The Importance of Supporting Cooperatives

Vernon Oakes, General Partner in Everything.Coop Communications, LLC, a media company that promotes cooperative business models by providing education and resources specifically for under resourced Americans and their communities joins Enterprise Radio. Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Vernon Oakes discuss the following: * For those that are not familiar, what is a Cooperative? * Why should we care about Cooperatives? * If you would, give us some good reasons that we should support cooperatives. * Co-ops are hiding in plain sight — if you would share some companies most would not know were cooperatives. Vernon Oakes hosts the leading weekly national radio program for the U.S. cooperative community. He is General Partner in Everything.Coop Communications, LLC, a media company that promotes cooperative business models by providing education and resources specifically for under resourced Americans and their communities.  Vernon has significant national and international experience in various business activities including finance, marketing, sales, sales forecasting, distribution and service, and systems design. He became familiar with cooperative business models as a residential property management company owner and has more than 40 years of experience in property and asset management.  Vernon received an MBA from Stanford University, an MS in Mathematics from Penn State, and a BS in Mathematics and Chemistry from Bluefield State College. He has been a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity for 55 years and a life member.  He was the first Chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at San Diego State University and coordinated the MBA program at Howard University in Washington, DC. He has ten years of teaching experience at the college level and two years’ experience training adults for the U.S. Department of Interior. Earlier in his career, Vernon spent a decade working for a Fortune 500 Company, first as the President’s assistant and then for four years as Director of International Parts Marketing, traveling the world performing marketing studies. During the latter five years, Vernon ran a distributorship for the company in Puerto Rico. He started a property management company in 1993 in Washington, DC and operated it for 28 years. Vernon and Pat Thornton launched a radio show in honor of National Co-op Month (recognized annually in the United States in October). With the National Cooperative Bank support and personal investment, Mr. Oakes hosts Everything Coop earning broad-based cooperative community accolades for nine years. In 2018, he received the prestigious “Spirit of Cooperation Award” from the National Cooperative Bank and “the Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Potomac Association of Housing Cooperatives. He is an ardent advocate for cooperatives and serves on several boards dedicated to advancing the interests of cooperative businesses and diverse American citizens. Mr. Oakes is committed to helping people learn about cooperative business models helping diverse and inclusive American communities solve many of the housing, health care, sustenance, cost of living challenges, and distribution of wealth challenges laid even barer during the global pandemic. In that spirit, Vernon helped to mastermind the “USPS.Coop” 2020 campaign dedicated to building solidarity throughout the U.S. Cooperative Community for local USPS branches, especially in rural and underserved areas. He has worked with Downtown Crenshaw Rising to create a cooperative ecosystem in South Central Los Angeles, CA.