Harken interviews Dean Brenner

The 2007 ISAF Worlds were hosted in the windy venue of Cascais as a precursor to the 2008 Olympic Games in Qingdao, a typically light to moderate venue. Now the 2011 ISAF Worlds will once again be in an extremely different venue from the Olympic one. How do sailors and teams work to be at their best for these differing conditions?

Dean Brenner: Over the course of any Olympic cycle, athletes will have to show that they have a range of skills, even if we have a good idea of what the likely Olympic conditions will be. The athletes do a great job with long-term planning, looking at the events they have to do, the events they want to do, and the things they will need to be at their best. It’s all about building towards a series of peaks.

The 2011 Worlds are scheduled, I believe for December 2011, and the Games for the next summer. That’s plenty of time for the sailors to prepare for differing conditions.

How will you look at the upcoming 2011 Worlds, and what kinds of opportunities will this event present to your team of athletes?
DB: The 2011 ISAF Worlds will be a highlight on our calendar next quad. There are a number of important events each year, but there are a few events over the course of the quadrennium that take on a little more importance. This is one of them. Not only is it a world championship for all classes, but it is the year prior to the Olympics. It is also an opportunity to bring our entire team together in one place at one time, which is valuable. The media attention this event receives makes it an exciting opportunity to showcase our team and our program.

It seems as if there are so many new programs and fresh concepts you have put forth this quad for the US Sailing Team. What are some things that you are looking to build upon in the next quad?
DB: The short answer is “more of the same.” We have a series of guiding principles that drive how the US Olympic Sailing Committee manages the Olympic Program. And the centerpieces of those principles are “support our sailors,” “spend intelligently,” and “think long term.” We’ll keep doing all of those things.

If all goes well in China, what will you focus on next quad, and what would you like to change over the next four years?
DB: We’ve made a great deal of progress in the amount of support we can provide for our athletes. Our budget in 2008 is more than 300% larger than it was in 2002. But we are far from where we need to be. No matter how we do in China, we have to keep the pedal down and keep searching for more resources so that we can be our best.

The Yngling has been the only class to undergo a different selection process for 2008. With the move to women’s match racing for the 2012 games, how do you anticipate this selection process will change? Do you feel that the new format will help get more women in the US involved in small keelboats and match racing?
DB: Every four years, the US Olympic Sailing Committee has a real in-depth conversation about what kind of selection trials make sense. The tried and true in the US is the domestic, one-regatta, winner-takes-all event. It is a process that has a lot of support here. But every possible solution has its positives and negatives.

As Olympic sailing gets more refined and more professional, there are going to be fewer people who choose to make the considerable time commitment. The fleets get smaller. So we have to take a long and hard look at whether the US approach still makes sense. And we are looking at it.

The Yngling selection this time has given us an opportunity to see what another option gives us. After all of this is settled, we’ll step back, look at the whole thing, and make some decisions for the next quad. We certainly won’t make any final decisions until after the Olympic and Paralympic Games are over.

This is the first time in many years that the US has selected its Olympic team nearly a full year in advance. What was the thinking behind this big change? Do you feel that this concept is working in the way you had originally intended and will this become the model of the future for the US Olympic selection process?
DB: We were trying to accomplish a number of things. First, China is a different place, with specific conditions and a major culture change. We wanted to make sure our winners had the time to get fully focused on being their best in China. And regardless of where the Olympics will be held, there is value in making the selection far enough in advance that the winner has time to come down off the high of winning the Trials and get re-centered on the true goal—success at the Games.

There is also a benefit to the Olympic Sailing Committee. Choosing our team in the Fall of 2007 allows us to focus a much larger percentage of our 2008 budget on our Trials winners. We can focus resources where they should be focused.

Finally, our decision to hold the Trials simultaneously was an attempt to shine the spotlight firmly on our entire program. We wanted the sailing community to take notice of our athletes and our program. We believe we have a wonderful group of athletes that the US sailing community should be very proud of.

