Sunday, December 08, 2019
Monday, November 11, 2019
Report to Members 6 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
My credentials, positions, and goals with open source are clear. They were established in my candidate and campaign statement, and in writings to the board of directors after the beginning of the 2019 term.
In response, Tom Clark (Director of AMSAT-NA) requested some agenda items for discussion at the in-person board of directors meeting at Space Symposium 2019.
Tom wrote:
"One item I'd like to add to the agenda, as circulated by Joe, is addressed to Michelle. It is quite obvious the O.R.I. and the people on the [Ground-station] email list should be a significant part of AMSAT's GOLF-TEE, GEO and AREx (Amateur Radio Exploration) future activities. I'd like to have some discussion on how the groups can work together. This should include the hot-button topic of the GEO Echostar 9 commercial activity fits into the scheme of amateur radio especially since amateur frequencies are not a part of the picture."
I had requested to the board an agenda item for recognizing Open Research Institute as an AMSAT Member Society. Specifically, to provide a formal structure for safe, sane, and legal open source work for the North American amateur satellite community.
I explained at the Symposium in-person board meeting that Open Research Institute was working with an EFF-recommended law firm to create a written policy for open source communications satellite work for the amateur satellite service, and that we were proceeding with EAR certification based on this work.
None of these items were put on the agenda, which was a big disappointment. There was no call for new business.
However, there was another item on the agenda that will greatly affect open source engineering policy, and that was a set of legal memos from a consulting company that had been contracted to provide them to AMSAT-NA.
These memos are a summary of the ITAR/EAR landscape. They are intended to be a first step towards a written ITAR/EAR policy. That's the good news. The bad news is that both the policy and the company are not oriented towards the open source carve-outs. The summaries are written from the point of view of a consulting firm that focuses squarely on commercial, proprietary, and secret work.
We received the memos the day before the consulting firm was due to meet via telephone during the morning of the second day of the in-person board meeting.
These memos are not bad work products. They are simply the wrong direction. If followed down their logical path, they will lead to two serious and completely unnecessary negative consequences for the organization.
First, the regulatory burden placed on volunteers will be enormous. The cost of compliance with proprietary and secret ITAR/EAR is high. There's documentation that describes what is involved with implementing for-profit oriented ITAR/EAR policies. I brought it up before when recommending GitHub Enterprise as a minimal IT intervention to bring AMSAT-NA into compliance with proprietary ITAR.
Second, the memos appeared to be an answer to a set of instructions that limit the number of organizations that AMSAT-NA wants to work with. This did not appear to include Libre Space, Open Research Institute, and others. Using a written ITAR/EAR policy to exclude organizations that are showing up and contributing significant open source technology and regulatory work is not what many members want. It's the opposite and is incompatible.
Third, AMSAT-NA and ARISS are not for-profit companies. They are organizations with a very large educational component. There is a big risk that embracing proprietary ITAR/EAR policies will end up damaging the educational non-profit status that both organizations currently emphasize and enjoy. There is an obvious alternative that is designed for organizations like AMSAT, and it is not the sort of ITAR direction that this particular consulting firm produced in their summary memos.
Given that I had to make a lot of inferences about these summaries, I asked Joe Spier (and cc'd the board of directors) what instructions were given the consulting firm. This would let me see for sure where the discussion was expected to be going, and what assumptions were being made. I made it clear that was why I wanted the instructions, and that I wanted to work back to the assumptions in order to address any serious disagreements on the direction AMSAT-NA should take. This is part of my job as a director.
I asked for this on 4 November 2019. As of today I haven't gotten a copy of what was sent to the consulting firm. I'm optimistic that it will eventually arrive.
I started looking forward to the first AMSAT-NA teleconference, where I could ask about the memo instructions, ask about member society status for groups like Libre Space and ORI, bring up the Rent-a-GEO opportunity, talk about all the GEO progress made in the open source community and how it can help AMSAT-NA.
