USOC Gets Down to Business by Selecting Ward

Lloyd Ward, once described as “one of the most driven men in America,” Sunday was offered the job of chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, climaxing a drawn-out search that underscored the divisions that have long marked the USOC but also ultimately signaled a consensus regarding the onset of new financial realities.

Ward, 52, was chosen by the USOC’s policy-making executive committee over interim CEO Scott Blackmun. Ward, with 30 years of big-business experience, is a former CEO of Maytag. Blackmun, a lawyer, had guided the USOC for the past year with quiet diplomacy; he had been the clear choice of many of the USOC staff and of numerous prominent athletes.

USOC President Sandra Baldwin said afterward in a statement released by the USOC: “Lloyd Ward will bring the USOC not only charismatic leadership but a great sense of being able to elevate the organization to the next level.”

The executive committee’s vote was 13-8. However, the USOC chose to announce the selection of Ward has been made “with unanimous support,” and in a telephone interview with The Times, Baldwin asserted that “the more important thing is there was a unanimous endorsement of [Ward’s] candidacy.”

She also said: “It’s very important we have a healing process.”

The selection of Ward marks the USOC’s second experiment in as many years with a day-to-day boss chosen from the ranks of corporate America.

Norm Blake, who arrived at the USOC with a reputation as a corporate turnaround artist, lasted only nine months before resigning amid fierce debate within the USOC over his bid to make it run more like a business--and, perhaps more important, his direct approach to getting business done, which rubbed influential USOC insiders the wrong way.

Blackmun had been in charge since.

For virtually all of 2001, however, the CEO search had overshadowed every other item on the USOC’s agenda, even with the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 8.

Ward could not be reached Sunday for comment, including on the key issues of whether the two sides had reached agreement on a contract and whether he would accept the offer.It was not immediately clear whether Blackmun will remain with the USOC.

The USOC’s 23-member executive committee opted for Ward because a majority of the board obviously concluded that the USOC deserves--perhaps needs--a corporate-style executive at the helm, and because he brings extensive marketing experience to an institution facing an uncertain financial future.

Ward’s corporate experience is deep. He came to Maytag in 1996 as an executive vice president. Before that, he worked at Procter & Gamble, Ford and PepsiCo.

In 1999, he took over Maytag, becoming only the second African American to run a Fortune 500 company. Ward’s tenure lasted a stormy 15 months; he has both boosters and bashers still at Maytag headquarters in Iowa.

After leaving Maytag, Ward became chairman and CEO of iMotors.com in San Francisco. He left there in July.

About the time Ward became CEO at Maytag, a cover story in Business Week called him “one of the most driven men in America.” The story began with a description of Ward’s humble beginnings--as the middle child of five, living in southern Michigan in a 20-foot by 20-foot house with no running water. It went on to say he had become “an inspirational speaker and one of the country’s most respected marketers.”

The USOC’s annual budget now runs to more than $100 million. But it has prospered financially over the past 20 years in large part because it has been able to leverage the prospect of a domestic Olympics into marketing deals.

Those years are fast drawing to an end. After Salt Lake, the next Olympic Games in this country won’t be until 2012, perhaps longer.

“I believe this is a management job and a CEO job,” Baldwin said. “It takes a knowledge of marketing, which [Ward] brings to the table.”

Baldwin also said Ward will be a better fit for the USOC than Blake.

“Norm Blake never marketed anything in his entire life,” she said. “He was a turnaround artist. He was not in brand management and not in brand enhancement. I see nothing in common between the two of them.”

What Ward lacks is substantial experience with the Olympic movement, a factor many consider vital for the USOC, the most important and influential of the 199 national Olympic committees worldwide.