# IMBA Leadership Change - Van Able steps down



## juice (Feb 8, 2004)

News from yesterday, IMBA's Executive Director, Mike Van Able, is resigning.

Dear Rider,

I am writing to inform you of upcoming leadership, changes at the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA). IMBA's board has accepted the resignation of Mike Van Abel as Executive Director, effective September 2, 2016. As board chair, I will be working with the rest of the board to select a permanent replacement for the Executive Director position. Dan Brillon, IMBA's Vice President of Finance, Administration and Programs, will act as Interim Executive Director.

As IMBA's second Executive Director, Mike has been an outstanding steward for IMBA and its initiatives throughout his 12-year tenure. Under his leadership programs such as the Chapter Program and the Regional Director Program have become successes, and have significantly strengthened IMBA's membership and influence for mountain biking. On behalf of myself and the entire board of directors, I wish Mike every success in his future endeavors.

"When I was hired, IMBA's board asked me to focus on three things: growing membership, growing industry support and helping IMBA become more professional," said Van Abel. "I am proud to say we have done all three. I am most proud of the restructuring done that has led to what IMBA is today-a much more cohesive association of local chapters ready to be led into the next phase of growth and development by someone new."

IMBA is well-poised to continue Mike's great work transforming IMBA into a strong chapter-based association, and we are excited to announce new chapter support initiatives as part of our World Summit being held in Bentonville, Arkansas this November. Registration is open for the event and we hope you will join us.

Thank you for your continued support of our mission to create, enhance and preserve great mountain biking experiences.

Ride on,

Robert Winston
Chair, IMBA Board of Directors

This is a good opportunity for IMBA to refocus and regain some fire. This following quote jumps out to me:

"When I was hired, IMBA's board asked me to focus on three things: growing membership, growing industry support and helping IMBA become more professional," said Van Abel.

I read it as growing for the sake of growth. It lacks vision. The strategic plan for the next 10 years needs to include 1) more quality trails and 2) more riders. The finances, membership numbers and sponsorships need to be just a means to an end.

Here's IMBA's mission (from their website): " *Our mission is to create, enhance and preserve great mountain biking experiences*". Mission should be first, financial growth should be second. And trust me, it'll follow if you succeed in increasing trail mileage in a tangible way.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next few months. I REALLY hope they thrive. Checking now to see if my membership needs to be renewed...


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## ACree (Sep 8, 2004)

Every indication I've seen was that MVA was an empire builder, not someone dedicated to the cause. This is a great opportunity for IMBA to reconnect with their core constituency, should they choose to capitalize on it.

I'm still sending my $ to STC until IMBA demonstrates change. BTW, it's astounding how much more rationale Evergreen's position on SB 3205 is than IMBAs.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

How about the Board? I feel like they were complicit in the umpire building. Are they just trying to save themselves by offering up MVA? 

It's our (chapters and members) organization for the taking, as I see it, let's not waste this opportunity. Let's demand something more than cute advertising and snooty disdain for our money.


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## Empty_Beer (Dec 19, 2007)

bsieb said:


> How about the Board? I feel like they were complicit in the [empire] building. Are they just trying to save themselves by offering up MVA?


I read the email as Mike resigning, not the Board asking him to resign.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

^"Accepted his resignation" could imply either, depending whether they asked for it.


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

Cutting off the arm doesn't cure the cancer of the body.


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## ACree (Sep 8, 2004)

Empty_Beer said:


> I read the email as Mike resigning, not the Board asking him to resign.


I read it that way too, but hard to say what happened behind the scenes.

Communications are frequently massaged so that all involved maintain face as much as possible.


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## juice (Feb 8, 2004)

tiretracks said:


> Cutting off the arm doesn't cure the cancer of the body.


How will you know you cant if you don't try?


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## Cotharyus (Jun 21, 2012)

ACree said:


> I'm still sending my $ to STC until IMBA demonstrates change. BTW, it's astounding how much more rationale Evergreen's position on SB 3205 is than IMBAs.


I don't want to bust your bubble, but you should be sending money to both. The STC is not an IMBA replacement, once the bill is passed, local land manager decisions will still be made based on local relationships with existing organizations. This means you local IMBA/SORBA chapter or unaffiliated club. If your local club is unaffiliated and does advocacy locally, fine. Skip IMBA. If your local club is an IMBA chapter, keep paying you dues, because that's how you support your local club. If you doubt what I'm saying, click on the link in my signature, and listen to the interview with Dave, an STC board member.


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## GeePhroh (Jan 13, 2004)

Cotharyus said:


> I don't want to bust your bubble, but you should be sending money to both. The STC is not an IMBA replacement, once the bill is passed, local land manager decisions will still be made based on local relationships with existing organizations. This means you local IMBA/SORBA chapter or unaffiliated club. If your local club is unaffiliated and does advocacy locally, fine. Skip IMBA. If your local club is an IMBA chapter, keep paying you dues, because that's how you support your local club. If you doubt what I'm saying, click on the link in my signature, and listen to the interview with Dave, an STC board member.


