X-Message-Number: 30307
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:46:35 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: MY OPINION OF ALCOR'S CONDITION PART 1
THE PURPOSE OF THIS COMMUNICATION
I want the Alcor Board members to agree to discuss the
concerns of some Alcor members (and my own) which I
have compiled in my writing here, in order to see if
things are so bad at Alcor that our (the
suspension members and existing patients) chances of
survival through Alcor are being diminished. Also, I
would like to discuss if there are ways of making
things better and safer for all members and
patients.
When I first came to the conclusion that it was the
system of directors re-electing themselves that was
the root of the problems at Alcor and a risk to
Alcor s survival, I tried to approach the board and a
few leaders in a private discussion. In previous
individual discussions I could not get the board
members to discuss ways to make Alcor better because
they claimed there were no problems or mistakes at
Alcor. In order to get the group of directors to
agree to discuss ways to make themselves better I
would first have to show that there is something
wrong. In my attempt to show that things are wrong at
Alcor I unintentionally insulted some of the directors
and after that they would only engage in trying to
insult me back or criticize the way I was trying to
debate with them. None of them would enter into a
serious discussion whether things are wrong or how to
make
things better. When I started to take this debate to
the public cryonics arena, they continue to avoid
engaging in a meaningful discussion.
So now I am asking the board to put all that behind
them, let's forgive each other for the early
name-calling, let's start fresh, and debate two
things: One, are things really pretty bad now at
Alcor, and two, if they are pretty bad how, can we fix
them?
I am also asking for input from those cryonicists who
feel they have something to say on these matters and
do not feel they are at personal risk to engage in
this discussion. It is my intentions to hold these
discussions in multiple forums.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALCOR AND HOW TO FIX IT.
I will try to show that:
1. MISTAKES ARE CONSTANTLY BEING MADE: That these
mistakes may lead to Alcor going out of business. I
will claim that we can make changes that will turn
this around. If I am to claim changes need to be
made to make Alcor better, I feel it is incumbent on
me
to first show that there are things wrong at Alcor.
If I can't show that things are bad at Alcor there
seems no need to change things.
2. WHY. I will attempt to explain why these mistakes
are being made.
3. HOW TO FIX THINGS. I will argue that a different
way of electing the directors will improve the
situation by making the directors (any directors) feel
more motivated to do a better job, and by empowering
the membership and therefore making them feel that
they are more a real part of
shaping Alcor's future. Since the regular
cryopreservation
members' lives are just as much at risk as the board
members' lives, the members should be just as entitled
to have a meaningful say in how the leaders at Alcor
are chosen.
1a. THE MISTAKES: MY OPINION OF SOME GENERAL
MISTAKES THAT ALCOR HAS MADE .
(I believe that many indicators of how a business is
doing will show that Alcor has been going downhill.)
I doubt that
the mistakes are intentional. I think the board
members mean well. I think it is the system of how
board members elect themselves, they have admitted it
is a dictatorship, is at fault. Here are some
indicators of why Alcor's business is bad.
1. MEMBERSHIP GROWTH IS POOR. Alcor directors have
allowed membership growth rates to fall. In 2006 and
2007, for every net member gain at Alcor, one Alcor
member left the organization. So in other words two
people signed up and one person quit. Although more
information is needed to know the exact cause, I
believe that this shows that
people come to Alcor because they like the idea of
cryonics, they learn how Alcor is run, they come to
feel they have no real say at Alcor, and then they
leave.
2. LOSS OR REPUTATION FOR BEING THE RESEARCH CRYONICS
LEADER The Directors have allowed Alcor to lose
their reputation for being the undisputed leader of
all cryonics organizations in research. Until very
recently Alcor had lost the ability to do research and
did not have any research program despite the fact
that quality research has always been an important
part of the identity of Alcor. Alcor's present
research program is still very vulnerable and at risk
of its best people leaving.
3. NO LONGER THE LARGEST ORGANIZATION BY PATIENT
COUNT. Alcor is no longer the leader in the most
amount of patients.
4. LOSS IN MARKET SHARE PERCENTAGES. Alcor has gone
down in its advantage over CI in the number of funded
suspension members by percentage comparison.
5. LOSS IN FINANCIAL STRENGTH. Alcor does not have
the financial strength it once had. It has allowed
its overhead to become too large as compared to its
income from dues
6. A TREND TO SECRECY. Alcor no longer shares as much
meaningful information with its members. Much of the
most dangerous problems are kept hidden from members
under claims of needed confidentiality. Many member
feel that some Alcor directors are now more concerned
with keeping their mistakes from the press and
members then they are about doing
things to prevent mistakes from happening in the first
place.
7. ALIENATION OF MEMBERSHIP. Members no longer feel
a part of Alcor. Donations (in relation to size of
membership) are down. Volunteerism is down.
Attendance at functions in down. Pride in Alcor is
down. Many past presidents and other past leaders
have left Alcor or are dissatisfied with Alcor.
