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Five ‘Heroic’ Leaders Named to Cooperative Hall of Fame

Washington, D.C.—Dairy cooperative leader Gary Hanman, cooperative housing expert and NCB Vice President Terry Lewis, former CoBank CEO Douglas D. Sims, and cooperative finance and management consultants Walden Swanson and Kate Sumberg have been selected for spring 2008 induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame.

The five cooperative business leaders will be recognized at the annual Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony at Washington’s National Press Club on Wednesday, April 30, 2008. The event annually draws a standing-room-only crowd.

The Hall of Fame, the cooperative community’s highest honor, recognizes those who have made “heroic” contributions to cooperative enterprise. “The profiles of these individuals reflect lifetimes of achievement as business and community leaders, public policy advisors, innovators, and advocates for cooperative development, both here and around the world,” said Elizabeth Bailey, Executive Director of the Cooperative Development Foundation, which administers the Hall of Fame.

Cooperatives are democratically owned and controlled businesses that are motivated by service to their members in addition to their bottom lines. Examples include credit unions, food co-ops, rural utility co-ops, and farm co-ops. Hall of Fame nominations are received from throughout the cooperative community and are screened by two committees of national co-op leaders. The final selection is made by the board of the National Cooperative Business Association.

‘Roster Tells the Story’

The Cooperative Hall of Fame was established in 1974 by NCBA and is housed in NCBA’s offices in Washington. It can also be visited on the web at www.heroes.coop. “The 2008 inductees join a distinguished roster of 126 extraordinary individuals already in the Cooperative Hall of Fame, whose lives and accomplishments tell the story of the U.S. cooperative community,” Bailey said.

Following are details on the 2008 inductees. For dinner attendance or sponsorship information, contact CDF at 202-638-6222 or equinn@cdf.coop.

• Gary Hanman, Retired President & CEO, Dairy Farmers of America, Inc., Platte City. Missouri

A major player in the U.S. Dairy industry, Hanman retired in 2005 as President & CEO of Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. His career in the co-op dairy marketing arena spanned 42 years and it involved many leadership positions in the national dairy co-op community. He is credited with the visionary leadership that brought about the merger of four diverse cooperatives that created DFA in 1998. Today, DFA is the nation’s largest dairy cooperative, representing more than 20,000 dairy farmers and marketing more than one-third of the nation’s milk supply.

• Terry Lewis, Vice President for Cooperative Development, NCB, Silver Spring, Maryland

An expert on cooperative law with a deep and abiding belief in cooperatives, Lewis currently serves as Vice President for Cooperative Development at NCB. In that capacity, as well as in her numerous leadership positions in the cooperative community, she has been a passionate advocate for cooperative housing as the best model for affordable home ownership. With her legal and tax expertise, she has devoted her career to helping shape public policy related to cooperative housing development and has been a key player in efforts to protect cooperative housing from unfavorable tax treatment.

• Douglas D. Sims, Retired CEO of CoBank, Keystone, Colorado

A longtime leader in the nationwide Farm Credit System, Sims retired in 2006 as CEO of CoBank. Credited with playing a prominent role in helping the Farm Credit System survive the downtown in the farm economy in the early 1980’s, Sims also is credited with playing a key role in the subsequent reorganization of the Farm Credit System that included the creation of the National Bank of Cooperatives, known as CoBank, in 1989. Sims devoted his career to promoting the cooperative form of enterprise in the national and international arena and to encouraging cooperative leaders to embrace change.

• Walden Swanson & Kate Sumberg, Consultants and creators of CoopMetrics, Andover, Massachusetts

Respected for their vision, innovation, and dynamic leadership, Walden Swanson and Kate Sumberg are business consultants to the global cooperative community. Their influence has been cross sector; however their most extensive finance/management consulting work to date has been in the food co-op community in which they both have deep roots. Among their many accomplishments is the creation of Co-op Metrics, a financial benchmarking and data warehouse services cooperative with a mission to empower cooperatives and community development organizations through the use of technology and management best practices.

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The Cooperative Development Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization that promotes community, economic and social development through cooperative enterprise.

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