Everything Co-op With Vernon Oakes

September 21, 2023 Everything Co-op continues it's tribute to the 2023 Cooperative Hall of Fame inductees, with an interview of Leslie Mead, retired Executive Director of the Cooperative Development Foundation. Leslie discusses her co-op journey, and projections about the future of the cooperative movement with Vernon. After growing up in Indiana and attending college in Iowa, Mead moved to Washington, DC and took a job with the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) as assistant general counsel. After a decade with NCFC, she moved into her role as an independent consultant, where she developed education projects for NCFC, set up the Leadership Scholarship Program for the Ralph K. Morris Foundation, and served as the executive administrator for the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE). Building upon its historic strengths, while redirecting resources to meet a more diverse contemporary and future audience, Mead helped ACE re-establish itself as a premier educational organization, with uniqu