Diversity?
At the US SAILING annual meeting last week in Phoenix, AZ, three new appointments to the Board of
Directors were confirmed based on their election by US SAILING members. These three individuals came from a pool of five people that had been selected by the Nominating Committee, with all five people based in the upper right corner of the country.
Directors were confirmed based on their election by US SAILING members. These three individuals came from a pool of five people that had been selected by the Nominating Committee, with all five people based in the upper right corner of the country. “If there is any one problem with sailing in the U.S. it is the persistent "old boy" network at the senior "management" levels. The latest appointments to US SAILING only confirm that long-standing trend. Where is the diversity? Where is the all-embracing flavor of a huge nation where we end up with microscopic regional "leadership?" Not that these people are not dedicated and talented. But it is a larger universe, even in the U.S. New England is NOT the center of the sailing universe in the U.S. The same old boy attitudes are reflected in the intolerance of multihull inclusion into the so called "real world" of sailboats. Seems like lots of old boys are missing the boat.”
Gary Jobson (President), Annapolis, MD
Tom Hubbell (Vice President), Delaware, OHFred Hagedorn (Secretary), Chicago, IL
Leslie Keller (Treasurer), Kirkland, WA
Jack Gierhart (Executive Director*), Marion, MA
Dean Brenner (Olympic Committee Chair), Westbrook, CT
Ed Adams, Middletown, RI
Walter Chamberlain, Bay St. Louis, MS
John Craig, San Francisco, CA
John Dane III, Pass Christian, MS
Susan Epstein, Sharon, MA
Stan Honey, Palo Alto, CA
Maureen McKinnon-Tucker, Marblehead, MA
Dawn Riley, Oyster Bay, NY
Bill Stump, Venice, CA
Jim Walsh (House of Delegates chair*), Brick, NJ
*Non-voting members
posted by Blogger @ 1:49 PM
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Looking at the announcement, the diversity and regionalism is the also the first thing I looked at and thought of check.. I was also sorely disappointed.
Prior to the election, the geographic distribution was thus:
East:
Jobson, Brenner, Epstein
Midwest:
Hubbel, Riley, Hagedorn
South:
Allsopp, Chamberlain, Tichenor, Dane
West
Craig, Honey, Stump, Keller
That's 3-3-4-4, as even a distribution as can be achieved with a 14 member board.
(The non-voting members should not be considered, since they don't have votes.)
Allsopp and Tichenor (both from the south) were the board members who were leaving. (Susan Epstein was re-elected)
The four nominees were:
McKinnon-Tucker - East
Adams - East
Ikle - Midwest (upstate NY)
Brindley - East
So it was pretty predicable that there would be a shift of geographic representation to the East.
Current distribution:
East:
Jobson, Brenner, Epstein, McKinnon-Tucker, Adams, Riley (transplant)
Midwest:
Hubbel, Hagedorn
South:
Chamberlain, Dane
West
Craig, Honey, Stump, Keller
That's 6-2-2-4, and it would have been 5-3-3-4 had Riley not moved, something beyond the Nominating Committee's control.
The Nominating Committee considers a lot more than just the geographic distribution of nominees, since that alone tends to be a poor predictor of performance on the board.
If anybody thinks that Maureen and Ed are not qualified to serve on the BOD of US Sailing, then say so plainly. Otherwise, "lack of geographic diversity" is a red herring.
I have to disagree with Dorian Cushing's observations about the USSAILING Board being loaded with New Englanders. If we eliminate the E.D. and the Chair of the Olympic Committee, as Mr. Cushing suggests, 9 of 14 seats are held by people from outside New England. Even that's a stretch, as two of the five "New Englanders" would include Dawn Riley, who was raised in Detroit and spent many years in California, and Jim Walsh, a non-voting member from NJ. Not many people consider NJ to be part of New England.
As far as not having a multihull representative, the Board never has been, and never should be, meant to represent individual factions. It is made up of people willing to volunteer many hours to do what is right for our sport. As for the old boy network, Board members are usually selected from a group of people who have served on committees for a period of time-a process that many organizations use. It's time to quit griping and instead support US SAILING and get on with reviving our sport.
Three directors were elected to the board of US SAILING this year. Two were women and one sits in a wheel chair. Diverse enough?
I had assumed that since all of the choices were from New England that this years selections were intended to be from NE. Didn't bother to vote as a result. Now that I learn that they were replacing southerners with exclusivly Yankees I do care.
I recommend that the US Sailing name be changed to Yankee Sailing.
Soon to be former souther member.
Sad day when we as sailors put the geographic region ahead of the quality of the candidate. Good for the life style, right?
The US SAILING Board of Directors is supposed to be a leadership team rather than a "house of representatives". To say that the Board isn't diverse enough (it is much more diverse than most corporate boards) is just taking an irrelevant and temporal geographic distribution of addresses and slinging it like mud. Mr. Adams and Ms. McKinnon Tucker are fresh blood, not in the old boy's network. BTW, I'm from California.
Bill, Justin, thanks for your comments. This forum points out a challenge for the Nominating Committee, finding candidates with a new perspective when many of the potential ones seem to have the same name, Anonymous. I welcome suggestions of real names and real people to nominate who have the courage to invest time and effort in leading our sport. (And we pay our own expenses.) We are always, always looking for fresh new faces. My address is on the US SAILING BOD web page. Tom Hubbell
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