Erik Halaas, MPA Health Policy and Management, has an active interest in one day becoming compost. He is also working tirelessly to explore how this natural alternative to cremation and conventional burial can become accessible to his fellow Minnesotans. His efforts are currently being supported as a FINNOVATION Fellow.

Learn more about the Fellowship and see recent coverage on his project in the Star Tribune. 

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Erik has over a dozen years of experience as an intrapreneur building cross-sector partnerships to research, test, and realize novel approaches to programming in public health and education. Whether operating in public, non profit, or academic institutions, he often finds himself connecting unlikely partners in service to a shared vision. 

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Raised by a pastor and a health care provider, and a couple generations removed from a family funeral home, death was not uncharted territory at the dinner table. In addition to bringing Natural Organic Reduction to the State of Minnesota, he hopes to support a culture of open communication on the topics of death and dying.