One Year Down: a Note From Our CEO

Hello USRowing friends, rowers & supporters!

This month marks my one-year work anniversary with USRowing. To be honest, I had to laugh the other day when someone said, "I don't envy you in this role, Amanda" as it was the fifth time in as many days that I had heard that exact comment. The irony is that, as much as being the CEO of USRowing is challenging and, at times, dizzying, it's more interesting and rewarding than I ever would have imagined.

Yes, there is still a lot of work to be done on our infrastructure, but we are making progress. With time and some more organizational investments in staffing and systems, I have no doubt we will become a national governing body that rowers will be proud to be a part of. In fact, we're using the month of November to map out the how and the who behind our 2022 planning for membership, regattas, coaching education, youth, DEI, and our national teams. I look forward to sharing our annual priorities and goals as we head into a new calendar year.

In the meantime, we were thrilled that 75% of voters came out in favor of the board bylaws changes. Huge thanks to the member organizations and athletes who supported these important changes.

Speaking of the USRowing board, please take a moment to read about the current opportunities to join the board through upcoming elections for regional, athlete, and at-large positions.

We are also working our way through identifying the best candidates for two senior roles at USRowing—our new head of High Performance and our new head of Programs. We should have both of these positions finalized before the year's end.

In other exciting news, it's my pleasure to welcome STEM to Stern to USRowing. The founder and ED, Will Bott and STEM coordinator, Rachel Hunter joined the USRowing staff in October. I'm so thrilled to have the opportunity to build off of their early success and continue providing more rowing (and STEM) opportunities to young people across the country—together! To kick-off the program's support, we received a $250,000 pledge from Winklevoss Capital to help the program in year one with us.

Last, but certainly not least, congratulations to our annual referee award winners.

Hope to "see" many of you at the convention next month. In the meantime, enjoy the last weeks of your fall seasons— wherever you're rowing, coxing, coaching, refereeing, or cheering on your crews.

All the best,

Amanda