Sharing the umbrella
State co-op councils broaden base to serve consolidating co-op sectors
By Pamela J. Karg
Editor’s note: Karg is a freelance journalist
based in Baraboo, Wis., with more than 20
years experience writing about cooperatives.
t started as a way to tackle
issues swirling around
deregulation of the electric
industry. But the
effort led to a merger
that has since become the organizational
norm, rather than the exception,
for the nation’s state cooperative councils.
As individual members and cooperatives
change, America’s state cooperative
councils have had to change
along with them to survive.
The trendsetter for broader-based
co-op councils was Wisconsin in the
late 1980s. Rod Nilsestuen, now the
state’s secretary of agriculture, then
headed the Wisconsin Federation of
Cooperatives (WFC), which had a primarily
farm co-op membership base.
The Wisconsin Rural Electric
Cooperative Association (WRECA) sat
down to talk with WFC about working
together to educate legislators and others
about electrical deregulation issues.
At that time, Wisconsin and California
were in a dead-heat to be the first to
deregulate. Each had proponents who
wanted to win that race.
“We knew each other,” Nilsestuen
explains of the relationship between
Wisconsin’s farm and electric co-op
associations. “Many rural electrics
were members of WFC. We had crossover
membership where, for example,
a dairy farmer representative to WFC
might also be a rural electric representative
to the state electric association.”
The net result of the meeting of the
two organizations was an interim management
plan for the rural electric
association to reorganize and restructure,
initially to ward off any fall-out
from deregulation, Nilsestuen says.
The management plan turned into a
coalition. That, in turn, led to a consolidation
of office space and, eventually, a
merger of staff.
Unbeknownst at the time, this joining
of the state co-op farm and the
electric councils was the forerunner of
similar moves made by a number of
cooperative councils in other states,
which are broadening their membership
to include farm and non-farm
cooperatives.
A changing rural landscape
Cooperative service and trade associations,
including state councils, have
been at the vortex of a changing rural
landscape. In agriculture, for example,
there are fewer, larger farming operations.
In turn, there are fewer, yet larger
farmer-owned cooperatives. Smaller
co-op organizations are consolidating
to better serve larger farming operations.
Fewer cooperatives means fewer
dues-paying members in state co-op
councils. Simultaneously, technological
advances are making it possible for
people to communicate from opposite
sides of a state, the nation or even the
world just as though they were in the
same room.
Amid the multi-faceted business
changes, Wisconsin and Minnesota
farmers began talking about how their
state co-op councils could better serve
them. As a center of America’s dairy
industry, milk producers from both
states had been working together
through cooperatives for much of the
past century. The two states also had
worked together in other organizations
to form an Upper Midwest powerhouse
of cooperative activities.
So it came as no surprise when
WFC and the Minnesota Association
of Cooperatives (MAC) announced an
alliance in 1999. Nilsestuen says the
history of working together helped the
two state councils grow together,
develop a cooperative research consortium
and establish the Cooperative
Development Service. MAC, in particular,
had been struggling in a number
of areas, and it was felt it could be
strengthened through the union with
Wisconsin.
When the separate boards approved
the alliance, each organization kept its
separate identity, yet gained the single
membership benefits from shared programs
that increase program efficiency
and effectiveness. The alliance is proving
successful by coordinating education,
dairy and communications programs,
as well as certain administrative
functions, he observes. Each state continues
to operate its own legislative
affairs office.
“It proved to be a mechanism for
members to do things together that
they just couldn’t do separately,”
Nilsestuen says.
Volunteers are essential
“What keeps these organizations
going is the volunteer help they get,”
says James R. Barnett, past president
of the Mid-Atlantic Alliance of
Cooperatives (MAAC). “As individual
cooperatives merge and look at their
budgets, they try to reduce their costs
and decide to pay for only one membership
where, prior to merger, they
would have had to pay for at least two
memberships. With fewer and fewer
employees and members, you have
less people to carry out programs.
The people you do have, have less
time to commit to helping put on
programs.”
Something had to give before all
was lost in the region. So the leaders
from 24 Pennsylvania and Marylandbased
cooperatives formed a joint
organization. They recognized they
would individually gain strength by
combining efforts to meet their specialized
needs and interests.
