http://mphsports.com/

Lisa Tate, USHPA President, has appointed meet organizer and long time hang glider and paraglider pilot Mike Hailey to be the new Competition Committee Chairman for the USHPA.  Mike is the organizer of three USHPA sanctioned competitions this year (see the URL above) and has been the long time organizer of the Rat Race Paragliding competition at Woodrat in south east Oregon.

Mike showed up for what seemed like his first USHPA BOD meeting in a long time last fall in the Bay Area where the competition committee approved his application for two paraglider meets and David Glover and I encouraged him to put on a hang gliding meet in Lakeview. Later Mike and Gail agreed to put on that meet and it is now the Hang On meet which was just moved to Woodrat given the fire/close airspace situation near Lakeview. Again see the URL above.

It is great to see a person who is primarily focused on paragliding as the USHPA Competition Committee Chairman. This is a first. Of course, suddenly this year paragliding competitions have finally taken off and have been well attended, while hang gliding competitions (other than the always well received Flytec Championships) have not been as well attended as in the past.

David and I worked hard to get Mike's Lakeview meet designated as the US National Championship in order to encourage more pilots to attend. That was turned down by Liz Sharp at the Competition Committee. Now, of course, the Hang On meet has low projected attendance. Might have been the case with the Nationals moniker any way.

One small issue that has come up, the movement of a competition from one venue to another requires the approval of the Competition Committee Chairman. Since it was Mike that wanted (for very good reasons) to move his competition, Mike really needed to have the USHPA President (with input from whoever is on the Competition Committee) make that approval. According to Mark Forbes, Lisa was consulted by Mike on this move. Lisa approved the change and continued the sanctioning.

The big job of the Competition Committee is approving/sanctioning/encouraging competitions. I assume that Mike will recuse himself from all votes on sanctioning his own competitions when they come before his committee next fall.

Congratulations Mike, and good luck.

Discuss Mike at the Oz Report forum
   
 
 
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