Specifically, there is an open source ADAC system with space heritage from Libre Space that would be an excellent place to start. I brought this system up in the in-person board meeting. No interest was expressed, but getting the point across is why I'm there. There's some very interesting open source thruster R&D going on, and several really good complete open source IHU systems. The open source communications systems work that I'm most involved in is just one part of a much larger and rapidly developing community.
So, about that next board meeting. The first Tuesday of the month of November came and went. There was some confusion about whether or not there would be a meeting. There was then some discussion about whether or not there were to be monthly or quarterly or "as needed" teleconferences going forward. Over the past few years, monthly teleconferences have been scheduled. These conferences can be called as a board meeting, and motions can be passed and business handled.
During the in-person board meeting at Symposium, it was asserted by some board members that the regular monthly teleconferences "were not productive" and that there were too many of them. I was surprised to hear this, and said so. The explanation was that nothing much happened and they were not needed. They should be less often or called "as necessary". To me, this means increased uncertainty and potential substantial delays between things getting done.
Given the financial challenges AMSAT-NA faces, and given the large amount of work discussed during the two-day in-person meeting, it didn't seem plausible to me that monthly meetings throughout the rest of the year were unnecessary or unproductive, and so I said so.
After the 4 November 2019 teleconference didn't happen, I asked when the next board meeting would be. I have not received an answer yet.
When the next board meeting does happen, I'll bring up all the things I have described here, again.
I am optimistic that the written policy work direction can be changed, and that open source alternatives to many, if not all, of the major subsystems of AMSAT-NA satellites can be adopted to huge positive effect.
Worst case, this may require leadership change in engineering. Jerry Buxton refused to answer a question about unused/misplaced hardware, refused to answer questions about missing firmware donation, and refused to answer questions about the status of the current ADAC system. These questions were all submitted in writing.
Multiple engineering volunteers spoke with me at length at Symposium 2019 about their experiences, what they needed, and what they wanted. A lot of them also volunteer on open source projects, including Phase 4 Ground. The lack of communication and cooperation from engineering leadership is not something that the rank and file of AMSAT-NA engineering exhibits.
I followed up with two or three others after I got home from Symposium. I'm here to help engineering wherever and however possible, regardless of any refusal at the board level to cooperate or collaborate. Life is way too short to give up on getting things done and having fun in the process.
Questions and comments welcome and encouraged.
You can write me directly at w5nyv@arrl.net
Report to Members 5 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
I was part of a slate of candidates for the 2019 board of directors election. We ran on a platform that included the adoption of open source engineering policies at AMSAT-NA. That's what I expected to be working on when results were announced and we started our term on 20 September 2019.
We've made some progress here, but have a long way to go. Here's a separate report about what we've done to bring positive change to AMSAT-NA engineering policies.
Unfortunately, what's taken up a majority of our attention is the refusal of the officers to answer questions or provide documentation. This includes ordinary records of corporate communications.
The AMSAT-NA buck stops with the board of directors. The officers are appointed by the board and report to the board. Since the board of directors are scattered across the country, the primary means of communication between directors is the board email list. Some other records are electronic. Many records appear not to be electronic. They are presumably in a filing cabinet at the AMSAT-NA office.
The first hurdle was signing an acknowledgement letter for various NDAs. Then the goalposts were moved.
The new reason for refusal was given in a phone conference between Patrick Stoddard and Joe Spier, with the assistance of a lawyer who appeared to be representing Joe Spier as President. The assertion was made that Patrick and I just can't see any records because we might sue and because we have "conflicts of interest".
The lawyer, from a Boston firm called Hurwit & Associates, turns out to not be licensed to practice in Washington DC. This is where AMSAT-NA is incorporated. DC corporate code applies to AMSAT-NA. It seemed a bit strange that the law firm allegedly hired to provide advice to the AMSAT-NA president, and previously to the secretary, would not be a DC firm. Corporate code is very similar everywhere. It doesn't make the law firm irrelevant, but it did raise some questions in my mind about why pay a firm that can't practice in the jurisdiction of the company.
