Ussa Board of Directors' Meeting Minutes
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USSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING MINUTES 2nd Floor, Borgen Swartz Education Resource Center USSA Center of Excellence 1 Victory Lane, Park City, UT Saturday, May 12, 2012 1:00 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. Meeting chair: Dexter Paine CHAIRMAN Dexter Paine – Chair FOUNDATION John Bucksbaum, Treasurer - teleconference John Cumming, Vice Chair Andy Daly – absent Jeanne Jackson Kipp Nelson – excused absence Hank Tauber SPORT REPRESENTATIVES Alpine Representative: Bob Dart Snowboard Representative: Jon Casson Freestyle Representative: Glenn Eddy Cross Country Representative: Jon Engen Jumping/Nordic Combined Representative: Joe Lamb for Joe Holland – excused absence ATHLETES Alpine Athlete: Scott Macartney Snowboard Athlete: Danny Kass – absent Freestyle Athlete: Landon Gardner Cross Country Athlete: James Southam – excused absence Jumping/Nordic Combined Athlete: Willy Graves CEO Bill Marolt AT-LARGE Greg Boester – absent EX-OFFICIO/NON VOTING USOC Athletes' Advisory Council Representative: Andrew Johnson NSAA President/Chair: Michael Berry – absent SIA President/Chair: David Ingemie – absent FIS Representative: Bill Marolt USOC Representative: Bill Marolt COUNSEL Alex Natt STAFF Luke Bodensteiner Calum Clark Walt Evans Mike Jaquet Tom Kelly Mark Lampe 1 GUESTS Gary Black Dirk Gouwens Peter Graves David Knoop Darryl Landstrom Brewster McVicker Chris Seemann 1. Chairman Convenes the USSA Board Meeting: Dexter Paine Dexter Paine opened the meeting and asked for the roll call to be taken by Alex Natt. A moment of silence was requested in memory of those who had passed away since the last meeting: Warren Hellman, Vern Lamb, Jennifer Caldwell, Jill Kinmont Booth, Lloyd Severud, and Max Dercum. 2. Introduction of Board Members & Establishment of Quorum Alex Natt Alex Natt took the roll call and confirmed the presence of a quorum. Paine stated that he would like the board members to take a moment and introduce themselves and their board affiliations. 3. USSA Agenda Approval: Dexter Paine Paine asked for a motion to approve the USSA Board of Directors' agenda as submitted and asked that this be eliminated as a requirement in future. Motion # 1: To approve the USSA Board of Directors’ meeting agenda. M/S/C – Bob Dart/Jeanne Jackson, approved by acclamation 4. USSA October 2011 Meeting Minutes’ Approval: Dexter Paine Natt asked for a motion to approve the October and December 2010 USSA teleconference meeting minutes. Motion # 2: To approve the USSA Board of Directors’ meeting minutes as presented. M/S/C – Bill Marolt/Scott Macartney, approved by acclamation 5. Chairman’s Report: Dexter Paine Paine thanked the staff for tremendous meetings. This year was a terrific year and it only happened because we had incredible leadership within the organization. He noted the four people at the table, everyone in the room and building, and the coaches on the hill. He noted that USSA was the best organization in the world and we should be proud of what these guys had done. Leadership continued to push the organization in a way that would allow us to continue to have tremendous success as we moved forward. A couple of highlights from last year he mentioned were the training center at Copper. It opened in November and the feedback was tremendous on the $4.5 million capital project that had provided the best early-season snow and perhaps the best speed training facility in the world. 2 We had a new head of Sales and Marketing, Mike Jaquet. Team Academy, which would be discussed later by Luke Bodensteiner, was in the process of being kicked off; and on the education front, 112 athletes were engaged in education services and 83 students enrolled in college programs. He said that represented astounding growth. It was very close to zero when he joined the board 12 years ago. He had attended the USSA Athletes' Council meeting in the morning and education was a huge part of what we could give back to the athletes. Paine added that we were less than two years away from the CEO transition. We had a small working group consisting of Paul Raether, Chuck Ferries, Jim McCarthy, and himself. That group would expand in the fall, since after 20 years of Bill's leadership; this would be the most important thing that he would be involved with within the organization during his tenure. We would be coming back to this group to update the process. The success that we had and the interest in that position would give us great opportunity to hire the right replacement. He noted that there was one retirement from the board, Andy Daly, stepping down from the USSA board and the USSTF board; he would become an emeritus trustee. Daly did an incredible number of things within the industry as well as on this board. The greatest piece for us was his leadership in the strategic planning process. That was not an easy process. He said that in the executive meeting in the morning, Jeanne Jackson referenced the strategic planning process and that was a testament to how important that had been in terms of where the organization was headed and the fact that we kept referencing back to it. Daly chaired that process and Paine wanted to thank him for his leadership and that he appreciated his service on the board. He then turned the meeting over to Bill Marolt. 