Further to the firing of longtime executive director and CEO, Pat Gouhin, lots of familiar faces are no longer there, not just Gouhin. Highly respected events manager Rodney Jones was apparently fired without notice before Gouhin left. Deb Eby, who secretly ran ISA for more years than I care to admit, retired in July, as did Susan Colwell, the Publisher of ISA Books, who announced suddenly she was moving on.

I have also heard rumors that there is significant resistance to Peggy Koon’s appointment as interim Executive Director. Most of the resistance appears to center on her color rather than her accomplishments, which are many and mighty. The resistance appears to be coming from the same group of pointy headed volunteers who didn’t like it when she was ISA president.

What the heck is going on here?

From the outside, it looked like ISA had finally stabilized after thirty years of volunteer vs volunteer and volunteer vs staff infighting. Now it is just as big a mess as when I was on the Executive Board.

Anybody want to enlighten this poor magazine editor and longtime ISA volunteer (still am– am Program Chair for ISA STL section) as to what the (bleep) is going on??? I promise not to name you when I write about this, just like I didn’t name the people who have told me the stuff I wrote above.

Did Gouhin lose his mind? The stories about his last few months in office are very strange and don’t reflect the Pat Gouhin I’ve come to know.