Karl Baumgardner
Back in 1996 when Quint was developing the Neighbourhood Home Ownership Program, securing mortgage financing was a key ingredient. Karl was a board member of St. Mary’s Credit Union when we asked them if they would provide mortgages for 5 of the first 10 houses in our Program.
Financial institutions are generally very risk averse but Karl could clearly see that Quint’s Neighbourhood Home Ownership Program would benefit the community – despite it being an unproven affordable housing program delivered by a relatively new organization.
Karl was the key person on the St. Mary’s Credit Union Board that advocated for support of our Program and to provide the financing. As a result, St. Mary’s was the first credit union in Saskatoon to provide financing for Quint’s Neighbourhood Home Ownership Program.
Over the years, Karl has sat on various local and national co-op and credit union boards and in his many capacities, has always been a supporter of, and advocated for Quint.
In more recent years, Karl actively supported the development of Station 20 West and the Good Food Junction Co-op grocery store. He sat on the Board of the GFJ Co-op and was instrumental in helping get the store open in Saskatoon’s core neighbourhoods.
Chris Broten
Chris Broten has been a key early friend of Quint. In his role as a senior public servant, Chris did much to assist in the start of Quint and many of its programs. At that time, Chris was Regional Director of the province’s New Careers Corporation.
The list of Chris’ contributions to Quint is long! Back at the very beginning, in February 1995, he attended the 2 day workshop held where the decision was made to go ahead and establish a CED organization. In 1996, New Careers was able to provide funding to Quint so we could hire our first staff.
New Careers also provided a journeyman carpenter and financial grants to hire trainees to renovate houses when Quint first started the Neighbourhood Home Ownership Program.
When New Careers Corporation was shut down, Chris continued his support by ensuring that some of their tools and equipment was given to Quint. This resulted in enough tools to completely supply our shop and also included a couple of used trucks.
Then, in his new role as Regional Director of Canada Saskatchewan Career and Employment Services, Chris helped Quint fund its Support for Small Business training program beginning in 1999.
In 2001, CanSask also started funding our Core Neighbourhoods at work Program. CNAW’s employment and training services started small but has grown into one of Quint’s major programs. CanSask also became one of three government agencies who agreed to provide operational funding to the Male Youth Lodge when it opened in 2002.
Anne Hardy
Through her law office, Anne provided legal services for Quint’s Housing Co-op when they started buying their first houses – something Anne did for us at at a very reduced rate. During this pilot year, Anne developed agreements between the Housing Co-op, Quint, and Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, as well as agreements between the housing Co-ops and the co-op members. All of these agreements were later used by SHC for their NHOP program province wide.
After the pilot year of the Neighbourhood Home Ownership Program, we also asked Anne to review a lengthy master mortgage agreement that Saskatoon Credit Union had developed for financing future housing co-ops.
This involved a number of meetings with credit union officials and several rewrites. During this period, we continually asked Anne to send us an invoice for her work but one never came. She finally told us that she was not planning to charge us for her work.
Ann joined Quint’s Board in 2000, serving as treasurer from 2001 to 2013 and taking on the treasurer’s duties again this year. Quint’s board has benefitted greatly from Anne’s significant legal and financial skills.
Don Kossick
Don has been a strong friend and ally to Quint for many years — first joining Quint’s Board in 2002 and serving until 2011. Don’s community experience and strategic organizing skills helped move us forward and maneuver the challenges of doing development work in communities.
Don provided many linkages for Quint to many different sectors, including: The U of S Health Sciences colleges; the IICUSP program; Station 20 West; the labour movement in Saskatchewan and nationally; the international development community; and communities in Mozambique.
Don also sat on the founding board of Station 20 West Development Corp. –– being very instrumental in helping make S20W a reality.
Even though he left the Quint board, Don maintains close contact and continues to walk along side and actively supports Quint’s work.
He continues to sits on the Board of the Community First Development Fund of Saskatoon, which works closely with Quint to help finance our CED work.