“It’s not always easy,” admits
Barnett. “People with both organizations
some for 30 years ask,
‘How can you let this go away? I
helped build this up how can I let it
go?’”
According to the MAAC leader,
cooperatives face many challenges: the
need to increase profitably and competitiveness;
managing change; the
need to expand membership; hiring,
training and retaining employees.
Through MAAC, the member cooperatives
are creating services that will
help them deal with a host of priorities
in today’s business world. The organization’s
primary thrusts are education,
networking, encouraging appreciation
for co-ops and strengthening communities
through cooperatives.
Pennsylvania and Maryland state
council directors initially served on the
new MAAC board. They fed the new
organization hundreds of ideas of what
programming to maintain to meet its
goals. The directors decided to take
the strengths of the founding councils
including youth programs, young
cooperator workshops and director
training sessions and parlay them
into the common ground on which to
build MAAC.
“We had been using the National
Institute on Cooperative Education
(NICE) as a carrot an incentive to get youth to our programs,” Barnett
explains. “When they participated, we
had a process to select several youths
to attend NICE. With the reorganization
of NICE [now held strictly as a
youth co-op education conference], we
looked at the programming, found
ways to keep our youth involved in the
new NICE program and we have some
success stories.”
Even though MAAC found fewer
youth with cooperative experience, it
decided to target groups for specialized
cooperative training. For example, 75
percent of last year’s state FFA officers
participated in a MAAC program.
Meanwhile, the director-training
workshops become more sophisticated
because, as farms and cooperatives
grow, so do oversight issues.
“When you make a decision any
more, it’s not just a million-dollar
question, but a $5 million or a $500
million question,” Barnett says. “So we
need to make sure our programs give
directors a better understanding of
financing, how to ask the right questions
of general managers and how to
speak up at meetings to make themselves
heard.”
Gaining political power
through co-op unity
Back in Wisconsin, the WFC-MAC
Alliance headed to the statehouse
rather than concentrating on the
schoolhouse. While communication
and education are important, the real
value comes from its political knowhow
and perseverance.
“We are very ‘retail’ oriented,” says
Bill Oemichen, president and CEO of
the WFC-MAC
Alliance. He and the
Alliance were seemingly
made for each other.
Oemichen formerly
served as deputy commissioner
of the
Minnesota Agriculture
Department and then as
Wisconsin’s top consumer
protection official
at the Wisconsin
Department of
Agriculture, Trade and
Consumer Protection
the agency Nilsestuen
now heads. The attorney
stepped into his Alliance leadership
role in 2002. That ‘retail’ orientation
means the Alliance continually listens
to its members to determine what they
expect of their trade association.
“What a lot of cooperatives are
telling us is that we need to function as
their trade association, representing
their legislative interests to the governor,
legislatures, state and federal
administrations and agencies and to
Congress,” Oemichen says. “Our
members and leadership put forward
ideas that they want us to enact to
make the business environment easier
for cooperatives to operate.”
While many cooperatives are getting
larger, it creates niches for smaller
cooperatives to serve other members’
needs. The Alliance strives to
put forward legislation that helps
cooperatives regardless of size, services,
sector and other distinguishing
features. Bringing together nearly 800
separate cooperatives some of them
competitors in the marketplace or the
countryside is often a struggle,
Oemichen admits.
With its Scandinavian background,
Minnesotans are more government
activists. They’re very involved in
developing new agricultural cooperatives.
By contrast, Wisconsin’s
German Lutheran and Catholic background
gives it a more conservative
flavor.
“But we’re learning from each
other, blending different attitudes and
engaging in healthy discussions that
are leading us to make more innovations,”
he says.
“Yet it’s efficient, because
Wisconsin and Minnesota cooperatives
face similar challenges and they
realize the alliance can bring political
power to the lobbying process. In our
diversity, we’re finding our power,”
Oemichen says. “But our real power is
that unity, because we come together
as cooperatives to talk to political
leaders. That’s 2.9 million
Wisconsinites and 3.4 million
Minnesotans. That’s 20 percent of all
the members involved in the 48,000
cooperatives across the United States.
That’s pretty powerful.”
