Check out my professional resume here:  www.linkedin.com/in/bargerben

Thank you Adecco!!!!

Be the Change you want to see.

Don’t let others tell you it’s ever impossible. Sometimes you might just change history. I know I did.

I will never forget this year for the rest of my life. Thank you all for your support and courage. We did it together.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/20284543

So I spent the 6 months between May and November, reading regulations, articles of the constitution, consulting lawyers, and the world population to find a way to get a fair vote for windsurfing. I felt like I had a course on corporate law.  On what structures were right for making good decisions, and how I was not going to let ISAF say everything was fine with the May decision to remove windsurfing from the Olympic program of events.

The breakthrough was in an ISAF constitution change in 2011 that allowed regulation review by the shareholders on an annual basis. Thus setting up a vote of no confidence of the Board of Directors in the November shareholder meeting.

This news eventually came out in press a few weeks before the November meeting and received quite a varying response from the community, many said it still wasn’t possible. High paid lawyers said it wasn’t going to happen.

It happened, the shareholders voted on November 11^th and overturned the Board of Directors decision to remove windsurfing. Windsurfing was back on the Olympic program.  I burst into tears as the decision was announced. I may never make another Olympic Team, but I know there will be 70 that make it in 2016, including Olympic medals of all color. A decision that affected 10,000+ lives and dreams and 100’s of millions of investment from around the world. I wasn’t alone in the fight, but I was so proud I could play such a leading role in the reselection. I could finally sleep.

Ironically, the people at both the USOC and US Sailing told me they didn’t have enough money to help the developing athletes when over 1 billion is invested domestically to fund the Olympic program.  Interestingly they had enough to pay themselves 6-7 figure salaries before any athletes got any financial support. From my calculations actually 6% of gross revenue of the USOC actually goes to athletes in the form of money.

I highlighted this in a key presentation to the annual General Assembly meeting in the USOC headquarters this September. I remember going tick for Tack with some of the most accomplished people in the world. CEO of Xerox, CEO of EA sports, Stanford, Harvard grads etc.  Each time they laid into a story telling episode about how there just is not enough money to go around- expressing how they’d have to take it away from currently winning teams. I countered with what I felt was actually happening and how most of the money they do receive is free money from the IOC (international Olympic Committee) has provided and can streamline many other parts of the organization. It seems like they were in denial the entire time, but I’m not suprised there is resistance as we are currently winning the medal count. Three sports: Swimming, Gymnastics and Track & Field win nearly 70% of our summer medals each Summer Olympics, yet don’t make up the majority of potential medals that could be won.

I knew my Olympic dream was a miracle, maybe I was just that talented, but I probably got lucky as well on the way there. Having to work and fundraise a fortune to make the dream come true; a million plus dollars just from my own contributions.  But the athletes I represent had a fairly unified message after that presentation I made, we need change and thanked me for saying what I did.  This process has continued on, from meeting with Senators to helping draft survey questions to correctly guage the level of change we need to make, change is happening.  Everyone is communicating and looking to balance the differences. I have been a part of that change and I hope to continue to spearhead the best way to fulfill the US Olympic movement’s mission statement. I will keep you updated.

Surely I got some people scared in this pursuit, I took a stand.  Going slower than fast is the safe way in politics.  You don’t want to tip the boat, is what many career politicians do.  Well I for one am not there to maintain power, I am there to make change. Well I believe that sometimes capsizing the boat is the best thing you can do. Hitting the water  and swimming wakes you up, it makes you realize that everyone is the same when you’re at the mercy of the ocean. No wealth or fitness can overcome the power of nature. It has to be respected. So does the core value of supporting our American athletes in the Olympics.  I know that I had the opportunity to do things I never thought was possible at the start of my Olympic dream some 15 years ago.  I never won a Gold medal at the Olympics, but I know that thousands more will hopefully get the more equal chance of doing such at the end of this work.  Dream big, inspire others to have the confidence to fight for the same equality. I do everyday.

Selected as the only US Olympian to rotate between four companies and share the excitement and capability of Olympic athletes in the workplace. The rotations were blogged and video documented for marketing and PR use by Adecco, a world sponsor of the Olympic Games. Companies included: Four Roses Bourbon, Ketchum PR, Security Point Media, and Laser Spine Institute.

http://blog.adeccousa.com/a-tempting-world/

In May this year, at the board meeting I was a member at in Stresa, Italy, I lost my sport.   I sat there and watched countries (like my own) and their Board representatives, vote and speak about what was in their best interest to win medals- not what was best for the sport as a whole. I was appalled. I was disgusted. I secretly took a list of those members that I know were not practicing their fiduciary duty, including many of the leaders of ISAF.  It is time to take a stand- who else would? I am an elected official and I have a duty to act.

