Mike LaFave is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC), a community-based non-profit economic development organization that works in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. Mr. LaFave oversees entrepreneur training, small business lending, consulting and real estate activities at NDC and works closely with the NDC’s Chief Financial Officer on budgeting and financial planning. Prior to assuming that role, Mr. LaFave was NDC’s Director of Real Estate Development, where spearheaded the redevelopment of the “Old Swedish Bank Building”, a 14,000 sq.ft. commercial building on the East Side of Saint Paul, and was a key member of the development team driving the development of the Midtown Global Market, a 70,000 sq.ft. public marketplace in South Minneapolis. Before joining NDC in 2005, Mike spent five years as a Program Officer for the Twin Cities office of the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) where he provided technical assistance to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) pursuing real estate development and underwrote over $3.5 million of investments in housing and commercial real estate development projects. Mike has a Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a law degree from the University of Minnesota’s Law School. He also has a B.A. in African American Studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Arthur Ray McCoy: I have enjoyed combining my love of the education environment, particularly higher education, with my commitment to equity and diversity. Both have shaped my choices about work and volunteering. My employment background includes serving working adult students as interim vice president for student affairs and associate vice president for student affairs at Metropolitan State University and students preparing for legal careers as dean of students at the St. Thomas School of Law and Hamline University School of Law. I have also served as executive assistant to the president of Hamline University, staff attorney with Education Minnesota, equity advocate for the Inter Faculty Organization, associate attorney with the law firm of Gordon Miller & O’Brien, director of minority programs and assistant professor of labor studies at the Pennsylvania State University. All of these activities have kept me consistently involved in advancing equity, diversity and affirmative action in higher education for more than three decades. I consider myself a life long learner and student and look forward to sharing my enthusiasm for learning with others.