Legislative focus benefits all
Dairy producer Edward Brooks also
sees great value in regional co-op organizations.
Brooks, who milks 50 Brown
Swiss cows, serves as board chairman
of the Foremost Farms USA dairy
cooperative, headquartered in Baraboo,
Wis., and as chairman of WFC, with
offices in Madison, Wis. (The MAC
half of the Alliance is housed in St.
Paul, Minn., and it is chaired by Curt
Eischens of CHS Cooperative.)
Foremost ranks as the 26th largest
cooperative in America, according to
the National Cooperative Business
Association. But even large co-ops like
Foremost rely on trade associations
such as the WFC-MAC Alliance,
Brooks says.
“I don’t think Foremost would have
enough resources to cover all the different
legislative issues that could
impact its business operations and its
members in the seven different states
where we have a presence,” Brooks
says. “The Alliance has people who can
follow all those issues. They know how
they all work together and they have
people who are respected in state capitals
who can communicate our points
of view.”
The Alliance backs up legislative
positions presented by staff with its
members’ CEOs and directors, making
legislative contacts and testifying
before committees. These local cooperative
leaders such as Brooks are on
the frontline, living within current legislation
and ably equipped to provide
first-hand explanations for making new
laws, Oemichen says.
Brooks sees other advantages to
working together through the Alliance.
For example, when Wisconsin cooperatives
pushed to develop rural group
health cooperatives, it could examine
and build on Minnesota’s experience.
Or, when Minnesota cooperative leaders
across sectors wanted to delve into
some type of dairy investment tax
credit program, they could pull out the
best parts of a Wisconsin plan.
“I think working together through
the Alliance has made us wiser and
allowed us to feed off of each other’s
experiences so that we’re all stronger
in the long run,” Brooks says.
Follow the member trail
Recently, Chuck Cruickshank
addressed Mid-Atlantic members
attending their first-ever annual meeting.
The director of procurement and
member services for the Mid-Atlantic
region of Land O’Lakes, Cruickshank
talked about profitability, staying
competitive, keeping current and
meeting price expectations. Yet, he
cited survey results where 44 percent
of respondents worried whether their
co-op would be able to compete in
the future.
With challenges of government
regulation, dwindling numbers, pressures
to consolidate and a volatile
economy, Cruickshank said that if
cooperatives are to survive, they have
to move ahead of the customer, avoid
commodity pitfalls, demonstrate
strategic agility and form partnerships
with other cooperatives and with the
private sector.
If a cooperative is only as effective
and profitable as its individual members,
how do the changes taking place across
rural America then impact the organizations
that serve the cooperatives?
Examine what individual members are
doing and figure out where the organization
needs to head, advises Bruce
Anderson, professor of business management
and marketing in the College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Anderson also serves as an advisor to the
Northeast Cooperative Council
(NECC), which focuses on co-op education
issues, and as a director of a purchasing
cooperative owned by Cornell
sororities and fraternities. Strategic
planning is one of Anderson’s specialties.
When farm numbers decreased in
New England, so did the number of
cooperatives. Like other regions, the
surviving farms and cooperatives were
larger. NECC responded by expanding
its membership area to include all
Northeastern states’ agricultural co-op
councils, extending to the New York
Pennsylvania border.
“I think we realized that our interests
are so diverse that we couldn’t get
consumer cooperatives or credit unions
involved with agricultural cooperatives,”
Anderson says. “It could happen
in the future,” he speculates. “If the
financial pain ever gets high enough,
people do come together in the same
room and start to think about working
together. But, right now, things look
pretty good.”
There’s no doubt in his mind that
more consolidations will come
whether across sectors, within industries
or among state councils as the
cooperative movement goes forward.
Whether they fill education voids or
form a political front, Anderson says
all cooperatives will still need to work
together through some type of trade
association to tackle issues unique to
their business structure.
State or regional cooperative associations
CALIFORNIA
Agricultural Council of California
Donald G. Gordon, Jr., President
1225 H Street
Sacramento, CA 95814-1910
Telephone: (916) 443-4887
FAX: (916) 443-0601
E-Mail Address: info@agcouncil.org
Home Page: www.agcouncil.org
COLORADO
Colorado Cooperative Council, Inc.
