Ed Stone  
http://www.synernet.com writes:

August 26, 1997


Having read many discussions of the USHGA and some of the issues at hand, a few
points seem crucial, in my opinion.


First, it seems to me that there is dancing around the central issue. The
central issue is "Is the sport of Hang Gliding growing in a healthy manner, as
evidenced by membership in the USHGA and active participation in the sport?".


The answer is not squishy nor ambiguous. The answer is "yes" or "no".


Waiver terms, forest service regulations, litigation, standard operating
procedures, BOD control, list gripes --- all of these are nits and lice compared
with the larger issue and distract from facing the central issue. If the
membership and participation in the sport is growing robustly, then an executive
director can point to that, and be given great latitude on the peripheral
issues.


If the membership and participation in the sport is not growing robustly, then
it is time to find out why and make changes. I submit that if the organization
were growing at 20% annually, and four new sites were opening up each month, and
increasing hang glider sales caused the cost per glider to decrease 4% per year,
and novices could fly 20:1 L/D blade wings and land them with no-steppers, then
no one would care if the Executive Director was a pilot. I submit that the
executive director need not even be a Hang 1 and he can get airsick in an
elevator, but he sure as heck needs to be a Sport Promoter 5 and Advanced
Organization Manager.


I submit that neither the membership numbers nor participation in the sport is
growing in a healthy manner, and our sport is in danger because of that.


The first point to be evaluated by the BOD is: "Is growing membership in
USHGA and participation in the sport the primary item in the job description of
the Executive Director?


If it is not, it should be put on the job description, at the top, in bold
type.


Second, objective, empirical criteria must be determined up front, to describe
exactly how "growing membership and participation in the sport" will be
numerically measured. The guy doing the Executive Director job has to know this,
and the BOD has to be clear about it.


Third, the board must set explicit goals (in terms of the measurements above)
that are to be achieved by the Executive Director. These goals are generally
negotiated by a the Compensation Committee or the Executive Committee of the
BOD, with the Executive Director. Generally, the ED takes the tack, "if you want
x% increase in membership, I need $z". The BOD responds with, "if you need $z,
dues will have to increase to $y. Can you increase membership by x% if you
increase dues that way?"... etc. It is a negotiation, but it is very healthy
because it focuses the BOD and the ED on what it takes to grow the organization.


Fourth, (this is crucial) the compensation of the Executive Director must be
tied, in part, to performance versus the goals. For example, say the ED
makes $50,000 today (I have no idea what he makes, this is just an example.) If
that is a flat rate salary, with no money at risk, then what is the incentive
for achieving the central goal? If the ED doesn't like the idea of at risk
compensation for membership development, you've got the wrong ED. Thank him and
get a new one.


If performing the job at the current performance level is worth $50,000, then
compensation is structured in a manner like this, approximately:


Assume (fictional) that the measure of USHGA and sport participation shows that
for the past three years, the sport has grown 3% per year, and the BOD/ED
negotiations have determined that the goal for the coming year will be 5%
growth.


New rate of pay: $40,000 (yep, status quo gets the ED a $10,000 cut) End of year
growth measure: 50% of goal (2.5% ): no incentive payout, ED earns $40,000 75%
of goal (3.75%): $5,000 incentive payout, ED earns total of $45,000 100% of goal
(5%): (par) $12,500 incentive earned, ED earns total of $52,500 125% of goal
(6.25%): $20,000 incentive payout, ED earns total of $60,000 150% of goal
(7.5%): $30,000 incentive payout, ED earns total of $70,000


Caveats:


1) the BOD and the ED must really believe in the measurement criteria. Both are
betting dollars on the measures being fair.


2) this is a simplified example; the ED must also balance the budget and
accomplish other objectives. (Obviously, he can grow membership 100% if he can
eliminate all flying tests, and pay new members $20 each, instead of charging
for membership...)


3) there must be some moderating "longer term" measures as well. Eliminating the
waiver might help grow membership, but put all manufacturers out of business,
causing the sport to grow this year, but collapse three-years out (No waiver
flames please, this is just a fictional example).


Long term health of the sport must be incentivized as well. (In general, a full
"at-risk package" has something like base pay set at 80% of midpoint
compensation for running a similar sized organization, up to 10% of base as
incentive for peripheral matters, up to 50% of base as incentive for the BIG TWO
[on budget; growth meets goal]


I believe that such a compensation arrangement would:


1) put the hearts and minds of the directors and the BOD in the same place


2) reduce the focus on the peripheral issues


3) lead to healthy discussion with the ED focused on what the BOD sees as the
central objective of the organization, and measures for them, removing wiggle
room of both parties


4) lead to a healthy discussion of how participants in this sport depend on the
health of the manufacturers, dealers and schools, and vice versa. If
participation does not grow, then the manufacturers, dealers and schools
decline. If manufacturers, dealers and schools decline, then unit costs rise,
opportunity to bring in new people declines, and the cycle deteriorates. We are
a very interdependent community. Pilots don't win when schools, dealers, and
manufactures lose, and vice versa.