The conversation was bizarre, to say the least. If we're so dangerous to AMSAT-NA that we cannot be allowed to see corporate records, then we should have been removed immediately. There are procedures in the law for that. But, we weren't removed. Instead, we were seated at the board meeting at Space Symposium in mid-October. We were allowed to vote and make motions. We were told the delay in being able to do our job of oversight and direction was simply due to NDAs. We did not appreciate losing part of our term this way, but we cooperated with the month-long delay and signed the document. Our cooperation was not rewarded.
So, let's talk about these new claims. "Conflicts of interest" are a particular thing. Usually it involves board of directors business that would personally or financially benefit a member. The general practice for members of a board of directors is that they recuse themselves when they have a conflict of interest. It is never decided for them by the people they appoint to execute board direction. Neither Patrick nor myself have any financial interest in any aspect of AMSAT-NA business. Neither one of us want to harm AMSAT-NA. We are here to improve the organization in the ways we've clearly set out in public communications since May 2019.
There were no specifics provided by Joe Spier or the lawyer. It's a total mystery what this "conflict of interest" might be.
Joe additionally claimed there were "personnel" discussions on the list that we might somehow find objectionable. This can't be relevant, since neither Patrick nor myself have ever been an employee of AMSAT-NA. I have both contract and management experience in several companies. There isn't anything about "personnel" discussions that should be off limits to either me, or Patrick.
When confronted by a lawyer in this way, which was a complete surprise and was in contradiction to the promise that access would be give after the NDA acknowledgement letter, Patrick and I decided to seek independent legal advice.
We put the word out and two law firms that specialize in corporate governance and practice in Washington DC were recommended. We contacted both. We got a 15 minute meeting with the first one right away. This initial consultation occurred on 4 November 2019. It ended up lasting more than an hour. By the end of the week we had a plan, a contract, and some very appreciated reassurance.
The firm we have hired does not do litigation. This was a deliberate choice. This should eliminate any inaccurate and hysterical claims that Patrick and I are out to sue AMSAT, have a history of suing AMSAT, and so on. These are silly smears from a very small number of people. They have an agenda of secrecy and control. They don't want to cooperate. Making up things about lawsuits is unfortunately part of that.
If the legal advice and legal communication with AMSAT-NA does not resolve the errors in corporate governance, and we have every expectation that it will, then the next step after that is unfortunately a court order. That will only be necessary if we're forced to do so because of a failure to comply with basic corporate governance.
We will explain what we're doing every step of the way. We have obtained independent legal counsel and we have authorized them to advocate on our behalf.
If you are unhappy about these developments, then the best place to address it is the next board of directors election in 2020. Patrick and I believe that transparency and the ability to inspect corporate records, as the law sets out, are a basic part of this job. Some of your AMSAT-NA officers and some of your board members disagree. If you want things to change, then research the 2020 candidates and vote.
Unlike other things that AMSAT-NA does, this isn't rocket science. It's wrong to do this to directors. Patrick and I will continue to work to fix this. We will continue to explain what we see and what is told to us. We believe that you deserve to know how your organization is being run.
Please check out our report on open source policy work to see how we work and what we're trying to accomplish.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Being in Arlington, VA and visiting the Rus Uz Restaurant and Market
I tell my many GNU Radio friends that live in Eastern Time that I have a policy of never visiting their part of the US. It's not completely true. It's a long conversational trope designed to provide playful geographic banter. But, I am indeed much more likely to travel to the South, to the Great Plains, or to conferences and meetings up and down the West Coast. There's no real reason other than the type of work I do and enjoy doesn't have that many conferences in DC or New York or Boston. The annual information theory conference ITA is in my home town of San Diego. DEFCON is in Vegas. Burning Man is in Nevada. IEEE events and open source conferences tend to be on the left-hand side of the map for the types of things I do.
But Arlington and DC were fantastic! The wait was worth it. Real public transit, completely different architecture, actual weather, unfamiliar trees, and plenty of interesting conversations with people outside the conference.
I stayed in an AirBnB for the first time on this trip. I understand why it's become so popular, but before this journey, that understanding was only in the abstract.
