http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2008...ss-federation/

On Feb 24, 11:12 am, samsloan wrote:
http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2008...ss-federation/

This is a major part of the problem. There is a rule that says that no
relative of a member of the board can be a paid employee of the USCF.
So, when Gregory Shahade resigned from the board just so that his
sister Jennifer Shahade could be hired, that was done to circumvent
that rule.

Because of this, the USCF passed a new rule so that this cannot happen
again. The new rule says that says that no relative can work for the
USCF for two years after the board member has left the board. I think
this goes too far. For example, this means that my son, Peter Aravena
Sloan, cannot work for the USCF for two years after I left the board,
even though my son may be the most qualified candidate for a job. My
son is a rated chess master and a talented artist and designer with a
BA in fine art from CUNY Purchase.

There are several other problems with the Shahade hiring. The only
qualification she had was that she was the author of a good book,
"Chess Bitch". I do not consider that to be a valid qualification.
Most published books go through proof readers and editors before being
published. There is no way to know whether she wrote the book entirely
by herself or had help. She was paid an excessive salary for a newly
created position with no clearly defined duties in a stay-at-home job.
She gets somewhere around $40 to $50K per year and it is not clear
what she is supposed to do for this money. At the same time, the USCF
was suffering big financial losses.

I have nothing at all against Jennifer but these factors should have
been considered prior to hiring her. It was Joel Channing's decision
to hire her. The rest of the board would not have agreed to this. Joel
Channing went on a wild spending spree with USCF membership dues money
shortly after being elected and taking office on the board. Channing
also had 20 USCF insiders flown down to Florida for a "Retreat" and
hired an Internet Guru for $50,000 shortly after taking office on the
board. These expenditures by Channing who was VP of Finance cost the
USCF members more than $100,000 and is a major factor contributing to
our continuing losses.

Sam Sloan