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 marginalized 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 36 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 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.

While serving as President of the National Association of Housing Cooperatives, the association’s Development and Preservation Committee 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 more than eight years. In 2018, he received the prestigious “Spirit of Cooperation Award” from the National Cooperative Bank.