Doyle Smith, Consultant
P.O. Box 506,
Eaton, CO 80615
Telephone: (970) 454-4054
FAX: (970) 454-4082
E-Mail Address:
DNSmith@coloradocoops.com
FLORIDA
Florida Council of Cooperatives
Perry Hansen, President
P.O. Box 287
Waverly, FL 33877
Telephone: (813) 439-3602
FAX: (813) 439-2639
GEORGIA
Georgia Cooperative Council, Inc.
Dick Schermerhorn, Executive Director
P.O. Box 447
Bethlehem, GA 30620
Telephone: (706) 542-0768
FAX: (706) 542-0851
E-Mail Address:
dschermerhorn@agecon.usa.edu
Home Page:
www.agecon.uga.edu/~gacoops/
IDAHO
Idaho Cooperative Council, Inc.
Rick C. Waitley, Executive Director
55 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 100
Meridian, ID 83642-3030
Telephone: (208) 888-0988
FAX: (208) 888-4586
E-Mail Address: rwaitley@spro.net
ILLINOIS
Illinois Cooperative Coordinating
Committee
Jim Fraley, Secretary
1701 Towanda Avenue
Bloomington, IL 61701
Telephone: (309) 557-3109
FAX: (309) 557-3729
E-Mail Address: fraley@ilfb.org
IOWA
Iowa Institute for Cooperatives
David Holm, Executive Director
2515 Elwood Drive, Suite 104
Ames, IA 50010-8263
Telephone: (515) 292-2667
FAX: (515) 292-1672
E-Mail Address:
info@iowainstitute.coop
Home Page: www.iacoops.org
KANSAS
Kansas Cooperative Council
(Vacant), Executive Vice President
816 SW Tyler, Suite 300
Topeka, KS 66612-1635
Telephone: (785) 233-4085
FAX: (785) 233-1038
E-Mail Address:
council@KansasCo-op.coop
Home Page: www.kansasco-op.coop/
KENTUCKY
Kentucky Council of Cooperatives
Dr. Lionel Williamson,
State Coordinator APES
306 Charles E. Barnhart Building
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40546-0276
Telephone: (859) 257-1637
FAX: (859) 323-1913
E-Mail Address: lwilliam@uky.edu
Home Page: www.uky.edu/Ag/
AgEcon/apes_2002prog.html
LOUISIANA
Louisiana Council of Farmer
Cooperatives
Lenny Waguespack, Secretary
P.O. Box 67
St. James, LA 70086
Telephone: (225) 265-4056
FAX: (225) 265-4060
E-Mail Address:
Lenny@SLSCoop.com
MID-ATLANTIC
(Serving Maryland, Pennsylvania,
Delaware and New Jersey)
Mid-Atlantic Alliance of Cooperatives
Patricia E. Heuser, Executive Director
526 Brittany Drive
State College, PA 16803
Telephone: (814) 238-2401
FAX: (814) 238-7051
E-Mail Address:
info@MAACooperatives.org
Home Page:
maacooperatives.org
MID-AMERICA
COOPERATIVE COUNCIL
(Serving Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and
Ohio, some of which still maintain state
councils for some functions)
Martin Hall, Executive Director
P.O. Box 223
Caledonia, MI 49316
Telephone: (616) 891-5547
FAX: (616) 891-5598
E-Mail Address:
midamericacouncil@charter.net
Home Page: www.macc.coop
MINNESOTA
Minnesota Association of Cooperatives
Amy Fredregill, Managing Director
Blair Arcade West, Suite Y
400 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55102
Telephone: (651) 228-0213
FAX: (651) 228-1184
E-mail Address:
amy.fredregill@wfcmac.coop
Home Page: www.wfcmac.coop
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Council of Cooperatives
Harry Dendy, Secretary/Treasurer
P.O. Box 122
Clinton, MS
Telephone: (601) 925-5423
MISSOURI
Missouri Institute of Cooperatives
Kristi Livingston,
Education Coordinator
University of Missouri
125C Mumford Hall
Columbia, MO 65211-6200
Telephone: (573) 882-0140
