Jim Erickson has nearly four decades of experience working with cooperatives on communications, legislative affairs and member relations activities.
During his career, Jim worked with other co-op and land grant university personnel in developing and presenting a variety of director training programs dealing with director responsibilities and professional development. In addition, he conducts seminars and workshops on communications in the workplace, working effectively with the news media, and technical communications skills such as business writing and speechwriting. Recently, he also launched a revival of a one-man play about Rep. Andrew Volstead, author of the Capper-Volstead Act of 1922 – generally viewed as the most important legislation on U.S. cooperatives.
He began his career in cooperatives in 1969 with Michigan Milk Producers Association, a marketing and processing co-op based in the Detroit area. He subsequently worked with the Farm Credit System in St. Louis, the former Union Equity Cooperative, a multi-state grain marketing co-op based in Oklahoma, Harvest States (now CHS, Inc.), based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Southern States in Richmond, Virginia. He is a former CCA board member and president and received CCA’s Klinefelter Award in 1984.
Prior to his co-op years, he was an assistant city and Sunday editor at a daily newspaper in Illinois. He is an honors graduate of the University of Illinois.
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