The day of infamyand the future of theMotorcycle Hall of Fame Museum(12/14/2007)
Motohistory is a place for fun, scholarship, and exploration about the history and traditions of our great sport and hobby of motorcycling. I hate the idea of using it as a political voice, but in this case I feel I must, because I think it is time for people who care about our traditions to know what has been going on inside the walls of the AMA. A little over a year ago, the Board of Directors brought in a new CEO named Rob Dingman. After serving about six months under the tutelage of veteran employee Patti DiPietro, in April of this year Dingman was entrusted with the job of running the organization. Shortly thereafter, DiPietro left, about six months ahead of her plan to see the organization through its next budget cycle. DiPietro is a woman of integrity and a lifelong AMA employee who had executed wise and effective financial management for many years.
Dingman brought in two lieutenants who have little or no knowledge of the history of the organization (how much they even know about motorcycling I am not sure), and he placed them in positions of power over the veteran, experienced staff. By accounts I have heard, at least one of them has nothing good to say about the AMA and constantly tears it down, within and outside the walls of the building. Dingman seems to have been heavily influenced by this philosophy. It is true that the AMA has been severely criticized for the last few years, mostly for the failings – real, perceived, or contrived – of its professional racing program, but instead of trying to fix the problem, Dingman has decided to get rid of it. He published a manifesto in Cycle News – curiously, not in the AMA's own magazine — that basically denounced the organization as fatally flawed and his own staff as incompetent. He announced that the AMA would just get out of the promotion of racing series, whatever that means.
He has declared that the AMA's only historical area of competence is government relations, and that in the future it should focus its resources there. Finally, just yesterday he published his “vision” on the AMA's web site, and it seems significantly changed from what appeared in Cycle News. The Board of the AMA needs to determine whether the new CEO is working with a vision or a moving target, but I doubt that the AMA Board has the potency to do that. While it would appear that the Board has bought into his “vision,” I woner if they have just acquiesced. This Board, I think, has become so shell-shocked and beleaguered by a long period of litigation, ineptitude, poor hiring, bad decisions, and infighting that it is no longer capable of effectively governing, and may have simply abdicated leadership solely to this CEO.
However, my greatest concern is for what Dingman has not yet talked about, and that is the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, which is a separate corporation but heavily dependent upon the AMA. My concern is based on the fact that he appears to have no interest in the traditional functions and the institutional memory of the AMA, and he has demonstrated little regard for those who know the history, have the experience, and have gained it through years of dedicated service. I say this because his campaign to revolutionize the AMA has taken on an abusive and brutal style in regard to the staff. He does not tolerate dialogue and dissent toward his views. I am told he has shut out the experienced staff and huddles only with his two lieutenants, then delivers pronouncements and policy clarifications that often have the quality of threats toward his employees. No one except the chosen two seem to have access to him, and everything is funneled through a gate-keeper.
Long-time members and supporters have complained to me that he will not return their calls, and there are department heads who have gone literally for weeks with Dingman ignoring their requests to discuss pressing issues, yet he has ordered that nothing be written or circulated that has not undergone his personal review and approval. His inaccessibility is so complete that some members of the staff have taken to calling his office “Fort Dingman.” An atmosphere of distrust, fear, and paranoia has blossomed within the building. Employees are convinced that their phones are tapped and their E-mails monitored. He is so afraid of open dialogue that he has ordered the staff to report to him in detail on any contact they have had with a member of the Board of the organization. Employees have learned that he places loyalty to him, personally, above loyalty to the organization, and probably anything else, and he appears to believe that loyaty can be earned through fear.
The toxic environment that Dingman has created inside the AMA became public on December 7, 2007, when he fired two of the longest serving, most loyal, and dedicated employees in the organization. These were Greg Harrison and Bill Wood, who had served for 28 and 25 years respectively. They were escorted from the building like criminals. Earlier in the week, Dingman dismissed the Association's outside legal counsel, who had worked for the organization for 17 years. His cruel and thoughtless behavior toward long-serving employees was, in my opinion, quite unnecessary. Perp walking them out of the building was clearly so mean-spirited, abusive, degrading, and low that the woman from the human resources department assigned as their escort wept as she carried out her task. In a letter to the AMA Board of Directors, I have protested this style of leadership as “monstrous,” and that is what I believe it is. The AMA may need to change, but this is not the way to do it, and I believe that any man capable of this kind of behavior toward his staff does not have the character or gumption to rebuild a decent and better organization.
