Kurt Aichele, the new executive director of the US Fencing Association sat down with Serge Timacheff of FencingPhotos.com during the 2009 Junior Olympic Championships to conduct this interview.
Mr. Aichele talks about what brought him to fencing, his goals for the organization and a glimpse of where US Fencing is financially. Listen to the audio or read the transcript.
Listen to the Interview of Kurt Aichele by Serge Timacheff:
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Discuss the interview in the forums [here].
Transcript:
Serge Timacheff: I’m in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the 2009 Junior Olympics with Kurt Aichele, the new executive director of the U.S. Fencing Association, and we’ve just had one of the newest executive meetings and board meetings with all of the newly elected people, and things with the USFA are now –
[Audio skips]
Kurt Aichele: – phenomenal performance at the games, and though it’s difficult to capitalize on that experience from a marketing perspective, at this point, there is a lot of goodwill – not only within the association, but across really internationally in terms of where U.S. is sitting. That’s exciting.
The changes in administration within the FIE is exciting to see. A little bit – potentially unorthodox, or not expected; however, we are excited, especially since we were able to put five individuals in the FIE, both from an executive committee, all the way down.
And that’s exciting for us, having that type of representation that we haven’t had in quite a while.
In terms of what’s going on here, we’re also excited about changes that are coming up, whether it’s internally, in terms of how the national office is structured; systems that are being developed, updated, changes in technology.
And then also in terms of how we foresee moving forward within our tournament structure and things like that, that would provide a better service to our members, better service to all stake holders, potentially more visibility, and ultimately strengthen us from a foundational aspect within the sport.
ST: Last year was a tough year financially for the USFA, and this year, it’s a tough year financially for the entire world. Where does that put us right now with finances? What’s the financial outlook right now?
Kurt Aichele: It was a difficult year. Unfortunately, the reports that the board had gotten back last year really did not come in until February. So changes that would be necessary to be made, really, you only had four or five months to implement those changes.
As a result, it was a better year than the year prior, which is good. Honestly, the treasurer of the organization, we estimate that – Greg Dilworth is our treasurer, estimates that our actual cash loss was about 180,000. From an actual perspective, in terms of the way it looks in the books, it’s different; however, that truly is our loss for last year.
Other stuff that came in was stuff that was – should have been actually deferred to other years. We also wrote off a lot of debt that really we see as uncollectable.
Unfortunately, from many individuals’ organizations that were closely tied to the Federation, that truly is just uncollectable. And part of that maybe be as a result of the economic situation we find ourselves in globally.
Where does that put us moving forward? Right now, we are projected to actually end up in a cash positive, which is good. Not necessarily as high as we would like to be to make up the ground we need, however, be operating in the black as a result, reestablishing some trust and integrity with really transparent bookkeeping, actual forecasts versus potentially shadowed.
And if we can land where we anticipate landing at the end of July, we’ll be in a much better position as we look through it towards the next three years of the quad.
ST: Are you seeing any downturn in numbers at events based on what you think might be the economy at this point?
Kurt Aichele: Yes and no. Where we see the turn is the events that are – primarily are adults. Those we’re seeing about a 20 percent decrease. We did see a 20 percent decrease here at JOs, which was not necessarily anticipated. And we do think that that has to do with the changes in the economy.
One of the things we have noticed, though, is that though in some of the other NACs the numbers were exactly the same, the revenue was down, which means people were actually getting their registration in on time and not being willing to pay the triple entry fee, which from a treasurer’s standpoint, he was not very happy, but from the rest of us, we understand that it’s absolutely necessary.
We anticipate that numbers will be down about 20 percent straight across the board. Because a lot of our expenses are fixed costs between venue, between catering, between that type of stuff, shipping we can’t change, we can really only reduce our expense run by about 10 percent, or at least anticipated. We’re looking at ways of finding to economize those things.
We’re also looking at ways to potentially reduce the cost to the people who are attending, participants, parents, refs, tournament committee, bout committee, while also increasing our return from our housing service.
ST: I know a significant amount of our income at the USFA comes from the USOC, the U.S. Olympic Committee. Has that changed since our success in Beijing?
Kurt Aichele: Yes, when you look at what our funding was in the first year of the quad, essentially 2005, we are one of four to six NGBs that received increased funding from that.
Most of the NGBs actually received decreased funding from the first year of the quad four years ago. So as a result of our performance, we did get increased funding.
Now because it’s the first year of the quad, and the USOC has focused on Vancouver, which is really a year from now, the majority of their funding is going to those seven sports that are competing in the winter games in 2010.
