A Letter from CEO Amanda Kraus as 2021 Comes to a Close

Hello USRowing friends, rowers and supporters!

Happy December to all of you. I hope you are all enjoying some time with friends, family, and furry family members too. For those who are less social, perhaps you're getting some good time on the erg. Or maybe both! Holiday erging with family? And to our warm weather friends, please think of us cold weather folks when you're out on the water in the sunshine!

It continues to be a busy fall here at USRowing. In the good news department, we're excited to announce two new hires to run domestic programs. We have Rich Cacioppo coming in to lead Programs and oversee membership, regattas, camps, coaching education, as well as safety. Rich rowed at Columbia and brings a wealth of experience and success in customer experience to the table. Jennie Trayes will be joining us to oversee Community Programs including STEM to Stern, DEI, Adaptive, and Veterans rowing. I had the pleasure of working with Jennie for a decade at Row New York and know, firsthand, how very lucky we are to have her on our team given her depth of experience in community rowing.

The search for our new head of High Performance is coming to a close and we plan to announce this hire before the end of the year. I'm incredibly grateful to our search committee consisting of: Kevin Sauer, Lori Dauphiny, David Banks, Zach Weatherford, Emma Twigg, Kate Ackerman, and Reilly Dampeer. The group has been very involved and gone through multiple rounds of interviews, reviewed written responses to questions, and we're now conducting outreach to references. For those who are curious, as this came up quite a bit on social media and in the rowing press, Steve Redgrave is not a finalist for the role. That said, we're very grateful for the time he took to explore a position here in the United States.

In other news, the USOPC has released their community report summarizing their 140 page assessment that they hired the law firm Arent Fox to conduct. I believe the report gives us an opportunity to reflect (and act on!) the need for change across certain areas and I look forward to implementing some of these recommendations together.

As you will have seen in our dues memo, our insurance rates are increasing substantially and our SafeSport fees are also going up. We've held rates flat for as long as we could over the years, but in order to cover costs and build a stronger USRowing, we are bringing up individual dues by $5 and increasing organizational dues by approximately 17% across the board.

For our members and member organizations, as we map out 2022, I know you're going to start to see and feel the changes at USRowing with additional resources and staffing to support you. This includes a new member of the membership team, a growing STEM to Stern team, Jennie Trayes and Rich Cacioppo coming on board to lead on programs, a focus on supporting Masters (Chris Chase will run point on Juniors, Masters, and Safety), and a new Director of Safety.

Last but not least, our podcast this month featured Kate Johnson and LiLi Leung, two incredible individuals in sport (rowing and gymnastics) who speak with me about athlete mental health. Please click here if you'd like to take a listen.

Thanks to all of you who are rowing, or watching rowing, or feeding rowers, or coaching rowers, and helping all of us at USRowing build a stronger tomorrow for our sport.

All the best,

Amanda