I blogged it all live to the rest of the world. As the athletes commission chair our policy has been to typically not got involved with equipment selection for the Olympics. My thoughts during the vote can be found online. Join the conversation here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/7041592283/ We are now more than 4000 strong in that group.

My key posts:

“It might have been the toughest position to be at the council table and not be able to speak on a sport that has given me so much enjoyment. I don’t feel ISAF has ever really understood windsurfing and if windsurfing wins I’d suggest lobbying.”

“Vote coming in few minutes. I think windsurfers around the world should be concerned on this outcome of the vote”

“Facebook tells me to write something here…but I am lost for words. There is no celebration for the thousands of dreams and jobs just eliminated from this decision. It is to this my heart is heavy to witness this first hand without being able to speak because of conflict of interest.”

Those change goals this year include:

1)  how the United States Olympic program funds it’s Olympians and Olympic Hopefuls

2)  find a new career for myself while continuing to support my nutrition business (with a focus on global fortune 500 companies)

3)  increase athletes rights in Sailing around the world

I’ve spent the last 5 years or so getting elected to leadership positions, I chair the Athletes Commission of the International Sailing Federation and have secured the first ever Board of Directors position for athletes, representing 10K plus athletes around the world.  I’m also on the USOC Athletes Advisory Council which I’ve co-founded the resource allocation task force to address USA specific funding concerns and direction.  This year I will use those positions to the best of my capacity to make lasting change to the Olympic movement.

I won’t let up, I won’t accept defeat, I will fight as a honed, prepared and fearless competitor with no mercy.  This is it, as real as it gets. And no place I’d rather be.

But the mind can only take an athlete so far.  The preparation and technical needs this campaign now requires has made me eat a lot of humble pie this year. I’ve had to work extra hard for things that most of my competitors already have, to just get here.

But at the starting line today at 12:30 we are all the same.  Our worth determined in the next 12 races.  I should be set for a splendid show.  This is my first time since the 2008 Olympics to prepare for an international event with a similar protocol.  Everything goes into this event. If I get past this I make the US Olympic Team.  I’ve got a lot of explaining to do, and it will all be on the scoreboard today.  Visit www.perth2011.com for live scoring.

One more lesson learned that I must share:

Help those less fortunate than yourself.

For all those people that have helped me get here because you dreamed with me in my dream, and helped me become better. Thank you.  I surely will live on that ethos and ask those reading this to think of ways to help those less fortunate than yourself. Whether it be a friend, loved one, co-worker or stranger. It feels good to be empowered and serve others. Competition is a fierce game, winners are forgotten at their last finish.  Champions build more than themselves, they create something for future generations.

In case you missed it, all the details of my comeback the last 8 months and where I spent $70,000 can be found online at my website: www.benbarger.com

The Olympic Venue

In May this year, I had what I needed to make a very short 3 week comeback to win the first section of the Olympic Trials in Weymouth, England.  I was ready to buy lots of new gear to test it all out. But, uh oh, the manufacturer was out of stock,  and there is only one manufacturer. But at least they had new fins, so, I bought 4 and started doing my scientific method. By the time I got them it was a week before the trials started.  While testing my gear in Weymouth, my fast mast snapped which was also the mast I used to win the last trials.  Testing between my “Old Glory” and the newer sail that I suffered with in Miami showed that “Old Glory”, was the speedier one so I thought.  But, I wasn’t so sure which mast was faster.  Now, if I  know my 10 regatta old sail is faster than a 10 day old sail, I should have put it in the rubbish bin!  But, no, I raced the first Olympic trials on “Old Glory” because that’s all I had and was probably feeling sentimental with it.  And, yes, it was pathetic to say the least. I couldn’t hold my line. I was slow and I pushed so hard on the starts that I got 2 OCS’s (premature starts) in qualifying sealing the deal for me to have an all time worst regatta in Weymouth.  I was fuming at the time. Should I just quit or figure out this game again?  Nope, things were turning around, and starting up a nutrition business was supporting some of the “day to day” expenses. Plus, I still hadtime and money left from the first fundraiser to figure out exactly what went wrong.