However, their projections are – is that because we’re starting higher than we did at the first year of the quad, if we can deliver in terms of the milestones, in terms of the international performance that our national team coaches have said we can achieve, they will continue to respond in terms of providing us with the support we need to have a repeat performance of Beijing.
ST: Where does the money from the USOC go? How does the USFA use that money?
Kurt Aichele: It’s actually – it’s very clearly delineated. When we get what’s called a performance partnership agreement, they break out what goes where.
We received just under a million dollars as the agreement. Of that, a certain chunk, about 35 percent, goes directly to athlete support; it never touches the USFA’s books. It literally gets paid directly from the USOC to the athletes.
The rest of it is divided out between coaching stipends, senior programs, junior programs, coaches’ development, and camps. And then that’s divided out between the different weapons. Each weapon is allotted a different amount.
That information then goes to our national team coaches. They know what their budget is that they have to work with. They then submit what those designated events are, who’s going where, and they have the responsibility of operating within that budget. That’s how it’s divided up.
ST: Shifting just a little bit here now, we have also a new president of the USFA now, Kalle Weeks. Tell us how your roles differ and how you collaborate.
Kurt Aichele: I really enjoyed getting to know Kalle and now getting to work with her over the last couple months. Really, the easiest way to think about those roles is as the president of the USFA, it’s a position that’s voted in.
She sits as the president of the board, which has a legal and governance function over the association, establishing policy, really guiding that board, helping that board to fulfill its fiduciary responsibility as the board.
As those policy decisions are made, that then gets transferred over to the national office, which where I sit, really, as the principal employee, executive director, CEO, depending on how you want to look at that, my responsibility is to make the processes occur that allow us to fulfill the policy that’s been established by the board.
ST: Some of you – some of the – some of the people out there may know a little bit about your background, but many may not. Tell us where you came from and how you got to this position.
Kurt Aichele: I came out of the Midwest, coming out of Chicago; did my undergraduate and graduate at the University of Iowa, where I was a four-sport athlete. But my primary function and interest was gymnastics. I started coaching gymnastics to pay for my own gymnastics when I was 14.
At the University of Iowa, I was the head coach of the club program. After my – worked on my master’s degree at Iowa, ended up going into the corporate world for a brief period of time, realized I enjoyed sport way to much, and came back as a club owner head coach.
Worked my way up within the world of gymnastics, ended up going back to Chicago and partnering with an individual to open a multisport organization. Coached internationally, placed an athlete at Olympic trials in ’04.
Over the course of my 10 years, somewhere between 23 or 28 athletes have gone to school on full-ride scholarships. That organization in Chicago, we had both a profit section and a nonprofit section. It was about a $2-1/2 million organization when I left.
After the games in ’04, my experience there, and then ’05, turned that over to someone else; came back out to Colorado Springs and went into financial development.
Did financial development and program development for a nonprofit in Colorado Springs, but then in April of last year, realized I wanted to be back in the sport world.
When I saw the performance in Beijing, I recognized that this was not only – this organization was either on the precipice of moving forward, or going back to where it had been really 12 or 16 years earlier, and I simply wanted to be a part of it and seeing what we could do.
ST: Well, and certainly your background is diverse, and having owned a club, having taken athletes from beginner to Olympic level, having been involved with organizations at the high levels, so high performance, as well as amateur competition, how do –
One of the big issues for the USFA has been, “How does it split its time between dedicating resources and money and time and guidance to the club level, as well as the high-performance level?
How do you see that area breaking out, and how do you – what’s your vision there to be able to get all these constituencies pulled together and addressed and adequately given attention to?
Kurt Aichele: It’s a difficult question; it’s a broad question. Really, it starts at the club level. It’s absolutely critical for the USFA to focus on developing the broad spectrum, looking at those athletes who are outside of the pipeline as simply being kids, and finding a way to increase the interest in fencing across the board.
In doing so, helping clubs either become more efficient in the way they operate, whether it’s providing them with marketing opportunities, templates, technology that they need to really be efficient organizations.
Helping coaches develop the recreational, the high school coach, in such a way that those club owners then can also continue to focus on the necessary aspects of running a business in a way that still does not sacrifice performance of the athletes.
Finding a way to communicate with athletes and parents most effectively, to make sure they understand, “What is the process as I come into this world of fencing. What does that mean for a parent? What is the dedication? What is that commitment gonna be?
“What sacrifices, if we end up moving down the road, is gonna be necessary?” So as people are coming in, they’re coming in really with their eyes open versus with blinders on.
