2012 Inductees

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook

Robert D. Partridge Endowed Professor in Cooperative Leadership and Executive Director of The Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL), University of Missouri-Columbia.

His applied research on the role of cooperatives in the changing global marketplace, combined with his writing, consulting and cooperative business experience, has enabled him to develop educational materials, classroom curricula and a portfolio of business advisory services that have provided a generation of cooperative leaders with the tools to be more effective managers of cooperative business enterprises.  An integral part of the University of Missouri’s Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership since 1989, under his leadership GICL has been recognized as an ambitious, effective cooperative leadership development program.  In addition to his vast credentials in the domestic cooperative arena, he has done extensive international cooperative development work in India, Namibia and Brazil and he continues to mentor and work with his former graduate students and visiting scholars who are now engaged in cooperative development in countries around the world.

 

William Davisson

William Davisson

CEO (retired), of GROWMARK, Inc.

Throughout his career at GROWMARK, Davisson never lost sight of the organization’s vision – to be the best agricultural cooperative system in North American – and its mission to improve the long-term profitability of its member-owners. Beginning as a CPA in the Finance Division, he took progressively more responsible positions until his selection as CEO in 1998, a position he held until his retirement in 2010. As CEO he put the focus on sales and improvement in operations and lead GROMARK through a period of strong growth, including the top three incomes years in the cooperative’s history. He recognized the value of co-op partnerships and joint ventures in an increasingly competitive industry and he partnered with member co-ops to create an innovative co-op structure that has led to improved cash patronage flow back to GROWMARK members. He has also been a long time advocate for the co-op movement and his support for education included funding co-op education at land grant universities, support of the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL), and the development of a leadership program at Illinois State University for high-potential employees.

Bill Gessner

Bill Gessner

Cooperative developer and member of the CDS Consulting Cooperative.

Bill Gessner’s involvement in the food cooperative community has spanned 35 years and he is credited with having helped transform the community from a hodgepodge of individual stores into an integrated, values-driven national community of consumer-owned retail groceries that has changed the way America thinks about food. His commitment to developing people, organizations and systems is evident in his record of achievement. He recognized the need for co-ops to share information about operations and best practices and helped found the Cooperative Grocers Information Network (CGIN). He pioneered the concept of establishing food co-op consulting teams by bringing that focus to several cooperative development organizations before becoming a founding member of the CDS Consulting Cooperative. His work has resulted in the creation of many educational and measurement tools and he was instrumental in the creation of the development model which is at the heart of today’s new food co-op development. Recognizing the power of networking and collaboration, he helped establish a Midwestern regional Cooperative Grocers Association to enable that interaction to occur and he was a driving force behind the creation of the National Cooperative Grocers Association.

Charles Snyder

Charles Snyder

President & CEO, National Cooperative Bank.

Chuck Snyder joined NCB in 1983 as Corporate Vice President and CFO and played a transformational role in navigating those early years of the Bank’s existence and decisively re-positioning NCB to be the complex financial institution it is today that provides full service banking services for cooperative enterprises. He became President & CEO in 1992 and has since lead the Bank and its affiliates through challenging economies while at the same time strengthening existing cooperatives and nourishing new market development. He is responsible for NCB’s commitment to Mission Banking, which in 2010 alone accounted for $347 million in direct lending, investments and facilitation of creative transactions to support low- to moderate-income communities.

A strong and vocal advocate for cooperative values and principles, he has consistently looked for opportunities to advance cooperatives in all sectors and he has risen to their defense when cooperatives and their business model have been threatened. A passionate believer in innovation and collaboration, he has served on numerous cross-sector task forces and boards and played leadership roles in achieving such innovative landmarks as the growth of the purchasing/shared services co-op sector, the establishment of the dot.coop domain name, and the establishment of successful marketing pieces like the Coop 100 that give cooperatives valuable new audiences.