Mike Craig
Entrepreneur, property manager, and community builder.
Mike has lived in Guelph for 27 years. He attended Upper Canada College in Toronto, and graduated with a Bachelor of Film Studies and a Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University.
Mike taught high school for 17 years at the Bronte Creek Project in the Halton District School Board, an integrated environmental leadership and mentorship program. After teaching, Mike became an entrepreneur, creating an aspirational model of urban living that connects residents with safe, affordable housing, and that seeks to transform the tenant and landlord relationship into one based on respect, trust, collaboration and mutual responsibility
His work as an entrepreneur brought him closer to home and provided the flexibility needed to help raise his three children (River, age 12, Sikhona, age 14, and Rowan, age 16) with his wife Mary-Kate Craig. Mary-Kate is an active member of the Guelph community, and a PhD student at the University of Guelph, creating a network of conversations across Canada to investigate how to enable Indigenous led natural climate solutions.
With his wife, Mike co-founded the Junction Village Guelph, a non-profit cooperative that serves to transform how we live in urban spaces. The vision for the Junction Village is a resilient, accessible, multigenerational, collaborative community that inspires people to live joyful, healthy, purposeful lives.
An engaged volunteer, Mike is a leader in the Legacy men’s community in Guelph, which is committed to supporting men to be great husbands and fathers and make a positive difference in their communities. Mike is also the Chair of the Board of the Trillium Waldorf School, and played a major role to help raise over 1 million dollars in donations for Trillium’s Capital Campaign to purchase their school site at the north end of Guelph.
Mike and his family live in the Junction neighbourhood in Guelph. Mike is excited to serve on the Board of the Junction Village CLT, and bring his vision of affordable housing, socially responsible business, and environmental stewardship to help transform Guelph into a resilient, livable, affordable city that serves as a model for other cities around the world.
"I love bringing people together, especially working to build something, or contribute, or make a difference in some way. I love holding a space where the light bulb goes on for people, where they have an 'aha' moment, they see something for themselves, they get inspired to be in action in their lives.
Every summer, our family explores a different whitewater river on an extended wilderness canoe trip. These trips are challenging, yet also relaxing and rejuvenating. We have a chance to go offline for two or three weeks, connect with nature and each other. Something people may not know about me is that I was born in Cambridge, England."