Home Our Staff and Board

Our Staff

Margaret McDonald
Executive Director

Margaret McDonald has a proven track record in business as a trailblazing leader focused on market development and building long-term brand equity. Her experiences span working with highly recognized international brands to owning her own business Let’s Cook in NE Minneapolis.

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She was the President of the NE Business Association and worked with other business leaders to create the NE Dog Parade, annual fundraiser for the 2nd Precinct Police substation and establishing the “I Love NE” brand. Margaret believes that collaboration, creativity, diversity, and integrity makes for a highly successful and dynamic organization.

She is a graduate of St. Benedict’s University (BA) and University of St. Thomas (MBA). Margaret lives with her husband Kirk and their feline companions Fiona & Seymour at Riverwest. When not working she loves cooking & entertaining, eating and drinking her way through any city or country, visiting bonus daughter in NYC, spending time with family and friends and spoiling her nieces and nephews to the concern of her siblings.

Mary Texidor
Member and Business Services Administrator

Mary Texidor joined Mill City Commons with a background in public health education and social work. Mary worked in the nonprofit, government, and private sectors before moving to the Minneapolis area and joining MCC.

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Mary is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, former AmeriCorps Member, and actively volunteers for several local organizations, including as a Good Neighbor Team Member with Arrive Ministries to a newly-arrived refugee family and as a host family with Together for Good.

Mary has her Master's degrees in Public Health and Social Work from Tulane University. She lives in South Minneapolis with her husband and their two children, where they enjoy daily walks with their dog along the Minnehaha Creek and frequent outings to parks and outdoor activities.

Jane Stacy
Program and Events Manager

Jane Stacy has over 14 years of experience as an event and meeting manager. During that time, she has planned everything from multi-venue business meetings to galas and fundraising walks for a variety of non-profits, including the Girl Scouts.

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She believes that bringing people together through events creates a sense of community and collaboration in which participants work towards a shared vision and mission. Prior to MCC, Jane was the event director for the Scleroderma Foundation.

Jane has a Bachelor’s degree in English from Augsburg University and just completed her Project Management certification from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Maple Grove with her husband and their two pets. Jane loves decorating and is always looking for new ideas to update their house and garden.

Our Board of Directors

Chris Bray
Board Chair

Chris Bray grew up in North Minneapolis, moved out of the state and overseas for a time and returned to Minnesota to raise two daughters who now live in Asheville N.C and Denver CO.

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After living in a semi-rural eastern suburb for many years and losing her husband, she decided to move back to Minneapolis and east downtown in particular because of Mill City Commons and the close proximity to trails for walking, biking, and skiing.

Chris is a licensed psychologist by training and currently employed at UMN. Prior to joining the U, she spent many years working in the juvenile and adult corrections system at the county and state level. At the U, she works in children’s mental health, child trauma, and establishing a statewide system of care for children and youth with the most complex mental health issues.

David Plimpton
Vice Chair

David Plimpton, a retired Internist/Gastroenterologist, is a native Minnesotan who grew up in the Wayzata/Plymouth area and graduated high school from the Blake School.

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As an undergraduate he attended Yale College, then graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelors of Science in Premed/History and from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1966; followed by a 1 year Internship at the University of West Virginia, and a 3 year Internal Medicine Residency at The Mayo Clinic.

After two years in the US Army as an internist, including a year in a 300 bed Evacuation Hospital on Long Binh Post in the Republic of Viet Nam (1970-1971), he returned to Minneapolis to complete a 2 year Gastroenterology Fellowship at the University of Minnesota and Affiliated Hospitals (Minneapolis VA Hospital) followed by a 40 year career in private practice and on the Medical Staff of Abbott-Northwestern Hospital which included medical staff leadership roles including two years as Chair of the Department of Medicine.

In 1977 he and Susan Batchelder, who had recently moved from Boston to Minneapolis to work in Marketing at General Mills, were married. Susan continued to pursue a full-time professional career while they raised two sons, one of whom lives in London, UK, and one in Minneapolis.

Following retirement at age 72, his interests have included: travel, conversations, helping individuals complete their Advance Health Care Directives, End-of Life issues including patient autonomy and supporting legislation to legally allow Minnesotans, who are terminally ill and suffering, to access Medical Aid in Dying and end their suffering, and socialization provided through Mill City Commons (since 2010).