Well, fortunately for ACree and the rest of us, we don't really need IMBA or their chapter program in the state of Washington. We've been dealing with land managers, both public and private, and building trails since before IMBA had professional staff.

FWIW, I was a long-standing individual IMBA member. I wanted to support the national advocacy work, as well as their assistance to smaller clubs in areas where the sport is less developed. However, in recent years, I dropped my membership as I saw IMBA evolve into an organization that prioritized its own institutional development over its commitment to grassroots mountain-biking.

I'm hopeful that IMBA can move beyond the Van Abel administration, along with the board that created it, and bring itself back into alignment with the interests of its chapters and members.


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## ACree (Sep 8, 2004)

Cotharyus said:


> I don't want to bust your bubble, but you should be sending money to both. The STC is not an IMBA replacement, once the bill is passed, local land manager decisions will still be made based on local relationships with existing organizations. This means you local IMBA/SORBA chapter or unaffiliated club. If your local club is unaffiliated and does advocacy locally, fine. Skip IMBA. If your local club is an IMBA chapter, keep paying you dues, because that's how you support your local club. If you doubt what I'm saying, click on the link in my signature, and listen to the interview with Dave, an STC board member.


You best support your local club by encouraging them to drop the chapter affiliation and keep the funds locally, where they can do more good. I agree that STC isn't a replacement for IMBA, they clearly have different charters. The question when choosing which org to support with multiple choices in the same space, is which one will do the most with my $? In WA that is easy, Evergreen over IMBA, every day. The statements from each on SB 3205 say it all. IMBA's might as well have been written by the Sierra Club. Evergreen's was rationale, supportive, yet cautious of the sponsors. Perhaps if you have no better local choice, IMBA might be worth your support. In it's current state, it's not worthy of my support.


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## Woodman (Mar 12, 2006)

I have Intel that says otherwise. The board made the decision to ask for his resignation and the announcement spins it in a positive way. IMBA has lost money for a number of years in the last 8 and just lost Subaru $ which was a major blow.



Empty_Beer said:


> I read the email as Mike resigning, not the Board asking him to resign.


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## ACree (Sep 8, 2004)

Exactly. "resign on your own and we'll spin it in a positive way. Make us fire you and we won't".

The police chief in the small suburb I live in just abruptly 'retired' in what I think was a similar situation.


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

ACree said:


> Exactly. "resign on your own and we'll spin it in a positive way. Make us fire you and we won't".
> 
> The police chief in the small suburb I live in just abruptly 'retired' in what I think was a similar situation.


Yes, IMBA is attempting to preserve a few paychecks at this point, they are no longer the voice of Mountain Bikers. Support your local organizations, get out and do some trail work.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

^Maybe they can become a voice again. I believe we need a larger/national/international voice in some arenas, and IMBA has gained some respect, so I'm not sure it makes sense to start over with a new organization. On the other hand, the culture of arrogance that has been cultivated at IMBA may have salted the field, so to speak.


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## jp08865 (Aug 12, 2014)

IMBA will not see another penny from me with their stance on motor cycles. I prefer to support my local trails directly.


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## Moe Ped (Aug 24, 2009)

tiretracks said:


> Yes, IMBA is attempting to preserve a few paychecks at this point, they are no longer the voice of Mountain Bikers. Support your local organizations, get out and do some trail work.


Hear, hear!!!


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## Empty_Beer (Dec 19, 2007)

Keep in mind that IMBA has roughly 30-40K members. Backcountry Horsemen of America has around 12-14K... yet they seem to have much more "power" than we do. 

Note that the Sierra Club (allegedly) has nearly 2.5M members and the Wilderness Society (allegedly) has about 400K members. 

Money wins. Unless you are a horse owner with lots of $$$$$$$$$$.... then you still win.


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## bitflogger (Jan 12, 2004)

The generally try to get along and work things out our chapter has taken has been a match in the times we've worked closely with IMBA. The last time I saw Mike and another IMBA top dog was over a property that might become an Olympic training facility for Nordic skiing and some golfers not liking us. For another property - a sizable state park on way to being part of an "IMBA Epic" - we had to keep hateful hikers, dishonest naturalists and a snowmobile club all happy at once. People grumble but the reality is MTB won.

Really, it's a shame there's as much polarization here as there is in other politics and same not enough trying to get along. Our chapter has some extremists, loud mouths and blow hards unhappy but 100% - 300% gains in membership, money and trails. We might be far more representative of the sport overall than people at the wilderness extremes. We're a few counties with a 500,000 person sprawling metro area and several 1000 - 20,000 people towns.

