Salvador Gonzalez is a community organizer, cooperative developer, and social entrepreneur with roots that stem from Denver's West Colfax neighborhood. With involvement over many years in nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and social justice campaigns organizing for food justice, food access, and food sovereignty.

He is the Employee Ownership Director with the Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center where he serves businesses across Colorado with a focus on rural communities. He is a small business owner and launched Villa Novus Orchard, co-founder and board member of Food Justice NW Aurora, co-founder of Project Protect Food System Workers, and board member of the Colorado Solidarity Fund. He has earned a BA & MA in political science from the University of Colorado, and is finishing an MBA with Colorado State University. He is a Permaculturist and earned his permaculture design certificate with Regenerative Education Collective of Denver having focused on Zone 3 for large-scale crops and animals. In his tenure, he has served community-led organizations such as Center for Community Wealth, Frontline Farming, The GrowHaus, East Denver Food Hub, Nourish Colorado, Community Language Cooperative, New Era Colorado, and Movimiento Poder.

As an activist scholar, Salvador is devoted to learning about the co-op model and its application to community issues. He sees the co-op model as a means of building an equitable economy that encompasses workers, community, and the environment. For his MA thesis, The Political Economy of Cooperatives: A Case Comparison of Law Development in Colorado and California, he compared the development of cooperative statutes in the two respective states. His advocacy for diversification in ownership of the food system and agriculture builds on the employee ownership models that are unique to Colorado.

A 2024 Cooperative Leaders & Scholars fellow with the Cooperative Development Foundation, NextEconomy MBA with LiftEconomy, and Art & Science of Cooperative Development with Co-opWorks!