USA Fencing has outgrown the Board petition process
Comments are due November 5. Adoption requires two-thirds of the directors then in office. Here is why I am asking members to support it.
Taking away a way for members to override the Nominating Committee should make people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable, too. A petition lets members challenge a committee that may have overlooked a deserving candidate. Removing that option means placing more trust in the people deciding who reaches the ballot. That is a real tradeoff.
I support the change anyway.
USA Fencing has opened a 45-day member comment period on the proposal to eliminate the Board petition process. Members comment; the Board votes. Adoption requires at least two-thirds of the directors then in office.
I supported this change while serving on the Board and helped draft it. I support it now that my term has ended and I have chosen not to run again, so I have no seat to protect. Having served as a director and as Chair, I have a strong view about what this organization needs from its Board.
Look at the business we actually operate
In my view, USA Fencing is an event-management and member-experience company whose sport is fencing.
National events and member services together account for nearly three-quarters of total income.
That is a business built around venue contracts, hotel arrangements, insurance, vendors, retail, and the experience of the people paying to participate. The Board needs serious expertise in finance, law, retail, and risk management. It needs people who can read a balance sheet, question a revenue assumption, and ask whether our reserves can withstand a bad year.
Financial literacy cannot be optional. Neither can understanding the difference between governing the organization and managing its employees. Passion for fencing gets you interested in the job. It does not prepare you to do it.
A Board seat is not a management position
In my experience, some petition-elected directors have approached the role as operational micromanagers rather than strategists and advisors. Across multiple election cycles, that has been a poor bargain for the organization. I am not going to name anyone, and I would ask commenters not to either. This is about a pattern, not any one person or any one election.
Directors should set direction, approve the budget, oversee risk, and hold the CEO accountable. They should ask why tournament costs are rising and what leadership is doing to improve the member experience. Individually directing events staff, choosing vendors, or intervening in referee assignments is a different job.
I want a Board that questions the CEO closely and demands results. I do not want a second management team.
When directors start managing staff, they blur accountability: who is actually in charge, and who is responsible when something goes wrong?
We raised the threshold. It did not solve the problem.
This debate predates the 2026 election. The proposal to eliminate petitions was already before the Board in June 2025. The Board instead advanced a compromise that retained petitions with a higher threshold, enacted that December.
The obvious response is: “You just raised the bar. Why not let the new threshold work before removing the process?” My answer is that raising the threshold changed how much support a candidate needed. It did not change what a petition measures.
Petition candidates already participate in the nomination process and meet eligibility requirements. But eligibility is the floor. The committee should compare candidates’ experience, judgment, and skills against the Board’s actual needs, including what is missing from its current membership. A signature drive demonstrates support. It does not perform that assessment.
Making the signature requirement harder will never turn it into a better assessment of someone’s ability to govern.
We are not a governance unicorn
According to the comparison cited by USA Fencing, roughly 73 percent of national governing bodies do not use a petition process. Nearly three in four of our peers already operate without it.
We should stop treating this route to the ballot as indispensable. I see no reason USA Fencing needs a Board nomination override that most other governing bodies do without.
Members should not need a Board seat to be heard
I helped create the Coaches’ Committee and Parents’ Council because those communities deserved an ongoing voice. Coaches and parents should be able to develop recommendations, raise problems, and press for answers without first organizing a Board campaign.
Under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, as amended, qualifying athlete representatives elected by athletes must hold at least one-third of an NGB Board’s voting power. Eliminating petitions leaves that protection intact.
Its responsibilities include advancing the interests of the referee corps. I see its advocacy role as similar to labor representation: officials have an organized way to raise common concerns and press leadership to address them.
The Coaches’ Committee and Parents’ Council give those communities a continuing channel into governance, without first organizing a Board campaign.
These bodies give members a continuing channel into governance. We should expect the Board to take their recommendations seriously and explain its decisions. That is a better way to build sustained influence than hoping someone sympathetic collects signatures and wins an election.
The nominations reform belongs alongside this change
The strongest objection is the closed loop: the Board helps choose the Nominating Committee, and the committee decides who can run for the Board. That can become a system for protecting incumbents. It is why I support the petition change together with the separate proposal to strengthen the committee’s independence.
The published draft would bar sitting directors from the committee and require a two-year gap between Board and committee service in either direction. For the committee’s initial formation, relevant stakeholder groups and councils would nominate candidates and the Board would approve the initial membership. After that, the committee would select its own future members from candidate pools submitted by the appropriate stakeholder groups, subject to a limited Board approval or veto role for eligibility and governance requirements.
In practice, that remaining Board authority must stay within those limits and never be used to exclude someone for disagreeing with leadership. The committee should explain the skills it is seeking and apply its criteria consistently. Screening for loyalty would defeat the point.
Members would still have choices. The existing nomination rule requires at least two more qualified candidates than there are open member-elected seats. Ending petitions does not end those elections.
Both reforms are under review. A nominations process with greater responsibility needs greater independence. The two changes belong together.
What I am asking members to do
Use the member comment period to ask the Board to adopt the petition amendment alongside meaningful Nominating Committee reform.
USA Fencing needs directors who understand its finances, can challenge its leadership intelligently, and know how to turn member concerns into sound strategy and accountable management. That is the work we should be selecting people to do.
The petition process should go. A more independent Nominating Committee should come with it.
