After 26 Years with CURA, Mike Greco Leaves a Legacy of Community Partnership

After 26 years at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), Mike Greco is leaving behind more than a successful Resilient Communities Project (RCP). His work helped connect Minnesota communities with University of Minnesota students and researchers, creating partnerships that continue to shape local governments across the state.

Greco came to CURA after becoming disillusioned with academia.

"I was looking for a job and honestly, I soured a bit on academia," he said. "I didn't feel like most of what I saw being taught had particular relevance to the world."

While in graduate school, Greco worked as an editor to help make ends meet and believed those skills would help him land an editing job at CURA. Once he arrived, he found the center's community-based approach to research aligned with what he had been missing.

"CURA brings a very unique perspective to the research because of the community-based focus of the work," he said. "Not all of it is done in the same way across the programs, but I think the bottom line is we all are working on behalf of and in partnership with community organizations or agencies."

When Greco joined CURA, the organization had little communications infrastructure.

"When I came to CURA, there was no website," he said. "So I just taught myself HTML. And there really was no communications plan. CURA was much more a collection of individual programs."

One of Greco's early contributions was creating The CURA Reporter, a publication highlighting faculty research projects funded by the center.

"I loved working on The Reporter," he said. "It was a great way to meet a lot of faculty at the university, which came in really handy when I started doing program work."

The Impact of RCP

Working at CURA inspired Greco to pursue a degree in urban planning. 

“I don’t know that I would have gone back to school to get an urban planning degree,” he said.

He later joined Resilient Growth Options, a McKnight Foundation-funded initiative aimed at curbing metropolitan sprawl. After the housing market crash shifted community priorities, the initiative evolved into what is now the Resilient Communities Project.

“Mike built RCP from the ground up,” said Stina Kielsmeier-Cook, the program coordinator for the RCP. “I admire how he created an infrastructure to connect so many local government partners to courses at the University. He made sure projects ran smoothly. The administrative genius Mike brought to RCP is foundational to its success and reputation over the years.”

Since Greco co-founded RCP in 2012, the program has collaborated with 70 different local government partners and communities across the state on 230 locally identified projects, and engaged more than 2,700 students and 150 faculty from 50 different academic departments and disciplines at the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses to participate in these projects.

The original RCP model paired one community with University faculty and students for a year-long partnership. The City of Brooklyn Park became an early long-term partner in 2016-2017, generating 24 projects that were matched with 47 courses spanning 21 academic departments at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Duluth campuses, engaging more than 250 students. Almost half of the projects were focused on the City's goal of adapting to changing demographics.

"We conducted focus groups with recent immigrant communities to better understand their experiences and recommended changes to the registration system for ball fields," Greco said.

One project examined why newer immigrant communities were underusing city parks. Student researchers conducted focus groups and recommended changes to the city's reservation system for athletic fields. Those recommendations were later implemented.

The research also revealed that the immigrant communities were really interested in nature based play in the parks, which was an up and coming concept at the time. RCP students designed a number of courses and specific concepts to introduce nature based play into some of the existing parks which are implemented today in Brooklyn Park.

“I think a lot of the work that RCP does is focused on that implementation piece, moving from research to action,” Greco reflected. 

RCP also influenced local government beyond municipal parks and helped create a job and generate new partnerships. Ramsey County wanted to evaluate its climate strategy and how it could better partner with cities in the county to help support their climate work. The student team recommended creating a centralized climate leadership position before expanding partnerships with cities. The county later created the position.

"That position ended up happening as a result of the student report," Greco said.

The Ramsey County lead on the project successfully lobbied the County Administration to add another staff position. 

“That person subsequently came to Ramsey County and then partnered with us again on some climate work. And now she works at the Metropolitan Council, and just this last year, we had additional projects with her on climate resilience that are region wide,” Greco said.  

A Font of Institutional Knowledge

After more than two decades at CURA, Greco believes CURA’s willingness to experiment as been one of its greatest strengths. 

“It’s the willingness to be a hub for innovation and experimentation,” he said. “Some projects grow into something larger, while others don’t. CURA has always been willing to provide seed funding for good ideas and see where they lead. And if it doesn’t work, then we will try something else.”

During Greco's tenure, hundreds of projects passed through the center. Some eventually became independent organizations or university initiatives, a model he said has contributed to CURA's longevity. He pointed to the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, which began as a CURA project before becoming an independent organization.

Greco also helped to launch Empowering Small Minnesota Communities (ESMC), a sister program at the university that helps cities with fewer than 15,000 residents plan sustainable, resilient infrastructure projects that support energy efficiency, flood mitigation, and rural development.

CURA Director Ed Goetz said that Greco's relationships with community partners strengthened the center's work.

"He was always looking for ways to improve the program, and he was professional and utterly reliable," Goetz said. 

Retirement won't mean slowing down. Greco plans to spend more time with his wife on the couple's 35-acre property, where much of his time is currently devoted to removing buckthorn.

"I'm thinking of getting certified as a Master Gardener," he said.

And isn’t that just like Mike Greco, helping things grow in his sphere of influence. As he steps into retirement, RCP looks forward to building on this incredible foundation.