Streeter era -- or error -- costs USOC more than $1 million
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
The brief Stephanie Streeter era -- which should be called the Stephanie Streeter error -- cost the U.S. Olympic Committee more than $1 million.
Streeter, who spent less than 10 months as acting chief executive of the USOC, raked in $959,000 in salary and bonus compensation, according to the committee’s tax filing for 2009. Her total compensation was $1,006,336.
Streeter became CEO when the USOC board forced out Jim Scherr in March 2009.
The exact amount spent for Streeter is difficult to calculate. Their base salaries wound up nearly identical, but her bonus was about $400,000 more than Scherr’s in 2008. To that, one would add the nearly $400,000 in severance, the $160,000 bonus and about $100,000 of the deferred compensation all paid to Scherr in 2009.
The new chief executive, Scott Blackmun, has a base salary of $450,000. He took over in late January.
The Tribune first reported in August that Streeter’s deal could double the $619,507 in salary, bonuses, benefits and other compensation Scherr received in 2008.
‘She would have to hit it out of the park in every way for [a total more than $1 million] to happen,’’ Bob Bowlsby, head of the USOC compensation committee, said at the time.
Streeter struck out, but her total compensation wound up $1,006,336.
The former printing company chief executive from Wisconsin alienated nearly every USOC constituency soon after moving from the USOC’s volunteer board of directors to a job for which she was painfully ill-suited, especially given her discomfort in public. Pressure for her ouster had become intense when Streeter announced in October she did not want to be considered for the job on a permanent basis.
Streeter’s base annual salary was to be $560,000, but it was pro-rated to $401,045. She received a bonus of $558,462.
The USOC board signed off on that largesse to Streeter at a time when the organization had just lost three major sponsors and faced uncertainty over its revenue streams beyond the 2012 Olympics.
Another former USOC executive, chief communications officer Darryl Seibel, also was rewarded handsomely for a reduced amount of work.
Seibel, who resigned May 5, received total compensation of $373,363 with a $171,468 severance package. That severance included what would have been his remaining salary for 2009, when Seibel went on to work five months for the Chicago 2016 bid with no compensation. The total was $5,000 more than his compensation for a full year of work in 2008.
Chris Duplanty, who received $281,747 in 2008 for what had been conceived as a volunteer liaison position, did even better in 2009, when $76,862 in severance pushed his total to $354,996. Former board chairman Peter Ueberroth had been responsible for making Duplanty’s job a salaried staff position.
The No. 2 USOC employee, chief operating officer Norm Bellingham, received about 4% more in salary and bonuses ($515,436) in 2009 than he had in 2008 ($494,474).
-- Philip Hersh