I remain thankful for Mike's service if only for his honorable apology and handling an incident from past leadership in our chapter. I can't count how many times in life I've dug into a problem or had one land in my lap where people took the low road. Mike did not.

My only frustration with IMBA is not doing more and deaf ears on the insurance topic. The era of needing machines and contractors is only making it more difficult. I predict a lot of trail progress halting if clubs have to have agreements that put them on the hook and also pay insurance premiums that keep going up.


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## UncleTrail (Sep 29, 2007)

bitflogger said:


> Really, it's a shame there's as much polarization here as there is in other politics and same not enough trying to get along. Our chapter has some extremists, loud mouths and blow hards unhappy but 100% - 300% gains in membership, money and trails.


IMHO and experience in government politics,
Go along, get along is not leadership, it's status quo. It's "I want to be friends with powerful people and feel special". It's an illusion of progress when actually achieving very little.

Where is it written that MTB groups always need to "get along" with hiker and equestrian groups? Compromise is a 2 way street.
The groups who get what they want, the groups have have very specific, definable goals, the groups who won't take "no" for an answer and won't back down, those are the groups who achieve their goals NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR FEW THEY ARE.

Squeaky wheel always get's the grease. It's reality, not just a stupid cliche.

The groups who go along and make concessions to not rock the boat are often given the illusion that they are getting what they want, but more often than not they find out later on when it's too late to fix that they were misled.

With that said I have no strong feelings about IMBA. They certainly fill a larger need in the MTB community, but IMHO do not support the grass-roots local MTB community nor influence local landowner/advocate relations like they should. At least where we live, which is in their backyard in Colo Spgs. I personally tried to reach out to them at one point when I began as a Trail Planner for a local agency and got a "yawn".

We've had some significant public trail closures in our area over the past 5 years and it's not getting any better. And I can't recall that I've ever seen IMBA's name mentioned. I think whatever goals they have are so large and broad, they have lost local influence.

I would also agree that maybe the problem isn't the Exec Dir., but the BOD he has behind him. I can't remember her name but the editorial by one of the Board members on MTBR several years back was just flat out insulting. If that's the general consensus of all the BOD then there's the real problem.

IMBA's true power will come to them once they re-embrace the local MTb community and start winning smaller, local battles with tangible results that local riders can see and experience.

IMBA does need to sit down and do some goal setting. What's the 5 year "plan" IMBA? 10 years? What goals do you have? How are you going to get there?

Another obvious issue is "who does IMBA represent" ? bike industry or bike people? Because those are not the same and may have very different ideas on what they want a large national organization to do.


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## evasive (Feb 18, 2005)

IMBA's financial situation is trickling down. They announced today that associate regional directors are being laid off in the course of a major restructuring. They never had much of a presence in Montana, but we've had a good ARD here for the last couple of years. He essentially created his position and has done a quality job advocating and coordinating between various chapters and groups (such as mine, which is not an IMBA affiliate). We'll feel the loss.


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## Normwood (Jun 26, 2011)

evasive said:


> IMBA's financial situation is trickling down. They announced today that associate regional directors are being laid off in the course of a major restructuring. They never had much of a presence in Montana, but we've had a good ARD here for the last couple of years. He essentially created his position and has done a quality job advocating and coordinating between various chapters and groups (such as mine, which is not an IMBA affiliate). We'll feel the loss.


My understanding is that there is also a part of this that involves a restructuring of the chapter to imba relationship. Any idea if and how this could impact chapters financially?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## evasive (Feb 18, 2005)

Normwood said:


> My understanding is that there is also a part of this that involves a restructuring of the chapter to imba relationship. Any idea if and how this could impact chapters financially?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


No, I don't. My group isn't an IMBA affiliate, so we haven't been party to any discussions, official, whispered, or otherwise. We just partner and coordinate with them. Montana has never been IMBA territory. Good for a photo op or a call-to-action story, but that was it. Our ARD saw a niche, created his position, and has done a great job of coordination and advocacy statewide, and has managed to get quite a few chapters in place. Losing him is a real setback. The chapters are trying to find a way to keep him going on their own, if that tells you anything.


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## Empty_Beer (Dec 19, 2007)

....and Dave Wiens steps up!

https://www.imba.com/news/dave-wiens-executive-director

I like it.


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

Empty_Beer said:


> ....and Dave Wiens steps up!
> 
> https://www.imba.com/news/dave-wiens-executive-director
> 
> I like it.


I'll wait until Wiens lays out his plans before passing judgement. It may be too late to rescue it.


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## 06HokieMTB (Apr 25, 2011)

> Chris Conroy, President of Yeti Cycles, has been elected to serve as Chairman of the Board.


Interesting.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

Lots of industry people, including Wiens (Ergon). Could be cosmetic, we will see...


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