Dear Ken,

I write to express my concern as a Club owner, active bridge professional, and a 42-year member of the ACBL. The ACBL has some very serious problems which need to be addressed, and addressed now. In your role as current ACBL President, it is incumbent upon you to take immediate action to save the organization about which we both care deeply.

The League almost for certain has (or had) a claim against its D&O carrier — or the General Counsel himself for legal advice — or possibly some unnamed outside counsel — regarding the Work for Hire paragraph in the Hammond Services contract. What happened in that paragraph does not happen in the normal course of business. It certainly appears to be negligence per se.

Instead, Club Managers now write the ACBL a larger sanction check each month after spending 300% more time filling out the monthly report with the “new ACBL software.” Clubs are the largest source of members in the ACBL. Clubs are the ACBL but, they are not Management or the BOD. Unrepresented in the selection of the BOD, the wants and needs of the Clubs are trampled upon on a regular basis. With poor morale, Club owners are hardly motivated to recruit new members.

The bias against clubs is institutional. To illustrate the plight of the Clubs: There is no one with Club ownership experience on the recently constituted Board Composition Committee. Saying that the Board Composition Committee will “solicit the input of the Clubs” rings hollow when the committee has already begun meeting and there has been no correspondence with Clubs. The Board Composition Committee had to be told of its error in leaving out Clubs; what more can possibly be said about the lot of the Club owner?

The total size of the BOD is a bit of a red herring. The BOD electorate needs to be revised and the district membership sizes need to be more numerically homogenous. The League has professional demographers among its membership who are also unrepresented on the Board Composition Committee. As long as Unit members elect the BOD, Clubs will be used and abused. Importantly, membership recruitment efforts will continue to suffer. It is all tied together.

It is incredibly unlikely that the change in electorate required to represent Clubs will occur via the BOG, BOD, district Board member voting mechanism presently provided for in the current ACBL by-laws. All of those voters are vested in the present set-up. Steep hill for Clubs for certain.

Robert Hartman is a sensational people person. He has been responsive, professional, and reasonable with me personally. Each Board Member may ask him about the quality of advice I have given him in return. If the ACBL had hired Robert Hartman after he had run some other non-profit or small corporation we would likely not have had such financial losses, poor hires, and unhappy employees. We had a CEO search committee made up of all BOD members. All volunteers.

Robert Hartman was given a 25% ($50,000) raise after one year because “he might leave” and we needed to pay “for profit” wages. It’s professional suicide to leave any position after one year; it never happens with management personnel who are doing well. However, by operating in a non-businesslike fashion, we lost the applicant pool who would have originally applied for a for-profit salaried CEO position — by advertising a non-profit wage at time of search. ACBL decision making is deeply flawed. It’s a volunteer BOD. The BOD must solicit professional advice. There is plenty of money to engage professional advice; the requirement is to spend the money prudently.

Under the present structure, the volunteer BOD cannot act as a proper check and balance because they are emotionally invested in Rank and Hartman. Hunkered down in a bunker awaiting the next technology snafu is an accurate description. The average board member has remained popular and in office by not making hard businesslike decisions. The personal and professional lines between Management, the BOD, and the General Counsel are too blurred.

This has all come to a head while you, my long-time friend Ken Monzingo, are President. We need you to lead, not feel sorry for contractors and employees. It is “rain” on Ken’s “Presidential year parade”; but, it’s required – for the good of the ACBL.

A final matter (for this letter) which needs to be addressed is the General Counsel Search Committee. CEOs never appoint the entire search committee for the position of General Counsel. Think about it! As between the BOD and the CEO – the General Counsel is the Board’s lawyer. The BOD cannot allow the CEO to chair the search committee and name all its members – in order to recommend the Board’s lawyer! Fundamentally, this is a flawed business practice.

To summarize and repeat: recently, the ACBL is jerking around in a reactionary fashion and not operating in a businesslike fashion. It is dysfunctional. The Clubs are being beat up again and membership recruitment will continue to bear the brunt of the dissatisfaction. The BOD, the General Counsel, and Management are too close to each other emotionally. We need more formal separation of roles.

The time for strong leadership is now. I believe there are many members who share the above listed concerns as well as many, many other concerns. You have our confidence and support. Please do not hesitate to call on me if I can be of any assistance.

Chris Compton