Everything Co-op With Vernon Oakes

​Vernon Interviews Marilyn, Retired Manager of CDS Consulting. Vernon and Marilyn discuss best practices for forming co-ops, CoMetrics, the Co-op Management Institute, her experience as a cooperator, and her upcoming induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Marilyn Scholl has played a prominent leadership role in nearly every major development in the U.S. food co-op sector since she took her first co-op job at Gordon Park Cooperative in Milwaukee in 1978. Working at the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, Scholl organized education programs and conferences for co-ops. Focusing on the challenges of business sustainability, membership care and strategic planning, Scholl helped create the Cooperative Management Institute. She later led a food co-op consulting team that became CDS Consulting Co-op, a group of 38 people dedicated to helping co-ops reach their full potential. Seeing the need for systematic governance at food co-ops, Scholl and her CDS CC colleagues developed the Cooperative Boar