worker out of Laborer’s Local Union 230 in Hartford, Connecticut.
Kevin Ristau
Kevin Ristau is education director of Minnesota’s JOBS NOW Coalition, which is the oldest and largest employment policy coalition of its kind in the nation. He is the principal writer and editor of JOBS NOW’s pioneering “Cost of Living in Minnesota” series. In the 1980s, Ristau was education director for the League of Rural Voters. Between 1973 and 1984, he farmed in southern Minnesota.
John Thorson
John Thorson serves as the Political Representative for AFSCME Council 5, AFL-CIO, advocating for tax, local government and health care issues for a union of 40,000 state, university, local government and health care workers throughout Minnesota. Thorson serves as a board member of Progressive Minnesota, a community-based non-profit coalition focused on issues affecting immigrant and low-income communities. He has served on the board of the Selby Avenue Community Development Corporation (St. Paul) and the St. Paul neighborhood network, overseeing community-access television.
