Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Captain of the Titanic

Short post this week…. Those of you who know me, know why… anyway… a week can’t pass without a NFRC comment, especially when they make news like they did last week. NFRC announced the hiring of John Lewis to a new position to help push the CMA program along. Lewis used to be at AAMA and TRACO so he’s seen the battles and who knows he may have a tiny bit of logic in his head. But regardless this hiring has issues all over it.

First only the NFRC is hiring right now and it figures since thanks to the bogus 30/30 sham and the continuation of the Titanic (CMA) they expect to be rolling in the cash. Remember a lot my argument with NFRC centers around the money and from day 1, this has been an issue of money- don’t ever let anyone from the NFRC tell you different. It’s been documented over and over so I won’t go there again. Anyway the NFRC being a charity probably can’t “make” money (show big profits) so why not hire more people!! (and probably continue to pay consultants like Bipin Shah 6 figures and same for Potomac- plus I may be crazy but they've surely expanded staff quite a bit in the last year or two).

Second this continues to prove this program is a mess and in trouble- a hire like this should’ve went down years ago- with someone intelligent enough to want to understand both sides. Instead we got John Hogan pontificating at the podium at every meeting even though chances are he would not know a high performance piece of glass if it hit him in the face… and same for Marcia Falke and so on.

It’s funny they’d make this move now when it does not matter… John Lewis can reach out all he wants but what we will he really be able to do? Walk people through how they’ll be wasting their money? Show them the time that will be wasted? Explain to them that NFRC is a monopoly? Point out Marc LaFrance sound asleep in the corner? I think they’ll understand that quite well on their own thank you. I’ll be curious if Lewis makes any sort of real effort but in reality there’s nothing he can do this die has been cast- which makes the hiring even more puzzling really.

Last many people commented on why Lewis would leave AAMA for NFRC… that one was be a head scratcher for many but I am sure Lewis had his reasons.
On that note, someone who is intimate with the NFRC debacles sent me this video that sums up the move of John Lewis… classic! Hope you weren’t too hasty John!



A normal traditional post with links and more than just NFRC babble will return to this space next week!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John Lewis was laid off from AAMA. The majority of AAMA's income comes from residential label sales, and we all know how that market is right now. Membership dues are also way down- people are choosing to forgo the meeting expenses and dues in order to keep people employed in their departments. All this tranlates into reduced income, and like any company they have to balance their books, so layoffs happen.

John is a good guy, but it really burns me up theat his title is "New Business Development". NFRC is not in business, it is a pseudo-government agency. It shouldn't be looking for new areas to extract money out of. I swear, it seems just like an extortion racket ran by the mob. Unles you pay the NFRC their "protection" money, they break your legs and prevent you from doing business.