As an event organizer, AirBnB has had a big effect on filling up room blocks. It does threaten the bottom line of conferences that have to guarantee a certain number of rooms in order to get the space to have a conference. If the contracted rooms are not filled, then the conference has to pay for them. This can be a significant liability for organizations without deep pockets that want to put on conferences.
The gig economy has some serious drawbacks, and deserves the criticism it gets, but staying in a peaceful lovely condominium a few minutes' walk from the conference was a completely different and superior experience to living out of a hotel room for a week.
Stepping into the restaurant, the five of us were rapidly settled into tables clustered with gorgeous china. The bilingual menu offered some long-forgotten pronunciation challenges. I last studied Russian a whopping 32 years ago!
The food and the service set us into a world apart and we spent the time slowing down and thoroughly enjoying the experience. The conversation ranged from ATSC-3 integration to Chicago political drama to Debian war stories and more. The company and the conversation and the food were a highlight of this travel.
We then visited the similarly-named grocery two doors down and I stocked up on all sorts of presents for my large family. Everything was appreciated because the items were so different and distinctive. Winning the "I brought you a gift from my business trip" challenge can be hard! Thank you Rus Uz Market :+)
Monday, October 28, 2019
Report to Members 4 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
This report covers the past two weeks. I didn't want to write one on the Friday during the middle of AMSAT Symposium. In retrospect, that was a good decision. It makes this report much easier to write.
Three weeks into the new term, Patrick Stoddard and I were told by Joe Spier (President of AMSAT-NA) that if we signed a letter acknowledging the many (much more than two!) NDAs that AMSAT has signed with various companies and organizations, that we'd get access to corporate communications and documents.
We can't read the board of director email list archive and we cannot see any repositories. We did get some financial documents, which were sobering. No orientation to the board of directors or assistance with the transition was provided.
On the first day of the two-day AMSAT board meeting, held immediately before 2019 Symposium, the acknowledgement letter was inadvertently forgotten. No problem. The next day it was provided. Patrick and I signed it.
We noticed that the entire rest of the board and all the senior officers signed it as well.
Why were they not signed on to these NDAs before?
The rest of Symposium happened. There were many productive meetings and great presentations. I got to see the ARISS power supply presented in the demo room. It was wonderful to see the final stage of a very long engineering process that has taken a lot of hard work from volunteers from my home town. I caught up with a lot of other people over the weekend and had a great time.
However, there was no change in access to documents. A week after we signed the NDA acknowledgement letter, Patrick inquired as to when we'd be able to see the things that we should be able to see.
The response? A phone conference with Joe Spier and a lawyer from Hurwit & Associates on 24 October 2019. Patrick was able to make this meeting, but I was not. The phone conference had been proposed the day before. I couldn't attend because of school drop offs and medical appointments. Patrick took the call.
The claim? Neither Patrick and I can see the email archives because AMSAT is afraid we would launch multiple lawsuits over the content. The content was described by Joe Spier as being about Patrick and myself.
The result? Patrick and I will meet with at least one DC law firm that specializes in non-profit corporate governance. The meetings will start on 4 November 2019. We will present the written and oral communication we've received and the timeline and what we learned this week and ask for an opinion on what to do next.
Why are we getting a lawyer? When people you expect to work with show up with lawyers and say you cannot have access to things you expect to have access to, that means you probably need a lawyer too. Patrick and I are very disappointed that the President of AMSAT paid a lawyer to deflect questions about access to ordinary corporate communications after we complied with the NDA acknowledgement letter demand.
I think this development is very bad news. I'm sorry to have to share it with you. I believe members deserve to know about it.
Before the board meeting, Tom Clark (Director) asked for an agenda item to talk about Open Research Institute volunteers being more involved with GOLF, AREx, and other activities. He wanted the board to discuss the Rent-a-GEO and GEOx4 proposals.
Open Research Institute is a 501c3 specifically formed to be a member society of AMSAT. All of Open Research Institute's work is open source. This would allow AMSAT to participate in the thriving open source scene while disrupting their current closed methodology as little as possible. It's a step in the right direction.
