Erik Schlimmer tells the story of how he learned to fastpack the Adirondacks, a grueling 110 miles and 19,000 vertical feet of climbing, in five days with only 11 pounds on his back.
When this issue hits the gyms and stores, the story that inspired this column will be old news, but I’m writing about it anyway because I think it raises some really important issues in the active community.
Mired in these details of the RAAM purchase is where that laundry list of complaints against Hughes begins. The adjectives used to describe the organization’s leader are varied: Humble. Egotist. Nice guy. Self-important. Generous. Cheapskate. Brilliant. Mediocre. Power hungry. Not surprisingly, the UMCA Board of Directors is stacked with John Hughes supporters, with a precious few exceptions. Within the ranks of the general membership, it’s a bit harder to get either an unwavering vote of confidence or doubt in his abilities to run the organization, especially since the official form of communication for the organization, Ultracycling Magazine, is published and edited by Hughes. Internet discussion groups are changing that, with modern-day accessibility enabling an ultra rider in New Hampshire to chat with a counterpart in New Mexico.
But his detractors are increasingly vocal in their opposition to the tactics used during the RAAM purchase, Hughes’ ability to lead, and the future direction of the UMCA.
One of the most vocal is Paul Skilbeck, a 44-year old British-born public relations and marketing executive from San Francisco. Ironically, it’s Skilbeck who has been credited with helping to grow RAAM from its days in the late-1990s as a small event that was dying on the vine to an internationally-respected endurance sporting event. Since its birth in the early ‘80s, the race has always managed to capture the imagination of the endurance sporting public, and was once named by Outside Magazine as one of the toughest sporting events on planet earth. But the addition of a professional P.R. crew, headed by Skilbeck (in tandem with the efforts of race directors Pitre and Haldeman), arguably helped to give the event a badly-needed shot in the arm simply by increasing media exposure.
Skilbeck says that Hughes’ shortcomings as the director of the UMCA don’t stop with RAAM. “Hughes has been upsetting the UMCA apple cart since he was hired as the organization’s managing director in 1997,” he offers. “The RAAM purchase is just the most egregious part of the misuse of power. He has completely circumvented the constitution of the UMCA.”
Despite their differences, one thing that Hughes and Skilbeck can agree upon is that the general membership of the UMCA wasn’t consulted prior to consummating the deal for RAAM. To Hughes, it was a necessary step required for confidentiality. “If you heard that a GM division was for sale, you might lose confidence in that division. If you heard that RAAM was for sale, you might wonder, ‘Gee, RAAM might not happen…I better make other plans for 2007.’ We were concerned about the loss of faith in the race that might have resulted,” he said. “We handled it in the same way that any business sale is handled.”
Although he believes he operated transparently, citing full disclosure to the UMCA executive committee and Board of Directors, Hughes admits that the process is broken. “Because the steps we took conflict slightly with the UMCA constitution, the membership should have had a chance to vote on the process. I think the board needs to address a possible change [to the constitution] to avoid this. We are accountable to the membership. We simply followed the model that was set up for the UMCA. If you look at the criticisms, they’re complaining about processes, not about what we eventually did.”
Skilbeck doesn’t buy the reasoning. “Hughes likes to talk about the ends justifying the means, but in reality, either we have process—or we have anarchy,” he says. “He has created a precedent by simply acting as he wants—the constitution and bylaws of the UMCA be damned. Most of the members don’t know that this has happened, but if they knew half of what has occurred, they would be complaining as loudly as I have been.”
Adding fuel to the fire is the revelation that Hughes himself put up his own cash to help fund the RAAM purchase, although his ownership stake lies in a scholarship fund instead of in his own pockets. Still, the move raised more than a few eyebrows, which Skilbeck argues is akin to Pete Rose betting on baseball.
Raised in the Pacific Northwest as the son of a minister, Hughes was taught the value of community service, and it’s that upbringing that first brought him into the not-for-profit arena. Before he took the reigns of the UMCA, he spent 25 years in the administration at Stanford University, eventually attaining the title of Senior Associate Dean. According to Hughes, he “learned a lot about what makes non-profits work and not work. I developed a lot of frustration with organizational bureaucracy, so I started riding my bike a lot, which gave me time to consider how I would direct an organization if I were in charge.”