John Gendler
Treasurer

Although born in an obscure town in Iowa (Hawarden), John Gendler moved to Albert Lea at age 3 and believes he is one of us, knowing that weather is a topic of conversation every day of the year.

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John graduated from Carleton College— where he met his wife, Janet—-and Cornell University Law School. He spent 6 years in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, where he worked in the less-publicized Welfare and Civil Divisions. John was in private practice for the last 35+ years of his career, where he spent almost all his time negotiating the value of large buildings—offices, apartments, warehouses, retail--with assessors.

He has been very active in fundraising for Carleton for many years, being co-chair of the Gift Committee for a number of Reunions. Recently he has been involved with the Facilities Committee at Loring Green East, where he and Janet moved in 2014. They have two children and three grandchildren. John and Janet like to travel, having been to all seven continents. They try to spend some part of the winter in Hawaii, and like to visit the grandchildren in California any time of year. A long time fan of sports, especially baseball, John thinks baseball was much more fun to watch when the game was played more quickly.

Katie Searl
Secretary

In 2009, Katie Searl and her husband Ken decided to sell their Wayzata home and embark on a new adventure by moving downtown.

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Neighbors and members of MCC gently prodded them to join Mill City Commons and it was the very best thing they could have done. Katie loves how MCC has made it feel like a real neighborhood; she can’t walk down the street without seeing a friendly face.

Katie spent two decades volunteering at Mia, beginning with The Antique Show and Sale. She co-chaired the Antique Show, served as president of the Decorative Arts Council, co-chaired Art in Bloom twice, held numerous positions on The Friends board and from 2009 – 2011, she served as president of The Friends. She has also served on The Cowles Center board and the board of The Minnetonka Art Center. Katie enjoys creating botanical art, especially drawing. One of her watercolors of a dahlia named in honor of the Friends 100 year celebration is included in the book “Friends for 100 Years: A Lasting Legacy."

Mill City Commons has been an important part of her life and she would like to see it continue to thrive and contribute to the vibrancy of the community.

Keith Halperin
Immediate Past Chair

Keith Halperin is currently a Senior Partner for Korn Ferry Leadership Advisory business, thinking about retiring but not there yet.

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Keith has been designing and conducting programs to enhance leadership skills in managers and executives worldwide for three decades.

In addition, he designs leadership development systems for organizations as well as coaches individual executives and leadership teams. He has worked with senior leaders in a broad range of industries. Prior to Korn Ferry, Keith was the Senior Vice President of PDI Ninth House and the human resource planning and development manager for Honeywell.

He has served on the boards of directors for Instructional Systems Association, the Illusion Theater, Mill City Commons, and on the Governing Committee of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Keith has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas. He teaches a leadership and strategy to graduate students, and Industrial Organizational Psychology to undergraduates.

He enjoys running, biking, theater, orchestra, and travel. He has successfully not run a marathon.

JoAnn Boraas

JoAnn Boraas grew up on a farm in western Minnesota. After high school in Appleton, MN (not WI!), she attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, graduating with degrees in Biology and Religion.

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Following the recommendation of her boss/mentor at Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, she pursued a career in dentistry, attending the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry for both her DDS and MS degrees, specializing in Pediatric Dentistry.

JoAnn had her own private practice in Richfield, MN, for 25 years. Since retirement she has provided volunteer pediatric dental care internationally in Uganda, Belize and Peru. She has volunteered with and served on the Board of Directors of Ready, Set, Smile, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit offering preventive dental care to underserved children through the public school system. JoAnn also served on the City of Richfield’s Friendship City Commission, helping to solidify the relationship with residents of Heredia, Costa Rica.

Renaissance on the River has been JoAnn’s home since 2018. She loves travel (to almost anywhere), improving her Norwegian and Spanish, movies and live music, and promoting “green living.” A goal to participate in Hennepin County’s Master Recycler/Composter program was fulfilled in 2022, and she is now a Community Recycling Ambassador.

Kathleen Campbell

Kathleen Campbell is a small-town-Wisconsin Norwegian Taurus enjoying life in downtown Minneapolis with husband Paul.

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Mill City Commons is a big part of our social life, and it also supplies educational opportunities and ways to learn about our wonderful Twin Cities. We enjoy musical performances at Orchestra Hall and other places and try to attend every offering at the Guthrie and Latte Da theaters. Traveling remains a focus and sometimes it involves trains!

