Marilyn Scholl, retired manager of CDS Consulting Co-op and a 2018 inductee to the Cooperative Hall of Fame, will appear on Everything Co-op on Thursday, April 19. A weekly exploration of the impact and potential of the cooperative business model, Everything Co-op aims to generate interest in and support for the cooperative movement.
Hosted by Vernon Oakes and conversational in format, the show is streamed live at worldcnews.com every Thursday from 10:30-11:30 a.m. EDT. Everything Co-op also airs live in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area on WOL 1450 AM—Radio One’s premiere talk radio station.
This week’s conversation will explore best practices in cooperative development and highlight Scholl’s legendary career as a cooperator beginning at Gordon Park Cooperative in Milwaukee in 1978. Since then, she has played a prominent leadership role in nearly every major development in the U.S. food co-op sector.
Working at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, Scholl organized education programs and conferences for co-ops. She later led a food co-op consulting team that would become CDS Consulting Co-op, a group of 38 people dedicated to helping co-ops reach their full potential. With the help of National Cooperative Bank and the National Co+op Grocers, Scholl’s team created a small grants program for startups that became Food Co-op Initiative, a nonprofit supporting the opening of more than 130 new food co-ops.
In 2004, Scholl led the project team that developed the reorganization plan for the National Cooperative Grocers Association. Today National Co+op Grocers represents 148 co-ops operating more than 200 stores in 37 states.
Listen to archived episodes—including NCBA CLUSA’s centennial podcast series in partnership with Everything Co-op—at everything.coop.