Ryan Greenwood has eleven years of community, political and union organizing experience. As Executive Director of Progressive Minnesota, Ryan co-founded TakeAction Minnesota, an independent progressive political organization with 10,000 members and 30 organizational affiliates dedicated to economic, social and racial justice.
As Political Director of TakeAction Minnesota Ryan led a program that involved thousands of members in interviewing and selecting candidates for endorsement and then executing the grassroots organizing campaigns to elect them. Ryan conceptualized and lead the reNEW MInnesota Campaign which helped elect the first progressive Governor in Minnesota in 25 years through a transformational, values-first, movement politics campaign that engaged thousands of people in Minnesota with a specific focus on building power with historically disenfranchised communities.
Ryan has extensive experience running field and fundraising canvasses and led week-long political organizing trainings for Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party State House and Senate caucus staff in 2004 and 2006 that won progressive majorities in the state legislature. Ryan has done extensive civic engagement grassroots organizing with Minnesota's Native Nations including the Red Lake and Fond du Lac Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. He also led coalitions that passed Living Wage Ordinances in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
Prior to TakeAction Minnnesota/Progressive Minnesota Ryan worked as an organizer for Progressive Maryland and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE). Ryan was born and raised in the southern Minnesota town of Owatonna - helping form a critical mass of Owatonnans on the Wellstone Action staff.
In addition to his work at Wellstone Action, Ryan is engaged in the campaign for LGBT marriage in Minnesota (and to defeat the anti-marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2012). He is also researching the political infrastructure of the peace and demilitarization movements in America.