Here is the quote from Tom Clark's email to Joe Spier, who was going to chair the board meeting.
"One item I'd like to add to the agenda, as circulated by Joe, is addressed to Michelle. It is quite obvious the O.R.I. and the people on the [Ground-station] email list should be a significant part of AMSAT's GOLF-TEE, GEO and AREx (Amateur Radio Exploration) future activities. I'd like to have some discussion on how the groups can work together. This should include the hot-button topic of the GEO Echostar 9 commercial activity fits into the scheme of amateur radio especially since amateur frequencies are not a part of the picture."
This item was excluded by Joe Spier from the agenda. None of these subjects were allowed on the agenda. I thanked Tom for attempting to include it and told him about some of our recent engineering successes after the board meeting concluded.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Refusing to work with active volunteers, and refusing to work with entire organizations with diverse and successful teams, does not serve AMSAT's mission.
Bringing up litigation as the fear that justifies the refusal to cooperate or collaborate is very bad news. Neither Patrick or I know the real reasons for this. We speculate that any criticism of AMSAT in any way is perceived as some sort of existential threat.
Looking at the finances, the amount of money that AMSAT is spending on lawyers has sharply increased over the past two years. AMSAT is running a deficit. Unnecessary legal expenses add to that deficit.
There are two possibilities.
The previous board of directors did indeed write things that were wildly inappropriate. They schemed up stuff that actually does put the corporation at risk if the targets of the writing found out. People decided it was better to defy the DC corporate code than to let the targets see whatever it is they are so afraid of us seeing. I can't imagine what's in engineering repositories or the board of directors mailing list archive that would justify the risk and expense. Maybe people felt they could write these things because they never expected people outside their circle to ever win a seat.
Or, this is simply a delaying tactic. There really isn't any sensitive content on the mailing list, at all. It's just a ruse. The point is to delay involvement from new people because they like running the organization as they see fit and don't want to change.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Here's the good news.
Engineering meetings with people enthusiastic about open source solutions and proposals went extremely well. There is Rent-a-GEO and Phase 4 Space, but also work going on right now to move LDPC decoders into FPGA, put on an FPGA workshop that focuses on amateur satellite communications, create hardware and software for useful open source beacons, and a project to create open source affordable and reliable tracking rotators. The existing general purpose processor LDPC decoder work has been a very big success in the satellite community. A product using this open source work appeared in ARISS slides and presentations at Symposium.
Mikio Mouri of JAMSAT asked for help with a lunar receiving station that complies with the Lunar Orbiting Platform Gateway, or LOP-G. I agreed to help and started work immediately. Several people from Libre Space and Open Research Institute have volunteered to help. The team is looking to create a robust and easily-manufactured open source station design that uses a wide swath of open source satellite work. We aim to present the work in 2020 at the Tokyo Ham Fair. LOP-G relies heavily on LDPC. We have solutions here and people willing to do the mechanical design necessary for a tracking station.
On the Information Technology front, I have volunteers standing by with proven solutions for the AMSAT member database conversion from DBASE to the format used by Wild Apricot. This software is the vendor of choice for the member database conversion and was discussed at the 2019 AMSAT board meeting.
We look forward to being able to make this an easy transition from DBASE to Wild Apricot. After the volunteer offer was accepted at the board meeting, everyone touched base on 21 October 2019.
Please let me know your questions and comments! Thank you for your vote and support.
-Michelle W5NYV
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Report to Members 3 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
Non Disclosure Agreements
Approval for Ragnarak Industries NDA?
Are NDAs “wrong”?
Open Source Hardware and Software are a Better Way Forward
What Have I Done in the Past to Effect Change?
What am I Doing Now to Effect Change?
Are you Saying Never Use Companies? Are You Some Kind of Zealot?
What’s a Specific Example?
Saturday, October 05, 2019
Report to Members 2 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
Non Disclosure Agreements
Information Technology Progress
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Report to Members 1 - AMSAT-NA Board of Directors 2019
Greetings all!
