Glen Tully and his wife Judy won’t be planting a crop on their Marquette, Man., farm this season.
Tully is replacing longtime Federated Co-operatives Ltd. president Denis Banda as head of the one million-member co-op and will be required to live in Saskatoon where the company’s head office is located.
“We’ll see spring in Saskatchewan this year instead of Manitoba,” he said.
He sees little short-term change ahead for the co-op.
“We’ve been successful with the model we’ve been following and I expect we’ll be doing whatever we can to continue in that direction.”
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He said he expects the biggest challenge will be maintaining the strength of the organization’s membership.
“We will continue to hire and retain some of Canada’s best managers to operate the co-op. I don’t see any major changes there.”
Tully said he hopes to find ways to help the larger retail co-ops remain competitive “in an incredibly tight marketplace. There is a lot of pressure in larger centres, but so far our co-op members in those places have done very well.”
Calgary Co-op operates the city’s top 10 retail gas bars and 12 of the top 15 and is consistently among the market leaders in retail grocery sales.
“We depend on support from Federated and the co-operative movement to remain successful and grow and they depend on us too,” said Russell Wolf, a Calgary region delegate and Federated board member.
Tully said another priority will be to secure major expansions at Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries Ltd. in Regina and at the company’s sawmill and plywood plant in Canoe, B.C.
Tully leads a 19 member board of directors including vice-chair Herb Carlson of Buchanan, Sask., and regional board chairs Barry Gosnell of Winnipeg, Laura Vance of Regina, Don Russell of Saskatoon, Wolf of Calgary, Don Fluney of Edmonton and Keith Corbould of British Columbia.
Ten district members were re-elected and a new member, Sandy Richards of Unity, Sask., in district 12, joined the board.
Banda is retiring after 12 years on the board and eight years as president. FCL’s 300 member co-ops had $3.8 billion in sales last year.
