USA Waterski has a new Overlord

Looks as though after a search that seemed to go on as long as the former head man, Meatloaf, was actually in charge, usawaterski finally got themselves a new leader.

His name is Steve Locke and he was most recently served as CEO of something the International Peace Garden and was the proprietor of Steven M. Locke Marketing LLC, an aptly titled marketing and event management firm in Colorado.

More important to our world, besides of course the peace garden, is that he sat on the USOC Board of Directors and ran USA Triathlon from 1991-2004, and on the USOC board from 1996 - 2004.

"Locke served as the chief executive officer for USA Triathlon for 12 years between 1991 and 2004. He led growth initiatives that increased membership from 9,000 to 53,000; grew the organization from an annual budget of $300,000 to $6 million; initiated new sponsorship relationships resulting in millions of dollars of budget relief over a 12-year span; and created a reserve fund of $2 million through generated profits."

Nifty!!

Looks like USA Waterski really has some wood for this Olympics connection, remember our boy Andy Jugan said how he always aspired to be part of an Olympic level organization?

Well, now the usawaterski people actually nabbed themselves someone who actually was part/is part of that whole operation!

“It is a huge privilege for me to become involved with USA Water Ski,” said Locke, who also has served on the board of directors for the United States Olympic Committee (1996-2004) and as president of USA Taekwondo (2004-2006). “Through my involvement with Olympic and Pan American sports, luminaries such as Tony Baggiano and Steve McDermeit kept me up to date with the pulsating action of all the diverse disciplines of USA Water Ski. Their enthusiasm along with everyone else I have met has me enthused about going to work for USA Water Ski and growing the sport of water skiing across all nine sport disciplines. It should be a lot of fun.”

Thats not all though!

In doing a little searching around the internets for info on our boy, check out this opinion piece he wrote about people bitching about USA Triathlons involvements with the Olympics:

"Inbreeding" creates weakness within an organization. Witness that any animal or plant species with a limited gene pool becomes weaker over time and may eventually disappear. The similarity in goverance is strikingly the same. If a sport's governance is "purebred" within the sport, it tends to weaken as little fresh thought is introduced from the outside, and the business side frequently does not flourish. This has been evidenced time and again within NGB governance. The model is just wrong for these times of a needed higher grade of business sophistication."

Well, thats pretty good. Welcome aboard dude.

Links:
Locke Named New Director: usawaterski.com
Opinion Piece: slowtwitch.com
Take me to your leader: the CRB