Bob Bowman was born April 2, 1940, and lives in Redmond, Washington. He grew up and went to school in Southern California and later lived in Oakland, California, for more than 30 years. This email interview was conducted by Ken Stone in October 2008:

Bob Bowman

Masterstrack.com: What qualifications, attributes or perspectives would you bring to the USATF presidency that your opponents would not?

Bowman: Unique background and experience in the sport as well as my professional qualifications. I have years of executive experience at all levels of the sport (association, national and international). I do not believe my opponents have such an extensive resume of accomplishments at all three levels. I first introduced the strategic planning process to USATF and, if elected president, I will reintroduce this valuable tool to improve every area of our organization, including Masters T&F. I possess leadership skills first developed in graduate school (master’s degrees in both business and engineering), then applied in my professional career with such challenging positions as chair of the design team for the Voyager spacecraft while at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the early 1970s, and serving as chair and facilitator for strategic planning at Intel Corporation, where I helped elevate it from No. 4 to No. 1 in the semiconductor industry.

I have been a leader in our sport at seeking fairness for all constituent groups. As a delegate to the IAAF Congress, I introduced legislation to require at least two women on the IAAF Council. That legislation passed, ending an 80-year span when only men served on the council. I introduced a USATF bylaw amendment in 1981 that required an LDR and race walking staff person to be selected for at least one position on the Olympic, Pan American Games or World Championships managerial or coaching staffs in a four-year period. It took me two years to get it passed. Up to that point, LDR and race walking were being overlooked.

I have competed as a masters athlete in the Pacific Association — mostly road running and cross country events. I love the fellowship of this category of our sport.

Among USATF’s stated missions is “fielding the most competent United States individuals and teams for international competition in Athletics and providing support and conditions for athletes at all levels of the sport which ensure optimal performance.” Does this include fielding teams for world masters competitions? If so, how can USATF help?

Absolutely. USATF can better prepare athletic teams for the world veteran championships by strengthening the masters track and field program domestically. High-priority goals for masters T&F should be identified and pursued along with the other constituent groups’ goals within the USATF Strategic Plan. A national masters T&F program that includes regional meets should be developed and promoted. This is a wonderful part of our sport that needs to be elevated in importance. The athletes will then be better prepared for international competition. We also need to attract the world veterans championships to be held in the USA again. When I was president of the Pacific Association, we bid for this competition.

Despite masters being a large share of USATF, the budget of USATF Masters Track & Field is a relative pittance — $85,000 this year, with USATF’s contribution being just $39,500. Would you commit to at least doubling USATF’s contribution to the budget of USATF Masters track & field?

I am in favor of it if we have the money and masters T&F presents a good case for the use of the money. Even during these tough economic times, we can increase our revenue by increasing our membership, and by also increasing corporate sponsorship. We can increase our membership by demonstrating to our constituents that they receive value for their membership fee. That means our local associations providing more and better opportunities to participate in all disciplines at every level of our sport. Right now, that isn’t happening in many of our 57 associations.

Under the proposed reorganization of the Board of Directors, USATF Masters T&F is losing a seat on the board. How would you guarantee that masters T&F is assured fair treatment within the federation?

First of all, if I’m elected president, Masters T&F will have at least one advocate for masters T&F programs. Secondly, I will make sure that the high-priority goals of Masters T&F are included in the USATF corporate strategic plan and I will work with Masters T&F in the development and implementation of their part of the plan. Even though Masters T&F is losing a seat on the board, that does not necessarily mean they will have unfair treatment within USATF.

On the USATF Web site, Board of Director minutes are listed as “coming soon.” In fact, board minutes have not been publicly disclosed for years. Will you commit to posting the missing board minutes as well as all future board minutes on usatf.org within two months of the annual meetings?

Absolutely. This also has been a sore point with me. In fact, as a nonprofit orgaization, this should be required. There is no excuse for not providing the minutes in a timely manner.