There are many members of Alcor who are bitter about
the lack of direction of the organization. These
members will soon be lost if Alcor does not allow them
to have some say in choosing their leaders, leaders
who they feel can get us back on track.
8. FAILURE TO CHECK OUT BACKGROUNDS OF PEOPLE THEY
ELECT TO BE THE PRESIDENT.
After Steve Bridge and I left Alcor's management team
Alcor directors elected three presidents in a row that
they later had to fire or force to resign. Three in a
row hired, and three in a row fired. Since we, the
members, were never given the details it's hard to
know the truth about what the reputations of each of
these three candidates were. I believe that before
Fred Chamberlain was elected president he did not have
a reputation of great success in the real estate
business in Payson where he was practicing. Some
people have said that they thought Fred was a sucker
for pyramid schemes. The board fired Fred after they
felt he had mishandled and lost hundreds of thousands
of dollars of their and the members money and made
many other mistakes that they have kept secret.
Then the board hired Jerry Lemler, MD. It is possible
that Dr. Lemler may have been having trouble with his
existing business in the south and was winding it down
when Alcor hired him. For sure after the board hired
Dr. Lemler they either fired him or forced him to
resign. They said they felt that Lemler was not
qualified to be president of Alcor, he didn't know
what
he was doing, and he made way too many mistakes, they
claimed. Then they put Lemler on the board, a
position of more power and control then the president.
Why would you fire a manager for incompetence and
then put him in a higher management position?
This is not the first time the board has put someone
they felt was not even qualified to be president to a
higher position on the board. The board forced Carlos
Mondragon to resign as Alcor president and left him on
on the
board until he resigned from that later. Later they
put him back on the board. Fired as president for
incompetence and then elevated to a board position.
The third president in a row to be fired was Joe
Waynick. I do not know whether Waynick was doing a
good job or bad job as by the time the board forced
him out of office as president. The board was
keeping a lot of things secret from the membership by
then and it has been hard to get a straight answer.
But some people believe that Joe was having problems
with a printing business he was running when he was
offered the presidency and based on that experience
never should have been made president in the first
place.
MORE MISTAKES: MY OPINION OF SOME OF THE SPECIFIC
MISTAKES ALCOR HAS MADE.
1. CONSTANT TREND OF ALCOR'S (or Alcor member's
money who Alcor is responsible for) MONEY BEING WASTED
OR STOLEN.
1a. One Alcor President mismanaged hundreds of
thousands of dollars of Alcor's and Alcor's members'
money. President Fred Chamberlain asked Alcor members
to invest in a company related to Alcor. They are
made to believe they are contributing to one company,
BioTransport, to buy equipment to do cryopreservations
for
Alcor, and then he uses the money to start up Cells
for Life, which goes broke, and which Fred personally
gave himself a lot of ownership stock in the company.
1b. An Alcor employee embezzles almost $200,000.
1c. An Alcor employee takes Alcor's credit card and
makes cash withdrawals for her own use of up to
$10,000. One person has told me that she had done
this at her previous employer and had been dismissed
for that. Why doesn't the board have a better way to
screen people before they hire them?
1d. The system of not holding the directors
accountable has a long history of allowing people to
run off with Alcor's money. The recent staggering
losses are not the first. There have been many other
reports along the way of this result of the directors
not having to be held accountable for their actions.
The first time I ever heard of this happening to Alcor
was about 20 years ago when the board secretly gave
this non-Alcor person $100,000 cash to hold for them
during the Dora Kent crisis and that guy, (I think his
name was Gemini) ran off with all that money.
2. POSSIBLE PRESIDENT VIOLATION OF EMPLOYEE'S RIGHTS.
Maybe employees were paid settlement money for their
charges against Alcor presidents? These may just be
rumors. I can not get a definite answer from any
board member on this. I would like the board to
either tell us what happened, they don't have to give
the details but just admit that complaints were or
were not filed, and money was or was not paid to these
employees. If that isn't true, say in writing that
neither of these people filed complaints against Alcor
management and neither was paid any money. Failure of
the board to deny these charges in writing can only
make us believe there is some truth to the charges.
3. MISMANAGEMENT OF CELEBRITY SUSPENSION. Alcor gets
chance to cryopreserve celebrity Ted Williams and has
chance for great PR, and allows the matter to turn
into bad PR for Alcor. Gruesome details are allowed
to leak out to the public.
4a. WITHHOLDING REPORTS WHEN THE BOARD DOESN'T LIKE
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE DIRECTORS AND THE THINGS THEY
HAVE DONE. Alcor used to make detailed reports after
each case and publicize them in the magazine.
Detailed reports are now way behind or not even done
anymore. What there is is brief and vague. This can
make people think that mistakes are being made in
cases. The board needs to pony up the
money to pay someone to make detailed reports and
then let the membership know what went right and what
went wrong, and how they plan to change what went
wrong.
4b. Alcor produced a report about the quality of
case work and patient care in 2002. What happened to
that?
5c. Lately it seems that Alcor rarely provides
detailed information on readiness and who makes up the
standby teams. Also, it seems that training sessions
have been dropped. Was there a reason for this?