Relatively speaking, you have a very young team for the upcoming Games. What are you doing to promote a positive team culture among these young athletes?
DB: This is an exciting time in the life cycle of US Olympic sailing. The new generation has really come on line all at the same time. Other than John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree who are on their fourth Olympics, and Tim Wadlow and Chris Rast, every other member of the Olympic and Paralympic Teams are first-timers.

This reality is both an opportunity and a situation that needs to be watched. I love this team’s enthusiasm and energy, but we also need to make sure they are ready to compete in their first Games. We bring the team together as often as we can, and they see each other at many of the Grade 1 events. And we have a number of initiatives in place to educate all of them on what their first Olympics will be like. They’ll be ready.

How has your past experience as an Olympic hopeful and US Sailing Team member helped you to lead and develop the current US Sailing Team?
DB: It helps me every day. I know what it feels like to struggle within your campaign, and I know what the highs and the lows feel like. I’ve had competitive highs and lows, with teammates, with funding, with travel. And when I was campaigning from 1994 to 2000, there was a lot less support. So I believe that my experiences actually drove me towards being involved and wanting to become chairman in the first place. I know how hard it is to campaign without a lot behind you. And I wanted to change that reality.

Can you please explain the mission and key roles of your US Olympic Sailing Committee? How does that fit into the larger context of the sport and recreation of sailing in general?
DB: We have a great group leading the Olympic Program. I think of it as concentric circles of responsibility. The innermost circle is Gary Bodie, our High Performance Director, Katie Kelly, our Olympic Director, and me. The three of us work hand-in-hand on almost everything in the program. The easiest way to describe it is that Katie runs the program off the water, Gary runs it on the water, and I am in charge of strategy, public relations, and orchestrating a large team.

The next circle out is our Olympic Executive Committee, which consists of the rest of our staff and 10 volunteers. This is an extraordinary group—Gary Jobson, Bob Billingham, Jerelyn Biehl, Jim Tichenor, Serge Jorgensen, Josh Adams, Zach Leonard, Carol Cronin, and Louise Gleason all volunteer enormous time, effort, and expertise. Our staff includes Luther Carpenter, Betsy Alison, and Sarah Hawkins. It is an outstanding group.

The outermost circle of our leadership team is the remainder of the OSC—fourteen Olympic and Paralympic class representatives, and a few other experts such as Sam Murray, Barbara Farqhuar, Hal Haenel, and James Appel.

We also depend heavily on our US SAILING colleagues, specifically Executive Director Charlie Leighton, President Jim Capron, and Marketing Director Dan Cooney and his staff. They are absolute partners in this with us.

II suppose one of the largest parts of my job is orchestrating this large team. But the team is organized, we have a great direction, and everyone has a specific responsibility. I’m proud of this team.

How have you managed to grow the funding for the US Sailing Team and the US Olympic Team so successfully and so quickly? Where do these funds typically come from, and what have you done differently that has made the funding of this program so much more successful than it ever has been in the past?
DB: We’ve enjoyed a lot of success and had a lot of help. We’ve tried to grow all revenue streams so that we have strength and growth coming from a lot of places. And on Monday, January 14, we announced the latest piece of good news. For the first time in the history of US Olympic Sailing, we have a title sponsor for the US Sailing Team.

Our new sponsor is AlphaGraphics®, a network of 260 business centers in the US and eight other countries offering complete visual communications solutions. AlphaGraphics is part of the UK-based Pindar Group, which is a leading print and electronic media company employing approximately 2,500 people worldwide. The new name of our team will be “US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics.”

We are really proud of this deal with AlphaGraphics, and we believe it is the latest in a long list of improvements to the program over the last few years. We have so much support available for our athletes now, and it has come from a number of different sources. Our partnership with USOC has never been better. Charlie Leighton at US SAILING has led a very successful private fundraising effort. We have a number of partner yacht clubs that have stepped up to help—New York Yacht Club and Riverside Yacht Club both hosted incredibly successful fundraisers for the Team in 2007. We’re really blessed to have so many great relationships.

