January 07, 2004
Dear
Board,
Following is my application for the position of USCF Executive Director.
I have enjoyed the challenging work of being Office Manager for the past seven
weeks. Among the issues addressed during this time were Games Parlor, the mess
with the Trust, a new affiliate program, the building, Edge TV, relations with
Excalibur and Saitek, a new credit card processor, newsstand sales, hiring extra
help for the holiday season, non-member letters, software and hardware upgrades,
collections, sponsorship, the Patron Program, Chess Life policies, and the US
Class.
Nothing I did produced as much favorable member reaction as paying the long owed
prizes from the US Senior, even though we were not legally obligated to do
this. And the next Chess Life will have numerous new informational boxes
intended to clear up confusion about how tournaments work, and what affiliates
need to do to have their events rated without driving our rating department
crazy.
When I offered to be in charge of the office I was not 100% certain I would like
the job, but now I look forward to hopefully still being here past August, when
I am confident the Delegates will notice a major USCF move in the right
direction. My basic philosophy is that USCF's structure remains fundamentally
sound, and all we need is common sense management that doesn't give away money,
pushes for sponsors and donations, helps and encourages affiliates, and keeps
members interested and informed.
I first joined USCF in 1961, when I was 18 years old. Before entering my first
tournament I had read every chess book in the Mount Vernon Library from cover to
cover, including playing over every column in MCO-9. My first rating was 1940,
and it went over 2200 three years later. From 1964 to 1967 I worked in USCF's
New York City office as Rating Statistician. I also ran my first tournament in
1964, the New York City Junior. The same year, I was the third most active
player in the country.
In 1966 I held the first ever USCF-rated scholastic tournament, a surprising
success that produced 134 USCF memberships. The following school year, the same
event brought in 400 memberships and was more than twice as large as any USCF-rated
tournament ever held.
By 1967, I was running many tournaments in New York City, and left the
Federation when it moved to Newburgh rather than give them up. 24 years later,
the NYC tournaments having been wiped out by high hotel rent and replaced with
others around the country, I did move to the Newburgh area, but not to work for
USCF, until recently.
In 1969 I created the National High School Championship, an immediate success
which drew players from as far as Hawaii to New York its first year.
Subsequently I created the National JHS (1973) and National Elementary (1976)
Championships. About 1983, USCF wanted control of all national tournaments and
I sold them these three for a total of $8000. In 1991 I created the National
K-12 Scholastic Grade Championships, holding it that year and announcing I was
giving it to USCF to put up for bids after that.
I started the World Open in 1973, and have held numerous International Title
Norm tournaments. I also like bringing activity to dead areas, such as Vermont
which had no rated tournaments at all in the 1980s, and has had many events
since CCA's Vermont Resort Open was held there in 1990.
I am a FIDE Master, and my proudest chess achievements, other than organizing,
were making a plus score at Lone Pine 1974, winning a round robin Futurity ahead
of two IMs, winning the Toronto Open and Montreal Open, missing the IM norm by a
half point in Gausdal, Norway, and being captain of the 1976 gold medal winning
US Olympiad Team.
Despite the latter success, it was my only time as a captain; I don't like long
plane trips and have not left North America since 1978. As Executive Director,
I would like to concentrate on the office and travel as little as possible. I
certainly don't wish to attend any FIDE meetings, and would rather not visit
faraway national tournaments. I do plan to keep travelling to run the larger
CCA tournaments, though, as I'm not paid by USCF and need some income.
I am willing to continue working without pay for at least the remainder of
2004. I would ask that at the August meeting, if USCF finances are better than
now, the Board consider whether I can be paid about one quarter of the usual ED
salary.
I originally told Beatriz that I didn't think I could spare more than three days
a week for USCF in 2004. But I am finding ways to economize my other work, plan
to have others run some CCA tournaments I was going to do, have USCF run a few
of them, and now think I can do the job virtually full time. I need a 10 day
break for the World Open, a few days for Chicago, Foxwoods, and the
International in Vermont, and hope to spend late December to early February in
California, but will do USCF work while at these places, as I did in Las
Vegas.
Thanks for your consideration,
Bill Goichberg