Work life included both business and academia, including a final rewarding career experience at the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota, where Kathleen still volunteers. Westminster Presbyterian Church is a major commitment. With a winter home in Phoenix, the Campbells miss many great MCC activities during the winter, but we stay connected whenever possible, through Zoom and visits back to Minneapolis.

Chuck Myers

Chuck moved in 2023 from New Mexico after the death of his wife to be close to his son and his family. His daughter-in-law made him aware of Mill City Commons as a way to meet people and become engaged in life in Minneapolis. This has been an effective strategy and he is enjoying the many interesting people he is meeting.

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He grew up in Pittsburgh and has lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Princeton, New Jersey, Washington DC, Lawrence KS, Chicago, and Albuquerque, NM. As you can see he is semi-nomadic. He has a law degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; his undergraduate degree is from Penn State.

He has two children, Dan, who is a political scientist specializing in political psychology and communications, on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, and Maggie, who works in the tech industry from the Gulf coast of Mississippi. Thus he has a place to go when the temps here get too low. As a side note, his daughter is in Mississippi because her husband, John Winters, an historian who specializes in American history and public history, was able to get that extraordinarily rare job, a tenure track job in the humanities. His talented daughter can do her specialty anywhere. His son and his wife, Michelle Phelps, who is a sociologist at the University of Minnesota and an expert on policing, managed to score appointments at the same, excellent school, also a rare achievement. His children, their spouses, and his grandchildren are the center of his life.

His first (adult) job was as a legislative assistant to U.S Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania. After law school he practiced law in Pittsburgh and Washington DC. He worked for the Department of Justice in DC and (in private practice) represented the steel industry in international trade cases. After leaving the practice of law to follow his wife as she pursued her career as an Art Historian, he obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science and started a new career in scholarly book publishing while working on my dissertation. He was an acquisitions editor and manager at several university presses including Princeton and Chicago, for nearly thirty years, publishing nonfiction books on politics and law for both scholarly and public audiences. He completed his retirement in March of 2023.

He is interested in politics and public affairs and in improving communications in these areas. As a manager he has focused on communications between management and staff as well as public communications about the work of organizations that he has been associated with.

Bruce Pankonin

Bruce Pankonin was raised in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul, and was trained as a city planner.

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In 2010 he moved to the North Loop. In 2014 he was introduced to Mill City Commons and he joined the organization in that year. In 2019, after experiencing a medical setback, he discovered the “heart and soul” of Mill City Commons when many members of the Men’s Coffee and Conversation group visited him in various rehab centers and in his home. Their acts of kindness, humor and acute sense of caring helped him recover and focus on what is truly important at this stage of his life. Kindness is contagious and it is incumbent upon him to help others whenever he can. Thank you, Mill City Commons.

Susan Plimpton

Susan was born in Connecticut but has barely lived there as her family of origin moved a lot while she was growing up. She graduated from high school in Indianapolis, Indiana and then headed to Wellesley College outside of Boston for her undergraduate education.

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She lived in San Francisco for two years following college and then headed back East to Vermont to enroll in a Master of International Management program which included 3 month terms in Tanzania, Italy and Washington, DC as well as Vermont. Upon completing the degree, she took a job with the Institute of International Education in NYC for 3 years and then pivoted to a business career getting an MBA from Harvard University and moving to Minneapolis to work in Marketing for General Mills. She continued to work in food marketing at Green Giant and Pillsbury and then transitioned to financial services at American Express Financial Services. She retired in 2000 and has focused her energies on international education, exchange and development as a Board member of World Learning, Freedom from Hunger, Global MN and Round Earth Media. Travel, especially international travel and experiencing other cultures, feeds her soul.

She was fortunate enough to be introduced to David after she moved to MN and they were married in 1977. They have 2 sons, 1 living in London, UK and the other in Minneapolis. They live in the Stone Arch Lofts, our 6th move together, which has been easy for her but harder for her husband David. Their 6th move was motivated by being part of Mill City Commons and they very much value the friends and experiences they have had being part of it.

Bob Rinek

Bob Rinek is a managing director of Piper Sandler Merchant Banking and a member of the general partner. Bob has worked in the financial services and investment banking industry for more than 40 years.