Our success, I believe, is based on two basic concepts—a stripped down spending policy and great communication. I think a lot of people want to see a successful Olympic Program. But they also want to know that the support they give will go to the correct places. So, starting in 2005, we stripped out every possible dollar of expense that did not directly benefit our Team. Then we began a private fundraising effort, our Medalist program, that was critical to the turnaround. We communicated a business model that was focused and efficient. To date, that Medalist program has netted more than $2.5 million for our team, most of which we held to spend in 2007 and 2008. And once this private “seed capital” germinated into some success, we were able to have credible conversations with sponsors like AlphaGraphics. Everything feeds into everything else. Success breeds success.

The bottom line is that our success is a vicious cycle and everything is connected. When there is more support, our sailors can perform better. And when our sailors perform better, there is more support. Everyone involved, especially our athletes, has contributed.

You have put forth a strong initiative in growing the Elite Youth Development Sailing Team, which has helped provide youth sailors with funding, coaching, and equipment at national and international events. Would you share with us your thinking behind this strong support? Do you have further plans with this young, up and coming group of athletes? Are there other ways you are working to inspire and help train our young American athletes (maybe those that did not make the Elite Team cut), in order to help them onto the road towards the Olympics?
DB: One of the weak points of the US Olympic Program in the past has been that it was organized around four-year blocks, with almost entirely new leadership teams coming in after each Olympics. One of the benefits of bringing the same group back to lead again next quad has been the ability to think long-term and make some real change. One of the changes I am most proud of is that we are putting real money into some elite youth development for the first time. We are taking a small group of elite younger sailors and giving them access to Olympic-calibre coaching, giving them some funding, team gear, and exposure to our Olympic athletes.

We believe it has already had some positive impact and we see a great generation of talent coming up through this program. We plan to expand this program as soon as it makes sense to do so. We won’t expand too quickly, before we have the resources to do it correctly. But we do plan on growing this program.

Is the US Sailing Team a marketable brand?
DB: You bet it is. The US Sailing Team is a collection of talented, motivated, passionate, fit, elite athletes. This group is respectful, polished, articulate, and incredibly likable. And Olympic sailing is a sport that highlights physical fitness, talent, and dedication. The world is taking notice of this team, and I believe the US Sailing Team is something that individuals and companies can, should, and do invest in.

You have a unique leadership style that has served you well and has proven to be highly successful. Can you tell us more about this? What do you think are some of the most important qualities in order to become a good leader?
DB: This is a hard one to answer, because I firmly believe that a leader is only as good as the people around him or her. Take Gary Bodie, Katie Kelly, Charlie Leighton, or any of a number of others out of the equation and you might view me differently as a leader. I can easily point to a number of mistakes I’ve made that I wish I could do over.

But I believe that the essence of great leadership is quite simple—create direction, define roles and responsibilities, and then spend all your time motivating and promoting and bragging about your people. Great leadership is not about taking credit for yourself. It is about providing a structure for the people around you to thrive in, and then giving them credit that they deserve frequently and enthusiastically. I spend most of my time removing barriers for the people on my team so they can succeed.

One of the things that has surprised me most about this job is how high-profile it is. People care about the Olympic Program. They have opinions and very often are not afraid to let you know when you’ve screwed up. There are plenty of days when I ask myself why I am volunteering so much of my time for this job. But then, there are many other days when I feel so honored that I have this chance to make an impact on our sport.

I know I am going to look back on this experience positively and with great pride. I am so grateful to US SAILING and its Board of Directors for giving me this opportunity, not once, but twice. It’s quite humbling.

"Dean, thank you for taking the time to sit down for this interview. Harken and McLube wish you and the 2008 US Olympic Sailing Team the very best of luck in Qingdao."