As I wrote:

Some might say I'm overly pessimistic. I'd say I'm only moderately realistic.

When it comes to OPA politics, 25 years has taught me one can never be overly pessimistic about what any given board will or won't do; and the corollary -- one cannot be too realistic regarding expectations.

I've seen four or five GMs, many, many board members come and go, and quite frankly, nothing much changes in the grand, comprehensive (sorry ) scheme of things. One example -- when Bill Rakow became OPA president he was determined to make an impact. He demonstrated this by moving the table in the board room so he could sit at the end opposite where the president normally sat. It was to be a visible sign of change coming to OPA.

Change did come; he gathered the four needed votes and fired Tom Olson; he was then instrumental in hiring then board member Bob Thompson as GM. He set about rewriting all board Resolutions. Today boards ignore the Resolutions when it suits them, and Rakow, from what I understand, it not particularly happy with the GM he helped hire. For that matter, neither is Marty Clarke, who, along with Rakow, dumped Olson and hired Thompson. For the record -- at the time I was not happy with Olson. I also thought Thompson would be a better GM than has turned out to be the case ..... from my perspective.

Changing OPA can only be done at the board level, and we have sometimes discovered the meaning of that old axiom -- from frying pan to fire.