Executive Summary: new board members became Directors upon announcement of the results. New board members have been denied communications, documents, and reports that are ordinary corporate communications. Two officers have flatly refused to communicate with or work with new board members unless election-related materials were removed from outside websites.
After nearly a week, Joe Spier (President of AMSAT) revealed that new board members would be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to have access to ordinary corporate communications. The text of the NDA has not yet been provided, does not exist in the bylaws, and is not anywhere in any published minutes. Attempts to coerce Directors to sign NDAs, obstruct Directors from working, and silence outside communications are wrong.
Despite this, progress is being made and I will do my very best to represent you! Thank you for trusting me with your vote.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is my first report to the membership of AMSAT-NA of my work to represent you on the Board of Directors.
I campaigned hard, wrote about what I wanted to accomplish, explained my credentials, solicited your questions, and answered them to the best of my ability.
Those records can be found at:
https://w5nyv.blogspot.com/2019/05/candidate-statement-amsat-na-board-of.html
https://w5nyv.blogspot.com/2019/06/campaign-statement-21-june-2019-amsat.html
It is somewhat unusual to have a contested election, but not unprecedented. I ran with a slate. We recommended one additional candidate, Brennan Price N4QX.
In all AMSAT-NA elections in recent memory, candidate statements from all the nominations were sent from the candidates directly to the printer that handled the ballots. They are not edited in any way. The statements weren’t seen or managed by AMSAT-NA. In most years, candidates were warned to make sure they didn’t have any grammar or spelling errors!
For 2019, there were changes. These changes were shared with the candidates with a few days notice before the deadline, over the 4 July holiday weekend.
No statements were included with the ballot, no URLs allowed with online amsat.org hosted statements, there was a limit of 350 words, and there was a highly unusual subjective assertion of control over the content of the candidates’ statement. In other words, statements would be reviewed by AMSAT-NA leadership and would be published on the AMSAT-NA website. Many of these leaders were running in the election.
Most candidate statements had already been submitted to Martha, AMSAT-NA Manager, or the corporate Secretary Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, in lieu of any other direction. The required word length was shorter than any challenger’s submitted statement, except for Brennan Price’s. Everyone scrambled and made the edits and got them in.
Nothing like this had happened before, in anyone’s memory. The slate questioned Clayton as it was unusual. We were told attorneys from AMSAT approved everything that was going on, and that the Secretary, Clayton could do whatever he wanted. We asked who the attorney was and how much they cost. Clayton and Joe Spier, President of AMSAT-NA, flatly refused to disclose any information about who the attorney was, what firm they were with, or how much they cost.
While it is true that the Secretary has a lot of control over the election, elections bylaws did not appear to be followed in 2019.
Section 3: Voting shall be conducted by secret ballot in a fair and democratic manner. The Secretary shall prepare written ballots listing all candidates found to be duly nominated and eligible for election. Such ballots shall be mailed to all Members or, at the Secretary’s discretion, included in a publication of the corporation mailed to all Members, in either event such mailing to take on or before July 15 of each year. Duly nominated and eligible candidates shall be afforded equal opportunity to circulate statements of their qualifications and positions to the Members through the corporation’s publications and shall have use of the corporation’s mailing lists for election-related purposes at no cost to the corporation.
We were denied use of AMSAT’s publications to circulate statements of qualifications and positions. We were not allowed the use of any electronic mailing list. We were given a difficult-to-use DBASE export of the physical mailing list of the members. We were not allowed to use email addresses, which are obviously easier and less expensive.
So, we cleaned up the database, fixed the 50 addresses that were invalid, and produced a modern membership list that we could use for a direct mailing. The direct mailing was at our own expense, which is in accordance with the bylaws. We should not have had to do this, but we did it anyway. Members deserve to have information about the people that they are asked to vote on. This information should not be controlled or edited by people that run the organization. That is not fair or democratic.
Thank you to everyone that contacted us and voted based on this mailing. We deeply appreciate this.
