Vernon Oakes, host of Everything Co-op, and Jim discuss the need to reschale, and retool our local economy to become more sustainable, and the need to establish an ecosystem to achieve that goal. Jim plans to begin this process through the Cooperative Alliance, the first endeavor of the Alliance for Regional Cooperation. Through the Cooperative Alliance the organization plans to help all of the 250 cooperatives it has identified in the Washington Metropolitan Region to be able to help each other through the formation of a cooperative of cooperatives. Then, after the organization becomes established, it plans to open up the membership to small and mid-size businesses that are not cooperatives. Jim Schulman, AIA is a regional sustainability strategist, an environmentally-sensitive Architect, and a social entrepreneur. He is the Executive Manager of the Alliance for Regional Cooperation, a regional economic development organization. Between 1999 and 2014 Jim administered a variety of deconstruction and salvage job training programs in the District of Columbia in partnership with the Youth Build Public Charter School, the DC Housing Authority, and US-EPA Region III. During the same period he also served in a leadership role on a number of restorative landscaping projects for the DC Department of Health, several Washington area foundations, and the Washington Navy Yard. He is the former Treasurer of the Building Materials Re-use Association and founded Community Forklift, a used building materials store in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