This action of December 7 I could not abide, and I reacted by protesting the only way I knew how, and that was to resign my committee duties for the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. I did this with full understanding that it would make me unwelcome in Mr. Dingman's domain, which includes one of the best motorcycle research libraries in the nation, which – while belonging to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum – is on AMA property. Perhaps the quality of future articles at Motohistory will suffer from this, but so be it. At some point one must declare where he stands. At some point, one's outrage must be made clear.
December 11, 2007
On December 7, 2007, two of the hardest-working, best, and most loyal employees the American Motorcyclist Association has ever had were fired and escorted out of the building like criminals. One had served 25 years and the other 28. Never mind that the employees in question have been key to driving membership, magazine circulation, and magazine revenue to all-time highs. Never mind that they were utterly loyal to the Association and served it well, even during the period of confusion and instability it has experienced in recent years. Beyond this cruel incident, it is my belief that the current leadership of the Association has established a reign of terror over the professional staff as a whole.
In my opinion, the current regime is monstrous, and I am simply dumbfounded that the AMA Board of Directors seems tolerant of this style of management, if not complicit. It has caused me great pain to watch the deterioration of the AMA, but I expect my unhappiness is nothing compared to that of the employees, volunteers, and supporters who have been directly affected by it. There is very little I can do about this situation except cease to be a party to it in any direct or indirect way.
For this reason, it is with deep sadness that I resign my position as Chairman of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Ambassadors and Promoters Committee, and my membership on the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Pioneers Committee. Furthermore, with the firm belief that the current AMA leadership will apply any resources provided it toward the destruction of the Association, and eventually the destruction of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, I will make no further financial or in-kind contributions until a more caring, conscientious, and responsible leadership is established at the levels of both the administration and the Board of Directors of the AMA.
Sincerely,
Ed Youngblood
Past President, AMA
Member, Motorcycle Hall of Fame
The AMA will have to sink or survive, and its Board will have to live with its tacit or complicit support of Mr. Dingman's style of leadership. But what will happen to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in his brave new world is what really concerns me. I have seen nothing that would indicate that he has the slightest understanding of it or appreciation for it and what it stands for. In fact, his apparent campaign to obliterate institutional memory at the AMA would suggest that the Museum — or anything else that honors tradition — has no place in his vision.
As I said, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum is a separate corporation, but it is unfortunately hooked at the hip with the AMA, both politically and financially. Of everything that Mr. Dingman might like to divest the Association of, the Museum would be the easiest. Its by-laws are written such that the AMA Board could obliterate it with a single vote. The Hall of Fame function could be assigned to another organization, or, for that matter, just be abolished. The assets could be liquidated and an auctioneer called in to sell off the collections. Believe me, people, this could be done at any meeting of the AMA Board, at any time, with no requirement of notice to the members of the Hall of Fame or the donors who have given motorcycles, artifacts, and money to the organization over the years.
Since I have been told one should not complain without offering a solution, at this time I shall offer one. I think the Museum Board needs to step beyond its traditional role as a subordinate body and give Mr. Dingman a gift. I would like to see this Board quickly sit down and hammer out a business plan that clarifies how to survive without being dependent on the AMA. This plan should include a political structure that reaches out to tap the broadest possible constituency among the various clubs and organizations in America that love and cherish the traditions and heritage of motorcycling.
I believe the Museum Board is more than capable of this task. There are bright people there who represent a much broader range of industries and experience than you will find on the AMA Board. They should create this plan post haste, take it to the AMA Board, and say, “It is time you set us free, for the good of all concerned.” Independence would eliminate the AMA's need to provide support services to the Museum (IT, accounting, communications), and it would free the Museum from the possibility of collateral damage resulting from the current vicissitudes of the AMA. And Mr. Dingman would be free to focus all of his attention on pursuing his campaign to revolutionize the AMA. Surely, he would appreciate that.
Let me end by returning to history, which is, after all, the purpose of this web site. I think about how the head of the AMA treated his senior staff like criminals on December 7th, and I recall what a truly great American leader said about that date many years ago, describing it as “a day which will live in infamy.” Thanks, Mr. Dingman, for reminding us. I hope others will take your actions as a wake-up call and consider that perhaps now is the time for the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum to move on and make something positive out of all this mess by taking on the responsibility of independence so that one of our most important institution will not be taken down with the AMA. In the mean time, lets hope that somehow the AMA Board of Directors will find the courage and right-mindedness to do its job and demand that decency be an obligatory part of Mr. Dingman's vision.