On 20 September 2019, the results were announced. Turnout was up over 50%!
Name |
Call |
Votes |
Michelle Thompson |
W5NYV |
675 |
Patrick Stoddard |
WD9EWK |
585 |
Jerry Buxton |
N0JY |
526 |
Drew Glasbrenner |
KO4MA |
515 |
Brennan Price |
N4QX |
480 |
Howard (Howie) Defelice |
AB2S |
435 |
Paul Stoetzer |
N8HM |
399 |
Jeff Johns |
WE4B |
366 |
Thank you so much for your support. I have never run for any office, ever before. It takes a serious situation to motivate me to do something that is such a huge departure from my career and preferences.
We do indeed have a serious situation with AMSAT-NA. The club lacks a coherent focus on modern technology and there is no financial or technical transparency. How can you trust an organization with your time, talent, and treasure if you can’t tell what’s going on?
I am a vocational engineer, deeply involved in systems engineering, digital signal processing, information theory, and very high-risk projects and companies. I have many years of experience in telecommunications, satellite networks, algorithmic development, and protocol analysis.
I’ve served on many engineering teams for AMSAT, ranging from SuitSat SDX to FOX DUV to power supplies to advanced digital payload and ground station design teams for HEO and GEO projects. My track record with Globalstar, Qualcomm, AMSAT, Kyocera Wireless, GNU Radio, DEFCON, and many other organizations and groups is clear. My credentials and performance are documented. I know what I’m doing and I am an asset. In addition to technical service, I’ve been a successful fundraiser, events organizer, and manager.
Traditionally, AMSAT-NA board of directors transition work has started right after results are announced. That’s what has happened on other boards that I’ve served on, and that’s what’s happened during previous transitions in AMSAT-NA. After this election, I expected to be contacted and on-boarded right away. The bylaws are clear. Directors assume their position upon announcement. If you announce results, then the directors need any information they require to get started.
After the announcement of the results, we heard nothing.
Retiring Directors in AMSAT-NA are legally responsible for assuring the orderly and effective transfer of records and responsibilities to the incoming Directors.
After three days, Patrick Stoddard obtained the emails of all the current and outgoing board members and wrote them an email of introduction, asking for the basics. We needed to get on the board of directors mailing list at the very least. We had other questions about financial documents and whether or not the minutes we had were a complete record. Normal stuff.
The response was remarkable. Clayton, the corporate Secretary and outgoing board member, immediately responded and said that he would refuse to communicate or work with Patrick unless Patrick took down his election webpage.
I was deleted from the thread by Jerry Buxton, Vice President of Engineering, who wrote two personal attacks directed at Patrick. A remark that Patrick fellate some male genitalia was just one of the highlights.
Well we were off to a great start.
Clayton then resigned. Joe Spier seemed to accept this as if the resignation was effective immediately, but the bylaws say otherwise. 30 days notice is required, and outgoing directors, like Clayton, have corporate responsibilities to incoming directors.
Day 5, we were told by Joe Spier that NDAs are required to be signed before we have access to corporate communications and documents. We immediately asked for a copy of these NDAs.
Since I’m a vice president of a commercial telecommunications company, I have to review any NDA or agreement very carefully and weigh it against my responsibilities to that company. It’s a heavily regulated industry and reviewing NDAs in advance is a standard industry practice.
As of today (30 September 2019), no NDAs have been produced. We were not given a description of these NDAs or a timeline for signing them. They appear on the agenda for the Symposium Board in late October 2019. Spending 5% of our terms somewhat sidelined, waiting for mystery NDA text, seems like a very odd thing for an organization with significant financial pressure to do to motivated Directors. Our job started on 20 September 2019 and we were ready to start work that day.
There are no requirements in the AMSAT-NA bylaws for NDAs to be signed by board members before they have access to corporate communications and documents.
There is no evidence in any of the published minutes from AMSAT-NA of an NDA being adopted for incoming board members to sign.
Retired board members assert that as late as 2017 there were no NDAs required of board members. Everyone we’ve talked to has been really surprised that incoming directors have not been helped, that they have not really been seated, and that the incumbent directors have decided breaking bylaws and corporate code is acceptable.