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Prior to Bob’s current role, he established the firm’s financial institutions group (“FIG”) in the late 1980s and served as global group head of FIG until December 2007. He is also a former board member of Piper Sandler Ventures. Bob joined Piper Sandler in 1982 and was previously with the Northern Trust Company and ITT Financial Corporation. Bob has served on the board of, or held board observation responsibility for, the following portfolio companies: Infinicept, Graylog, Clinicient, PerfectServe, Harvest Power, LogRhythm, Lattice Engines, GutCheck and Living Proof. Over the course of his career, Bob has served on the boards of many for profit and nonprofit organizations, including RxFunction, Twin Cities Public Television, Heller Hurwicz Economics Institute, The Minnesota Council on Economic Education and The Science Museum of Minnesota. Bob graduated from Denison University and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He also holds the Certified Management Accountant (CMA®) professional designation. Bob and his wife Marcy moved to the Mill District from Edina in 2017 after raising their two sons. They currently reside at Eleven on the River and enjoy the close proximity to the River, Gold Medal Park and Westminster Presbyterian Church. They enjoy Mill City Commons and its focus on fellowship, education and making Minneapolis a great place to live.

Hal Schroer

Hal Schroer grew up on a farm in Indiana, was educated as a Chemical Engineer, and came to work for Pillsbury in 1973, where he developed new products and improved organizational processes.

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In retirement, Hal collaborates with others on systemic issues concerning “Aging in Community” and “Systemic Racism”. Hal is especially interested in “helping others find their voice”.

Hal is an active father and grandparent, and he lived for many years in Golden Valley. After his wife died and his youngest daughter moved into her own home, Hal moved downtown in 2019 to live at Stonebridge Lofts. Hal joined MCC in 2020 and enjoys the vibrant community.

Ghita Worcester

When Ghita retired recently as UCare’s Executive VP, Public Affairs and Chief Growth Officer, she had been a nationally respected leader within Minnesota’s and the nation’s health care and nonprofit arenas for over 40 years.

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She provided leadership for professional associations working to improve quality health care in Minnesota and nationally. She also oversaw UCare’s federal and state health care reform efforts and policy formulation related to national and state health policy issues.

At UCare, she provided leadership and strategic direction for several areas including Marketing and Communications, Sales, Provider Relations, Business Development and Public Relations. Prior to UCare, Ghita worked with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota, where she worked closely with the Minneapolis low-income and diverse communities.

Ghita is known as a consensus builder whose coalitions influenced public and organizational policies, particularly on behalf of disadvantaged communities. Ghita also touched people at the human level, always assuring that her teams met with and listened to the communities they were privileged to serve. While at UCare, the organization was recognized for its innovation in the programs and services developed and maintained by national quality organizations as well as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Upon her retirement announcement, Ghita was recognized by the City of Minneapolis for a “Ghita Worcester Day” and by the Walz administration for her tireless work to support Minnesota’s health care systems and at-risk populations.

Following retirement, Ghita is sitting on the Boards of Portico Healthnet as Vice-Chair, Global Health Alliance (a program supporting Somali residents to improve health outcomes and produce necessary equipment to the East African communities which are lacking quality neonatal equipment today), Temple Israel Foundation and St. David’s Center along with her recent appointment to the Mill City Commons Board including participation on their Program Committee. She has worked recently as an outside consultant to the Hennepin County Birth Justice Coalition, with efforts to reduce the low birth outcomes for our Black and Native American babies in our community. Ghita volunteers her time at the Hoyo Food business, where she assists in the business growth for this Somali focused food processing company, bringing jobs to low-income women and men, along with tasty Sambusa and sauce products now served across the school systems in Minnesota and sold in local co-ops. The build-out of a new kitchen facility in the Midtown Global Market will be a focus on Ghita’s time in the future.

Ghita and her husband Mark, play key roles in organizing co-sponsorships of two Afghan families, supported by a number of the residents of LaRive condominium and Mark keeps Ghita engaged in his work with a group supporting our asylum seekers coming to the Twin Cities area with an inter-faith organization. Ghita also assures that she finds time as a loving mentor and role model to five lucky grandchildren.

Mill City Commons is an important aspect to Mark and Ghita’s community engagement. She is especially proud of the work of the Program Committee with development of the Vital Aging Program. Her hope is to help to build a vibrant and empowering program model that will be valued by current and future MCC members.

“I am 92 and my wife is 89. We joined when MCC was first formed – about 15 years ago. MCC has been providing us with great opportunities to meet people and make new friendships. The programs have been great and have added so much to our life downtown. Overall, we are very pleased with what MCC has provided.”

-Bud H., member since 2009