Did you support the awarding of the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Trials to Eugene, Oregon? If so, why did USATF not ask for monetary compensation for these awards? In the case of the 2012 Trials, why weren’t other cities invited to bid?

I had no say in the awarding of the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Trials to Eugene. This decision was made by the two chairs of Men’s and Women’s T&F Committees. The president and CEO as well as the board was aware of the decision and certainly had oversight authority on approving such a decision. The money ($500,000) received for the 2008 Trials was given to an outside organization of professional athletes (PAA), with no accountability as to where the money went from there.

The 2012 Trials was awarded to Eugene also, but to my knowledge no money has been received by USATF. With Nike involved in both Trials, these were very poor business decisions for USATF. There is also possible conflicts of interest in awarding the Trials to Eugene in that the chair of Men’s T&F has a contract with Nike and the former CEO left USATF to take a job with Nike after these decisions were made. The current CEO has yet to sign the 2012 Trials contract with Eugene. He is investigating this matter. Other sites were invited to bid and at least one other site (Sacramento) did bid on the 2012 Trials.

The 2008 Trials featured several events where members of the field were allowed entry under controversial conditions, or denied entry despite having “B” standard marks that in past years would have allowed their entry. As well, a nonfinalist in the javelin was allowed to compete in Beijing. Were these decisions fair? If not, what went wrong, and what changes would you support to prevent them from happening again?

This question is not worded correctly. All athletes with a Trials standard could enter the U.S. Trials. The unfairness occurred in the selection ranking of those athletes that met the Olympic A or B standard. The chair of the High Performance Division and the chairs of the Men’s and Women’s T&F Committees decided that only finishers in events that only had a final or finalists in the other events would be included in the selection rankings per event.

This was really unfair to those athletes who had a standard, competed in good faith, but failed to finish their event or be a finalist in their event, either due to injury, illness or any other reason. They should have been ranked at the end of the list accordingly. They aren’t hurting anyone by doing so and we get few people with an A or B standard anyway. USATF has done this in the past. This could have prevented one or more athletes from making the team without displacing anyone else.

Then they violated this policy by allowing a field event athlete (men’s javelin) go to Beijing, even though he was not a Trials finalist. I authored legislation several years ago to eliminate just such inconsistencies and unfainesses in the selection policy. It was rejected by the Law & Legislation Committee, which felt it did not belong in our Operating Regulations. I will try to reintroduce this again.

In late August, board member Lynn Cannon circulated a scathing indictment of the USATF Board of Directors, alleging that certain members of the board mismanaged money, especially travel and hotel expenses. Do you agree with her assessments? If so, what should be done? If not, why do you think Cannon made them?

I agree with Lynn’s report. It has been verified by other board members and the National Office staff. Lynn Cannon was doing the job she was elected to do — looking out for the best interests of the organization and its members. When the CFO also questioned these excessive expenditures, the board, controlled by these same people who were violating accepted business practice, fired him! And the chair of Women’s T&F filed a grievance against Cannon that was eventually dismissed. Such a retaliation grievance is against operating Regulation 11.R and is subject to possible penalties. The best way to prevent such abuses in the future is to not elect these people again to any positions within USATF.

The USATF Web site is a vast resource, but it has no search function. Many visitors to the site become frustrated, unable to find what they are looking for. Would you commit to having the USATF webmaster install a search engine on usatf.org?

Yes, it is a no-brainer.

How would you strengthen the grass roots of USATF? How would you fix problems in certain USATF associations, especially those with governance problems and a lack of meets?

The grass-roots side of the sport is really neglected by USATF. Too many of the 57 associations are not providing the support and programs for the athletes in their respective areas. As president, I will form a task force to study the current status of all associations. The Member Services Committee already has much of this data. We then need to identify the key people in those associations, new and existing people, who are willing to help revitalize their association.

We should provide some resource help to them, training in all disciplines, office procedures, etc. We should use model associations such as the Pacific Association as guidance to them regarding LDR circuits, track grand prix programs, meet management tools, etc.