|
Ralph M. Paige is a board member of Nationwide a $160 billion diversified financial services organization based in Columbus Ohio. He was elected to the boards in April 1999. He also serves on the boards of other Nationwide companies. Mr. Paige is executive director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (Federation/LAF). He has played a major role in creating cooperatives encompassing credit unions agricultural housing and worker cooperatives and alternative agricultural development for minority farmers. Initially Mr. Paige worked as a field organizer developing cooperatives among family farmers and rural residents in Georgia and throughout the South. He led measures to secure new public and private resources to support cooperative development and in the 1970s he served as director of the Federation’s Business Development Office. From 1977-1981 Mr. Paige served as director of the Federation’s VISTA project involving over 100 volunteers at 60 cooperative and credit union sites. He then became the national field director of the Federation/LAF. During his leadership the Federation has received the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award; a United Nations award for significant contribution of shelter to the poorer segments of the community; and the first Fannie Mae Excellence in Low Income Housing Development Award. In 2004 Mr. Paige was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. He currently serves as a member of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Advisory Council at the University of Georgia. Mr. Paige studied extensively at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He received his bachelor’s degree in education from Fort Valley State University. | 