6. Chief Executive Officer’s Report: Bill Marolt Marolt said that he would discuss the state of the company and then review the quadrennial goals. He said that for each quad he took time to reflect on specific areas of the company on which to focus. He would also discuss the USOC and the FIS. In terms of the enterprise, this would be the 15th of 16 years of budget surplus, a testament to the management Team and staff and CFO. We had year-over-year growth this past year in Sales and Marketing in addition to the Foundation. We had good support from the USOC, who continued to be a big part of what we did. He noted that we had done a good job of managing the expense side. He wished to also welcome Michael Jaquet to the staff – a great addition and fit with what we were doing. He said that we were ready to jump into the next three years. In terms of Elite Teams, he noted that you'd heard a lot about the success of the Teams over the last few days. It was a best-in-the-world season. We had identified those athletes who were core for 2013/14/15 and our goal now was to make sure we provided world-class service and support to them; the best coaches, training and competitive opportunities, and met the individual needs of those competing at the top and going into next year, focus on the 2013 World Championships. This would be a good prelude to what we would look like in 2014. Through the years there had been a lot of talk about development. We had a plan in mind and in place but we never seemed to get to the point where we staffed and funded it to do a really good job. One of his goals was to lead a well-organized, directed, funded and staffed development program. Luke and the athletic staff had done a great job of providing that and building it out. The plans were to bring the best age group athletes together to train and give them the opportunity to train and compete and drive performance. Those athletes would be 3 identified and provided with great training and competition opportunities with the goal of Olympic success. In the final analysis we were graded on how we did in the Olympic Games. When we brought athletes in it was so that parents, local coaches, everyone understood what we were doing. We needed to build partnerships with our clubs and academies. We had to spend time with the local parents and volunteers on best practices and putting in place the philosophies of what we were trying to get done. We focused on skill development and talent identification and sport education. We've had good programs in sport education but what was coming on line would be even better. We planned to renew focus on regional programs and improve staff and leadership and bring outstanding coaching and leadership and direction and the best athletes together as many times as we could at the regional level. To further support the development program and we advised the board of this last year, we had great discussion on the development of our academy. We were prepared and would open in September. This would be a real addition to the development program and fill out the academic pipeline - laying over the athletic programs. It would provide youngsters coming in with a great experience athletically but at the same time add a degree when they finished and moving on from the Teams into their professional lives. We believe academics enhance athletic results. When the athletes were not on the road competing, they would be here in Park City attending school. Another quad focus was infrastructure. In terms of facilities around the country to support our athletes, it started here with the Center of Excellence and our Olympic Legacy programs in Lake Placid, the Utah Olympic Park and Soldier Hollow – all enhanced what we do. We've worked hard over the last few years to add early-season training opportunities. Dexter mentioned the Copper Mountain Project, which had been in our sight for the last six years and we've finally gotten it done. It's a fantastic place to train, world-class snow and safety – all the elements.