FAX: (573) 882-3958
E-Mail Address:
livingstonk@missouri.edu
MONTANA
Montana Council of Cooperatives
Walter Coffman, Executive Secretary
2250 8th Lane NE
Dutton, MT 59433
Telephone: (406) 753-2296
FAX: (406) 753-2296
E-Mail Address: mtcocoop@3rivers.net
NEBRASKA
Nebraska Cooperative Council
Robert C. Anderson, President
134 South 13th Street, Suite 503
Lincoln, NE 68508-1901
Telephone: (402) 475-6555
FAX: (402) 475-4538
E-Mail Address: boba@nebr.coop
Home Page: www.nebr.coop
NORTH CAROLINA
Cooperative Council of
North Carolina
Carlyle Teague, President
P.O. Box 10426
Raleigh, NC 27605
Telephone: (919) 834-5544
FAX: (919) 828-9322
E-Mail Address: carlylet@touchnc.net
NORTHEAST
Northeast Cooperative Council
Dept. of Applied Economics
& Management
Brian Henehan,
Senior Extension Assistant
Room 203, Warren Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-7801
Telephone: (607) 255-8800
FAX: (607) 255-9984
E-Mail Address: bmh5@cornell.edu
Home Page:
www.cooperative.aemcornell.edu
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma Agricultural
Cooperative Council
Mike Frickenschmidt,
Executive Director
P.O. Box 251
Enid, OK 73702
Telephone: (580) 233-2115
FAX: (580) 242-1030
E-Mail Adress: mike@okagcoop.org
Home Page: www.okagcoop.org
OREGON
Agricultural Cooperative Council of
Oregon
John H. McCulley, Executive
Secretary
P.O. Box 2042
Salem, OR 97308-2042
Telephone: (503) 370-7019
FAX: (503) 587-8063
E-Mail Address: assoc@wvi.com
SOUTH CAROLINA
South Carolina Cooperative Council
Marie Stiles, CMP, Executive Director
151 Rocky Ridge Road
Leesville, SC 29070
Telephone: (803) 463-9706
FAX: (803) 604-9141
E-Mail Address: marie_stiles@msc.com
SOUTH DAKOTA
South Dakota Association of
Cooperatives
Brenda Forman, Executive Secretary
222 East Capitol Avenue, Suite 1
Pierre, SD 57501
Telephone: (605) 945-2548
FAX: (605) 945-2269
E-Mail Address: bforman@sbtc.net
Home Page: www.sdvalueadded.coop
TENNESSEE
Tennessee Council of Cooperatives
Hubert King, General Maganer
P.O. Box 272
McMinnville, TN 37110
Telephone: (931) 473-3116
FAX: (931) 473-4939
TEXAS
Texas Agricultural
Cooperative Council
Tommy Engleke, Executive
Vice President
6210 Highway 290 East, Suite 300
Austin, TX 78723
Telephone: (512) 450-0555
FAX: (512) 450-0655
E-Mail Address: coop@mytacc.com
Home Page: www.texas.coop
UTAH
Utah Council of Farmer Cooperatives
Christopher Falco, General Manager
8700 South 700 West
Sandy, UT 84070
Telephone: (801) 255-4228
FAX: (801) 255-4678
VIRGINIA
Virginia Council of Farmer
Cooperatives, Inc.
Hugh Harris, Executive Secretary
P.O. Box 25202
Richmond, VA 23260-5202
Telephone: (804) 281-1452
FAX: (804) 281-1141
E-Mail Adress:
hugh.harris@sscoop.com
Home Page: www.vcfc.net
WASHINGTON
Washington State Council of Farmer
Cooperatives
Dan Coyne, Executive Director
9103 Chestnut Hill Lane, SE
Olympia, WA 98513
Telephone: (360) 786-8180
FAX: (360) 438-9170
E-Mail Address: wscfc@wscfc.org
Home Page: www.wscfc.org
WISCONSIN
Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives
Bill Oemichen, President and CEO
131 West Wilson Street, Suite 400
Madison, WI 53703-3269
Telephone: (608) 258-4400
FAX: (608) 258-4407
E-Mail Address:
bill.oemichen@wfcmac.coop
Home Page: www.wfcmac.coop