Charles Platt has repeatedly complained about Alcor's
cases and case reports;
imprecise statements,
insufficient personal at the suspension, omissions
relating to standby and other omissions, delayed
onset of cooling, improper use of transport vehicle,
delays in ventilation, actually there are rumors that
quality of casework is down. People, perhaps staff,
who know facts, are afraid to go public to the
membership. I believe they fear the board will take
revenge later on them.
WHY. DISCUSSION ON WHY MISTAKES ARE HAPPENING.
After many years on the Alcor board, and as Alcor's
vice president and treasurer I have come to the
conclusion that the reason some Alcor directors don't
do a better job is because they don't have to come up
for election each year by the membership. I have
been on both sides of this issue as a director who
thought that we directors were the best people to
elect new directors or re-elect ourselves and as
member who thinks that the membership is
the best group to elect the directors.
I believe the
directors who want to keep the present
system in place and those who feel opposite ,as I do,
all have the same motivations; we want to make
Alcor as good as possible so we have a chance to
survive death and may even have a prospect of
immortality -
we just disagree on *how* to do that.
First, the directors will do a better job if they have
to answer to the members each year at election time
then if they just re-elect themselves every year.
Converse to this is that if the directors don't answer
to anyone but themselves there is the loss of
incentives to move all living things - pleasure
and pain -- which leads to the carrot and the stick.
We all remember that the carrot and the stick are two
ways to motivate a rabbit to move forward. We put the
carrot on a long stick and hold it in front of him to
make him jump forward. When the rabbit becomes tired
of jumping for it and quits to perform, we can give
him a poke with the stick. I know that we would all
rather that the stick was never needed. On the other
hand, I have been in attendance at board meeting that
went on a very long time, and directors on one side
just got too tired out to continue to fight for what
they thought was right. This, and the desire for more
peaceful meetings, led to compromise. Compromise is
ok on some matters but not when you have reason to
believe that compromise is going to lead to things
that are so bad that a terrible mistake might result.
If there was the threat of coming up for re-election
that might just be the extra incentive a board member
needed to stand firm on an issue and prevent a
mistake. The threat of standing for re-election is
needed to keep some board members from getting
overconfident. To make them think twice, or for the
third time. To make them listen to that person
talking who may take his argument to the membership.
If he has some points best to understand them the
first time.
Without the power of the membership being able to vote
out an incompetent director, when one director sees
incompetence he does not have the option of taking the
matter public. If he feels the actions of the board
are going to cause Alcor problems and he feels there
is nothing he can do to prevent it, he can either
resign, or try to keep the matter quiet. There is a
tendency on a board that does not have to account for
their actions to try to keep mistakes secret rather
then try harder to prevent the mistakes in the first
place.
When directors of an organization know that they have
to answer to the members every year at re-election
time, there is a tendency on tough issues to ask for
input from the members before they make the decision.
We see this in city councils and school boards etc.
When Alcor directors were voting on a matter, if they
feel they are going to have to approve something the
members won't like, they merely call a secret meeting,
stating that this is a sensitive issue, go behind
closed doors and vote. They can vote on how the
matter and then vote on the best way to keep the
matter secret.
They justify this by thinking that they know more then
the members about what is good for Alcor. In fact
that is the basic underpinning in the argument to have
director-elected directors. I think it would be
better if they told us in advance that they had to
approve an unpopular decision and force them to
justify their actions. They would have to engage the
membership and the staff in debate on the issues. We
have almost 900 members, many of them bright and
successful people. Surely the 9 directors are not
smarter in every possible category and have more
knowledge and experience then the pool of 900 people
who were smart enough to sign up for cryonics.
Let me inject here that I am not claiming that some
directors are doing a poor job on purpose. I think
they all have good intentions, and like other
members, the board members realize when they apply for
the job that their survival may depend on how well
they do. But like all politicians they
enter with good intentions and then get wore down by
the system. They start to compromise to get along.
They try to avoid conflict. This leads to mediocrity
or worse.
The membership has come to feel
like the native Africans in the recent South Africa
matter. The white leaders told them that they were
just as good as they and lots of other things, and
gave them all kinds of reasons why they would not let
them vote. To the credit of those people, they did
not
buy it. I think that Alcor members are not buying it
either. That leads me to the second point I want to
make on why director-elected dictatorships are not
good for organizations like Alcor.
Second, the membership has slowly been made to feel
alienated from Alcor as they have come to realize that
they have no meaningful say whatsoever in how Alcor is
run. When members of an organization are made to
feel that they have no say in it, they quit. That
happened when I was a director of Alcor and members
felt that they had little say and that we were doing
things wrong. The members, over time, banned together
and formed a company called CryoCare. From the time
of the first dissatisfactions to the very end this was
about a four year period. They left because they felt
they
did not have enough say in how the leaders of Alcor
were chosen.
During that time about 100 Alcor members left Alcor.
About 25 per year. That has been happening again in
the last few years at Alcor. I think about 25 members
per year are leaving now.
END OF PART ONE
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