Since the NDAs have not been produced, and are not in the corporate record, they are, I would assert, obviously invalid.
It's very odd that outgoing (or continuing) directors haven't stepped up and shared their copies of the NDAs that they must have signed. As stated in the bylaws, Retiring Directors are legally responsible for assuring the orderly and effective transfer of records and responsibilities to the incoming Directors. Seems like an NDA requirement is a record and a responsibility. At the very least, Clayton is a retiring director. For our first week, the transfer of records and responsibilities has been anything but orderly.
Patrick made a request for social media process changes that had been announced by Robert Bankston, KE4AL, Vice President of User Services. The changes had not been detailed and there’d been a lot of confusion and questions about them. The response was a refusal to communicate or work with Patrick or myself, and an assertion that seemed to add up to “you’re not really board members”. There was some emotional language, but the pertinent part is a refusal to cooperate in any way.
Well, we are board members. Officers report to the board. We’re asking for ordinary things in ordinary language and we’re not getting anywhere terribly fast.
Patrick and I, and Howie and Brennan, have extensive real-world experience in getting and keeping organizations back in the black, making business processes work better, and we have a lot of collective experience in management and finance.
When we get lawyers, they are real ones. Do we need lawyers to sort this out? I hope not.
If you have an opinion about the way we’ve been treated by the incumbent board and the senior officers, then please let them hear it.
Contacting board members isn’t easy through the AMSAT-NA website, but the list of members is here: https://www.amsat.org/amsat-officers-and-board-members/
Now for some good news. You didn’t think shenanigans with NDAs and mailing list access and whatever changes have been made to AMSAT-NA social media procedures would stop me, did you? :+)
No, it didn’t! While I have made some progress this week, and I’m going to share it, success does happen faster with your involvement. Please be prepared to speak up and tell the board that you want things to happen that they seem to be preventing. They need to change, or be changed.
So, on to the good news. IT progress has been made. Moving a copy of the membership database to a modern format has happened. Fully specifying a modern member record format, and moving test records to the recommended WordPress plugin, is being prototyped right now. Testing and refinement will follow and I’m going to report on it to you.
I know that many of you have complaints about the online store. This effort includes work that will address problems with the store. I am doing my very best to escalate this so you have the website that you deserve. It’s still unclear to me who is in charge of this.
A professional developer with extensive internet and web experience, who is also a ham, is working on this with me. Want to join? Let me know at w5nyv@arrl.net.
A good number of financial documents have been produced, and there’s plenty to look at there.
There are three people that reached out to me, Patrick, Howie, and Brennan this past week. They were friendly, supportive, and informative.
Thank you very much to Frank Bauer, Vice President of Human Spaceflight, who is a personal hero of mine, and Frank Karnauskas, Vice President of Development. Most of you know Frank Bauer, but if you do not know Frank Karnauskas, then you soon will!
I asked Frank Bauer how I could help with ARISS. I had questions for and shared my story with Frank Karnauskas. I look forward to working with both of these men. Keith Baker, KB1SF/VA3KSF, Treasurer provided every document we asked for, greeted us, and made us feel welcome.
Keith Baker has announced his plans for retirement as treasurer. He has been a very positive influence to me and everyone I work with, and he’s very appreciated by me and all the members of my team that have met him and visited with him at Hamvention and Symposium over the years.
AMSAT-NA has significant financial, technical, and cultural challenges. The reaction to the election by some members of the current board of directors and senior officers has been unprofessional and sloppy. I have no interest in extracting apologies for trashy speech or personal attacks. That is not what this report is about.
However, I do not have any patience at all for illegal or unethical obstruction.
AMSAT-NA is the members and the mission.
If you want things to improve, make sure that that your leadership hears you loud and clear. You got me and Patrick and our alternates Howie and Brennan this far! We might seem to be outnumbered, but we are not outgunned.
More next Week :+)
Please share.
-Michelle W5NYV