After you start looking at the clubs, then it’s starting to work on developing trust within the organization between athletes, coaches, parents, club owners, ref, committee members, board members, and, ultimately, the national office, so that we’re operating on the same platform.
It’s not – it’s a transparent line of communication; it’s an honest line of communication. But most importantly, it’s an open line of communication, where ideas can be heard.
They can then be assimilated into the greater scheme of things, but we can communicate it in such a way that we can continue to value the input of those outside. Go ahead.
ST: One of the things that is really affecting the USFA, as well as many other organizations today, is the growth of technology. And it’s hard to keep up with all the things that are going on in technology, ranging from –from the use of video referring all the way to online registration and getting a Web site that is functional.
And I know there’s been quite a bit of work done there, but what’s your vision over the next year or so, maybe one to two years, as to – what are the big priorities in terms of technology and the USFA?
Kurt Aichele: Priority number one is addressing our membership database, taking our membership database online. We are in the final stages of making a decision there.
We’ve actually been able to narrow it down to a couple of different companies who have been doing this for a living. We, right now, estimate that a decision will be made prior to the end of the month.
Discovery process in terms of how we build the architecture necessary, not only to look at online registration and membership, but how to look at registration for tournaments, how to look at points, how to look at our international programs, how to assist our referees, how to assist our coaches’ development – all of that, the first module being really launched by July 1.
Some internal stuff, internal testing prior to that. But having a number of systems available down at summer Nationals when we have a captive audience of fencers, parents, athletes, to be able to look at that system, play with it.
If they want to register online then to proactively reregister and become a – renew their membership. They can do that there. But most importantly, to have a customer service representative from that vendor available to answer questions, to really help with the debugging process.
And so we will be live as of July 1; that’s at least what has been requested. Both companies that we’re looking at have promised delivery of that, and so we’re excited about that opportunity.
ST: So that – that includes online registration then?
Kurt Aichele: Online registration for – as of July will be for membership. Everything associated with that by August 1. It will be tournament registration, and then really by September 1, we’re looking at the international registration endpoints.
ST: And how do you see things changing in terms of national events? There’s been some discussion about whether or not different age groups are appropriate for national events, how you qualify. So maybe too many people, or too few people are qualifying for national events.
Maybe there should be a different structure, and this even boils down to whether or not sections should exist in the role of the divisions. Do you have any thoughts about that at this point, and what might they be?
Kurt Aichele: Really right now I am relying upon the expertise of our board, our national coaches, those who exist on a youth development committee to be providing me with information that help us as an organization assess what is best.
Any time you make a change in one area, let’s say you change the age limit, and you’re either going to reduce or increase the number of athletes who are going to be participating. Well, that has a large effect on your FOC, it has a large effect on your tournament committee, it has a large effect on the venue that you’re looking for.
And so it may be a great idea in terms of promoting one aspect. We have to look at how that piece fits into the overarching organization, and what is best for the overarching organization.
And it’s really – it’s assimilating all the different views, putting it back out there, saying, “Okay, this is the way we think it’s gonna affect it. Is this something we want to do? Is this something that needs to happen? Is this a mission critical?”
When we look at what is our overall mission in terms of providing all athletes with the highest level of competitive or participatory experience based upon their individual talent, based upon their individual level of commitment, we have to look also beyond that high performance.
It’s not simply producing Olympians. We’re truly trying to provide every athlete with the best experience we can that would keep them involved.
As you know, many of our athletes go on to be refs; they go on to be coaches; they go on to be club owners. And we want to make sure that their experience is such that they want to remain tied, connected, involved in U.S. fencing as a whole.
ST: Well, certainly one of the problems for fencing has been to increase its image in the public, and I know there are a lot of ideas floating around. How – what kind of changes would you like to see made to improve fencing at both the local sort of community level, as well as perhaps at national events?
What are your feelings that could be done, especially having come from gymnastics, which is, obviously, a much bigger spectator sport at this point than fencing is?
Kurt Aichele: It is a much bigger spectator sport. Having had the opportunity to really host the world’s largest artistic gymnastics meet in the world, we had 4,700 athletes that would come in for 3 days.
When we had those athletes come in, we had there between 18,000 and 25,000 spectators who would be there. When people came in, there was a way to educate those individuals in terms of what was going on, and that would be one way.
Another way is, how do we publicize it? Right now we are in a media partnership agreement with the USOC. They are working on an Olympic network, which they’re gonna be down at summer Nationals filming.