So I spent the next 2 months in Weymouth, England testing equipment for the second Olympic trials to take place in Australia.  I did not buy any new sails but, I was able to test the daylights out of my new fins.. My newer Miami sail was clearly faster, but with a different mast!  My Weymouth trials fin was second slowest out of 6 I had. But one fin was impressively fast, so I put that one away. I still wasn’t pointing  very well. But my board was fast. I tested it against others and it was a quick one.  I was getting it figured out finally, and feeling like I really had a viable chance of still winning the trials.

Tuning forks please!

After leaving Weymouth, I went to Bermuda for more training and to work on starting up the new business. Later,I went back to Italy for more training i.  It was good to finally be somewhere warm again!  In Italy my preparation was for the European championships in Bulgaria where I was ready for light wind.  Little did anyone know that it is actually a windy venue. The forecaster and 4 friends that had raced there advised me

Racing at the European Championships

it was super light.  So, I had left my best gear in Italy, because airlines are known to destroy our precious windsurfing gear with careless bag handlers that like to surf it down the ramp onto the tarmac .  Needless to say, it blew 15-18 everyday. I was screwed. I was going as slow as dog poo and the only shipment of gear was taking ages to arrive. .  I finally got a new sail. Wow, is what I said when I rigged it. This looks fast. It had a very fat leading edge. I put it on my only mast that I had brought and on the water it went way faster than my other sail.  I was competitive. But my fin was still slow so I bought a new one of those.  I finally had world class speed on port.  Remember, in sailing you have to go on both starboard and port tacks to get to the first mark. So, I tried twisting the fin in the fin box but still couldn’t get it to balance out.  Still on this set up, I tied my personal best at the European championships, some 33 positions ahead of my final score in the Weymouth World Cup and Olympic trials.  I’ve never focused on European races, nor am I a European, I don’t peak at every event I attend. I don’t have that kind of time, money or team.  But I can peak for key events well which are the Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games.

Right after the conclusion of the European Championships, I came back to Italy for the Italian Championships.  Air Italia had lost our gear again and it was going to show up..half way through the regatta.  So I borrowed gear once again, but had with me my fastest fin.  I won the

Winning the Italian Championships

opening 5 races with that fin, and that borrowed sail was a quick one too; but, I had to give that back.  How frustrating!  Next day my new Bulgaria sail arrived and I put it together with my fastest mast.  Wow, two more wins with even more speed.  Ok, that’s a fast sail.  It was my benchmark Olympic trials sail now.  A few more weeks of training went by in Italy and then I headed back to England for more cold, windy and wet weather. And boy did it blow. Most days 20+.  I bought another sail and started testing that one. It clearly was slower and much more shallow, but these sails need some breaking in time as well. My Bulgarian sail, aka “Big Bulge” was at the 10 days of use mark and if I used it for the trials I didn’t want any more than 15 days on it. It affects pointing and speed that much as I learned from driving “Old Glory” into the ground.  I found a new combination with a new mast, and added another nice twist to the sail, I measured it all out as well and tested it on the water.  I made great headway.  Arguably, the world’s best wasn’t putting any distance on me anymore.

Operation boomerang

Perth, Australia might as well be the furthest place away from America.  Friendly people, big outdoors, roo’s, boomerangs and toilets that spin the other way.  Ok, so imagine coming to the airport to leave for Australia with huge flying saucers and saying yeah we’re going to need to check this in.  Yes, I had tons of gear and all my fastest equipment to bring to Australia.  Usually, airport personnel panic, calling supervisors and otherwise asking weird questions like, “What’s in there, Gadafi?” . The price fluctuates from free to my highest of $450, not bad considering doing this for 10 years.  So, they weighed my gear this time which isn’t normal at all. Then they quoted me a price of $6000 USD for me to bring it with me one way. A first class ticket for a fat person weighing double my gear weight is less than the price for my gear to fly to Australia.

