Chess politics - George John is Running for USCF Executive Board Again!!

Author

George John is Running for USCF Executive Board Again!!

Sam Sloan

2005-01-15, 6:47 am

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 05:24:53 GMT, "George John" <george@neosoft.com>
wrote:

quote:

>
>
>"The Masked Bishop" <tmb@c4.com> wrote in message
>news:e1DDd.5744$Vj3.4683@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com...
>
>
>
>Dear TMB,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>You are right, words are cheap. Actions are what counts. I think my past
>actions support my words that have been an independent.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Integrity is important, but it's not sufficient by itself. The basic keys
>to any business success is understand your market and customer, have
>something to sell they want, adequately advertise what you have, and service
>it well. IMO, the USCF has done none of this anywhere as well as I think it
>could or should be done.
>
>
>
>
>
>Clearly, finger-pointing isn't what we need. But, accountability is
>important, as well as understanding what went wrong in the past so the same
>mistakes don't keep being made over and over.
>
>
>
>The important lesson here is to come up with a reasonable plan and then
>carry it out to completion. It seems to me too often in the past USCF
>leadership comes up with plan A, only to have the next wave of leadership
>decide that plan B is better. Plan A is dropped before it is completed and
>any money and time spent on Plan A is wasted. Then Plan B gets dropped for
>C, and so on. Nothing gets done.
>
>
>
>Back to the idea of integrity for a moment, it is important for the USCF to
>do the right thing whenever reasonably possible beyond the minimum required
>by law, the Bylaws, BOD motions, etc. An example might be the move to
>Crossville. Based on the limited reading I have done on the subject, it
>seems that USCF leadership made a commitment to Crossville that it would
>move there. While moving there may not be the best plan, it seems to be
>considered by many a reasonable plan (assuming the move is managed
>competently). Therefore, even if a better deal were to come along, the USCF
>should do the right thing and stick with its original plan (and commitment)
>to move to Crossville should they still want us.
>
>Best regards,
>
>George

George John is Running for USCF Executive Board Again!! The above is
his opening campaign statement.

Sounds good, does it not.

However, George John comes with some baggage: He engineered the two
biggest mistakes the USCF ever made, namely the firing of Executive
Director Mike Cavallo and the introduction of US Chess Live. These
acts with the full participation and involvement of George John caused
the USCF to lose ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

If he wants to run again he had better find a way to explain away
this. In addition, he claims to be a computer expert but his actual
job was working in a used furniture store. He had better explain this.

Those with good memories will recall that George John was a
full-fledged member of the Redman Gang which came close to destroying
the USCF. Now, George John is returning as a member of the Beatriz
Marinello Gang, which is determined to succeed in destroying the USCF
where the Redman Gang had failed.

Once again above, George John issues the same trite and meaningless
platitudes which are so characteristic of his every campaign, but when
it comes to actual action, George John has been on the wrong side of
every issue.

Sam Sloan

George John

2005-01-15, 6:47 am

"Sam Sloan" <sloan@ishipress.com> wrote in message
news:41dfe8a4.4085859@ca.news.verio.net...

All,

-snip-

quote:

> However, George John comes with some baggage: He engineered the two
> biggest mistakes the USCF ever made, namely the firing of Executive
> Director Mike Cavallo

The USCF Executive Board voted 8-0 to release Cavallo if he did not complete
the software upgrade by a certain date. This date was MORE than one month
after the date he VOLUNTEERILY provided as the LATEST date the upgrade would
be complete. He had been tasked with the upgrade for more than a year and
had repeated missed deadlines. The new Board that came in in Reno insisted
on something that the prior Board never did, ACCOUNTABILITY.

The failure of our Executive Boards to adequately monitor their Executive
Directors and hold them accountable is one of greatest errors our Executive
Boards have made.

quote:

> and the introduction of US Chess Live.

I did not recommend that the USCF go with US Chess Live. The decision was
made without my knowledge. I was never comfortable with the deal which I
learned about only after the fact.

-snip-

quote:

> If he wants to run again he had better find a way to explain away
> this.

I have explained this on the pages of rgcp more than once. It's interesting
to note that as time has passed, the allegations have become much more
divergent from the truth.

quote:

> In addition, he claims to be a computer expert but his actual
> job was working in a used furniture store.

From 1977 to 1983 I worked for a furniture rental store, that also sold
their furniture used after it has passed its useful rental lifetime. They
had a small MIS department, which I transferred into 1978 and soon became
its manager. In addition to managing the MIS operation, I began writing
software programs in COBOL. I set up good written procedures and processes,
trained my staff well, and was able to spend nearly all of my time writing
software, replacing the old, and poorly written RPG code with my COBOL
replacements. One of my replacements ran 25 times faster, reducing
processing time from 2-1/2 hours to 6 minutes for a Houston month-end
report.

in 1980 the Exective VP decided to start a spinoff company devoted to
writing accounting software, and I tranferred into that department. I
worked on helping develop the standard bread-and-butter accounting
applications, but the most interesting application I wrote during that
timeframe was a COBOL source code generation application, that supported
what is now known as the CRUD model against multi-indexed database files. I
heard that at least one copy of it was sold for $21,000.

That company was sold to an Atlanta firm. I elected not to transfer to
Atlanta and found a job in 1983 with an engineering firm. I have been
working in the oil industry as a software developer since then, 13 years
with that company, 5 years as a contractor doing software development for
major oil companies, and since June 2003 working as a full-time software
developer for a division of CoreLab named ProTechnics,
http://www.corelab.com/protechnics/default.asp

-snip-

Best regards,

George John