And by having an Olympic network, we would actually be able to start broadcasting on cable or on Dish things associated with fencing, whether it was training, whether it was coaching, whether it was national events. That’s one way to start increasing exposure.
The studies that the USOC has shared with us show that people are interested in Olympic sport as a whole, and understanding Olympic sport because it’s not your typical basketball, football, soccer that people are familiar with. And so we’re excited about that opportunity.
I think there’s also ways that we can incorporate what we do a little bit more closely in terms of whether it’s your school system, whether it’s existing sports activities, whether it’s things associated with the military.
I think there’s a lot of ways to increase exposure that haven’t really been investigated.
ST: So what might we see coming up here in the next year, some changes? Give us a couple of examples.
Kurt Aichele: I honestly don’t know. I have looked at this first quarter as an assessment period, taking a look at all the different things, making sure that I attended the different competitions, speaking with as many people as possible to get input, to say –
I am absolutely amazed at, first of all, the level of passion and involvement of those who are at these competitions, but also the ideas that have been generated.
If there was a way to capture every single idea, my brain is definitely not large enough to be able to capture it. Everybody laughs, I pull out pieces of paper. They say, “It looks like you have a to-do list.” Well, this is only one of four for just for today. But it’s going back and trying to figure out a way, which of these makes sense.
Quarter two, which would – I would say my third to sixth month of this tenure, is starting to assimilate that in such a way that we can start having a strategic vision for how we can move forward, which aspect needs to be addressed most importantly, which are mission critical, which are good ideas for three or four years down the road.
What I’m thankful for is I listen to all these ideas. As we lay out the architecture for the technology system that we’re looking at, all of those different pieces are going to be incorporated into that architecture.
So if we want to activate those things in such a way later on, we don’t have to go back and reinvent the wheel; the groundwork has already been laid.
ST: Well, I know you’ve been out talking to people and it seems – are you going to be going to a lot of the tournaments this year, and are you going to also be attending some of the international events?
Kurt Aichele: I will be. I’ve made a commitment to be at all the tournaments; anything that’s a NAC or above, I made a commitment to be at. I’ve been at local stuff in Colorado Springs. I will be heading over to represent at least my role in Belfast at Junior Worlds, the Zonals, and then Senior Worlds.
Also attending Sport Accord, which is an international Olympic Committee, really, sponsored event that brings all the delegates from the different Olympic organizations together to start sharing best practices, to start working with our FIE representative, Sunil Sabharwal, on ways that we can start growing affinity for the U.S. Fencing across different sports in different countries.
ST: So if you could put yourself four years from now, project out four years till – to – after the next Olympic games, what kinds of – how would you see the organization as changed – being changed at a high level? What would your vision be?
Kurt Aichele: First I would like to see – currently, the USOC views our organization as essentially six separate parts, based upon the six separate weapons.
I would like to change from a culture of silos, where those individual weapons function on their own, and your referees function on their own, and the board functions on its own, to being an organization that is seen as U.S. Fencing, so when the USOC looks at us, they’re not looking at six separate weapons, but they’re looking at one sport, they’re looking at one organization that has the capability of repeatedly producing medals.
That would be number one in terms of what – how do they view us after London? That would be number one, that they don’t see us as six individual entities.
Secondly, I would like to see us in such a way that we have moved from a general perception in terms of the communication between the general membership in the national office as one of being, whether it’s vague, or nontransparent, or non-open, close minded, to being one of being open, fully disclosed.
But more than anything, one of integrity and trust. That when something is communicated, whether it’s from the person answering the phone, or at that point, somebody is answering the phone, to a referee, to our membership, to our director of membership, to even, let’s say, somebody who is a vendor or a sponsor – that everybody knows where we’re moving as an organization.
That we have a common vision, and we have such a relationship that we really trust one another as we move forward.
ST: My final question is, you have an athletic background. When are you gonna take some fencing lessons, and what weapon do you think you’ll choose?
Kurt Aichele: I figured a wheelchair might be the way to start; it requires less movement. No – you know, people have suggested that I do. I don’t know if I want to. It might be nice to put on a lame and at least understand how to hold something.
I’ve always been, not necessarily a combat sport person. Everybody says, “No, it’s an art; it’s a thing of strategy,” and I would agree. However, you’re being hit by something, and I’m not sure if I want to engage in that.
I didn’t like that aspect of football, [Chuckle] but it’s more refined; I recognize that. We’ll see if I can actually be convinced to give it a shot.
ST: I’m sure there are plenty of people out there willing to help you with that. So thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to touching base with you in the future as the organization continues to grow and develop.
Kurt Aichele: Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate the opportunity.