5) lead to a healthy discussion of how to better balance "site acquisition and
protection" and "new member development".


When you have someone by the wallet, his heart and mind will soon follow. His
own wallet manages him, and he can be left alone more. This can make life for
both the ED and BOD better fast, if you have the right ED and a clear,
definitive BOD.


A few other points I'd recommend to the organization.


1. Stop making excuses and get www.ushga.org
up now. This is the cheapest recruiting exposure per impression that you can
have. It hits a lot of self-reliant type people who have a some money and who
venture out. The lack of progress on this is an indictment in itself. Every
college student in the US has free access to the net. Do you want to market HG
to college students?


At least 50% of sport participants use the net regularly. Get moving, and
provide for "impulse buying" on the web: brochures should be in PDF format or
compact HTML for instant downloading and printing; "Ask USHGA" should be a
"mailto" that gets an answer within two working days. Set up an on-line
application. If the waiver must be signed, get the app up front, and make the
membership active when the signed waiver arrives. Make it easy. Provide a
"finder", such that the user can enter his zip code, or click on a map, and get
a listing of every school, dealer, club, and manufacturer in his area. Ask if
you can give the visitor's email address, phone and snailmail address to to
every dealer, school, club or manufacturer who wants it. (I hate junkmail, but
this would be by permission.)


2. Get a complete demographic profile on every person who joins, and work hard
to understand how and why these people come to hang gliding. You must know where
your members are coming from. Print the summary in the magazine. Ask members to
read it, and invite folks who meet that profile to visit a flying site with
them.


3. Get a complete Exit Questionnaire from each non-renewing member. It should go
to a BOD member rather than ED. Compile them and analyze them. Print the summary
in the magazine. Allow for free form input as well.


4. Put a five-year membership chart on the desk of every USHGA employee,
refreshed each month. In every USHGA meeting, internal and external, the ED
starts with two charts: Membership/sport activity versus goal, and budget versus
plan.


5. Major inflows of members occur when hang gliding is portrayed favorably in
movies and other media. Media-experienced members should be asked to help in
this regard, and the ED should have a goal for favorable sport placements.


6. We use airspace, and we are few and have no political clout. Our economic
clout is dispersed. In terms of public power, we are nowhere. This will cost us
if we don't change it. Listen to amateur radio sometime. It is a dying hobby.
The number of 18 - 25 year olds in the hobby is flatlining at zero. The stores
and catalogs that used to live off amateur radio have moved on to other things,
or are dying. Washington could sell their frequencies for billions, and will.
Likewise, our use of airspace can inconvenience others, or result in
widely-hyped occasional accidents in a world that seems to expect perfect
safety. If every HG pilot in the US could vote against a single House incumbent,
it would not likely swing an election. We must join more closely with the AOPAs,
EAAs, etc, or risk being summarily squashed. A DC lobbying presence, possibly
not directly to congress/exec branch, but to the other associations as
intermediaries with whom we could ride along, is crucial. Can we enlist a DC
area HG diplomat for this?


7. Terminate the USHGA attorney with thanks and get another one. The ED should
have seen the need for this a few thousand dollars ago. I make no determination
as to whether the attorney is right/wrong, good/bad. He is a lightning rod,
based on based statements in the magazine versus testimony, and based on
authoring the waiver. He is naturally biased in the defense of a work he
authored. Get someone else now and move on quickly. If the ED can't get beyond
the waiver wars quickly, out of court, we need a new waiver, no waiver, or a new
ED. Pick one and move on quickly. What you spend to bring a new attorney up to
speed will be no more than a strident defense of the waiver would cost from this
point forward. Count on settling. Our focus must be on growing the sport. If the
waiver is reasonably required to accomplish that, get an attorney who didn't
write it to tell us why honestly and dispassionately with factual supports for
his points, sit down with the anti-waiver folks and talk with them, and call on
us for maturity and reasonableness, as it is given in mutual respect.


In conclusion, my opinion is that the nature of a person who seeks the
independence and self-reliance and adventure that HG provides, also brings to
the table assertiveness, strong opinions, skepticism, a tendency to be hard to
lead around, a tendency to confront, and other very positive attributes, all of
which make organizing a group of such people analogous to herding cats or trying
to teach a pig to sing. We are a feisty, suspicious, curmudgeonly bunch, and
being the Executive Director or Board member of such a group is not easy. We
should all try to be a little more tolerant. Of everything but stagnant growth
numbers.


If any BOD member would accept my participation in bringing some of this to
reality, I'd be happy to give some hours.