I then asked for his supervisor and he “was” the supervisor.  An awfully awkward moment occurred which was me sorting out in 20 minutes how I was going to get my gear to Australia to win the Olympic trials and not miss my flight and lose the thousands of dollars ticket to rebook.  And, yes, I read the baggage carriage policy.  He said that it says right (somewhere he pointed which was 7 pages ahead of where it says they take windsurfing gear) there. I gave him the best emotional plea for help I’ve dished out for years. Still he definitely didn’t care.  So, I went to a

Board DRAMA!

shipping service for excess baggage and they assured me they could deliver it for much less, only $700, to ship it down there! But that would take a week, I couldn’t be without training for a week this soon before my Olympic trials.  I took out my running shoes, and checked into the airline where they would give me 23 kilos of free space for any bag. I checked in my 1^st to 3^rd fastest gear until I was at the 23 kilo limit.  All I had to wait on while in Australia was my board, but no problem, I had a back up board already shipped down there!  I literally showed up in Australia with the shirt on my back and my windsurfing sails and masts.

So 7 days transpire and I finally get my board in the mail. On arrival and inspection the front half is limp. The board had been forklifted in half. Split in two pieces, my fastest board was a goner . My dreams of winning these trials were also looking grim. As I learned in the past regattas, my gear was my main limitations in the breeze and now my best board was destroyed by incompetent shippers.  I got on the horn and indeed a shipment of 20 boards was on the way the next day to Perth, Australia. What great timing right!  Well, if they were all for sale..they were all pre sold! Ugh, how frustrating…as I was having  a restless night figuring out how much and how long it would take to air freight a board from Thailand. Someone decided not to purchase a board from the

Putting Humpty Dumpty back together

distributor here, glory halleluiah!  I promptly picked up my new board the next day and can’t be happier with it’s performance. Fast all a rounder. I got lucky.  The past two weeks I’ve been sporadically testing my fastest kit, but ensuring it doesn’t see too much sunlight till trials day. It’s fast and speed won’t be my limitations here, nor will it be the reason why I would  lose these trials. No, I plan on winning these trials because I can race better.  It’s almost go time. It’s been the most ridiculous and awesome journey.  I’ll take some good luck any day. But also know I can take on the bad luck with the best of them. A regatta or any of them are the same. No matter how important the outcome, our ability to overcome the obstacles is a necessity. I’m ready and this is how I’ve done it.  Oh, did I mention that the Olympic Games is supplied equipment? That means all the competitors get a random allocation of new gear. I hope I get lucky there too.

Going the right direction but slow - Miami 2011

So here is my true story about “Old Glory.” You see, “old glory” wasn’t just a name of a famous battleship, it was my coined name for the sail that got me a top ten in the 2009 World Cup in Weymouth England.  Well, it wasn’t always so glorious. The week before the 2009 worlds, I was as slow as the double decker bus. The phenomenal speed difference was (you guessed it)  attributed to a mast and a fin.  Now mid year 2009 I started taking a break.  I bought no new equipment for the next 18 months.   I knew  ”old glory” and the right combination would come  through for all the key events.  Four months later, with zero time on the water, I strolled up to the North Americans and won decisively, I was still flying.

A week later during the Miami World Cup, I was still going strong, although, I was starting to slow down in the breeze…and I wasn’t sure why. I tossed it off as random occurrence. Then I went to the next 6 events with the same exact set up and kept on getting slower and slower.  I wasn’t training as much either, so I attributed it to not training as hard as I should have been for the event. So I spent 3 months building my time on the water for the  2011 World Cup in Miami in January.  Most of the training was on my own. But,  it came down to technique and racing at the end of the day.  Little did I know it was the beginning of my nightmare. Obviously, “old glory” was getting old with 9 regattas already on it.  So,I got a new sail. And wow did it feel different!  By this time my fastest fin had broken in half,  so, I used another fin that I thought was good as well.

This Miami World Cup event is typically a light air venue, and I usually do very well in my home environment.  It was light everyday in Miami, except the first four days of racing. Actually everyday of that regatta was planning, and I had zero time tuning up in the breeze.  Bam, I was out the back pumping harder than all my competitors and still slower.   Wow, this was an shocking surprise.  I now look back at that event and laugh. I know exactly what went wrong and I’ll tell you in a minute.  At the time, I blamed it on a gasket breaking, forcing me to retire from a race.  I also blamed it on the board, or mast.

This large “slap in my face” started to gel. I knew that I was pretty close in size to all the fastest sailors and I couldn’t imagine my technique being that far off.  I finally understood that I needed new equipment.  But, I needed to find a way to buy more equipment quickly, and that equipment costs a lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars. I hadn’t started up the fundraising machine in over 2 years and was seriously getting tired of asking people to help me win.  I can’t just family bankroll my Olympic campaign like many of my American competitors.