PWNA Bulletin Board posts

[PWNA HQ 14]

This letter has been approved by the Board of Directors of the Power Washers of North America.

For the foreseeable future the PWNA will only be posting on The Grime Scene's PWNA section. It is the opinion of the board of directors that it is important that our industry behave in a way that is professional, uplifting, and encouraging. Healthy disagreement and debate is the foundation of finding the best way forward and making our industry all it can be. However, when respectful disagreement and debate collapses into personal attacks, name calling and worse, it reflects poorly on all of us. Negative comments stifle creative thinking and prevents new and alternative ideas from being shared. When someone is not willing to post their ideas because of the response they may receive, the system is no longer working. Our industry is moving into a political landscape that will put all of our businesses at risk. We must meet this challenge with a healthy and positive Clear Voice for Our Industry.

The following are the rules of the game if the PWNA is to post on The Grime Scene:

· Disagreement is fine. However, when you disagree it is to be respectful while encouraging the person you disagree with. If this is violated the person making the post will have an opportunity to rewrite the post or the post will be purged.

· Negative responses with no other purpose than to be negative will be purged. Do not post unless you have a helpful alternative or input.

· Any name calling, personal attacks, accusations or lying will be purged.

· If the same person continues to violate the rules, they will be prevented from posting in the future.

The PWNA follows a code of ethics:

CODE OF ETHICS

As a member of PWNA, I believe in fair and honorable practices and pledge to maintain the highest ethical standards in my business, and I obligate myself and my employees to work by the following Code of Ethics:

• I will, at all times, conduct my business in a fair and honorable manner. I pledge to represent our products and services as they actually are, to do what I promise and to promise only what I reasonably can do, to compete fairly with others on the basis of the merit of my products and services, and to refrain from making false or misleading statements about my competitors or their products or services.
  
• I commit to help any and all fellow PWNA members in the furtherance of industry knowledge.
  
• I promise to comply, both in spirit and letter, with all rules and regulations prescribed by law and by government agencies for the health, safety and well-being of my employees, the public, and the environment.
  
• I further pledge to perform all services within any Standards and through the use of any Best Management Practices adopted by PWNA
  

This letter will be reposted from time to time as necessary. Thank you.

Mike Hilborn

PWNA Executive Director

[Scott Stone 604]

PWNA Power Washers of North America 162

Mike,

I just reviewed multiple posts on ***, and did not see any personal attacks. I find it offensive that the PWNA would take the position that there were personal attacks on you, or anyone from the PWNA. I find it particularly curious, since you have the ability to moderate any posts that are personal attacks. The only reason that no one else moderated them is because the moderators on *** were specifically told to NOT moderate any PWNA posts, because you had full responsibility for them.

The way I see it is that there is a personal vendetta by members of the Board of the PWNA against ***, and more particularly Ron **********. A position that I find, at the least, curious, coming from a small organization that purports to represent such a large industry.

[tonyshelton 112]

Mike, as an administrator on *** I'd like to request that you point out any personal attacks you received on that board so that they can be addressed on the board.

If you have made a mistake and there are no personal attacks to point out I'd like to ask for a public retraction from you an BOD exonerating ***. (Since you made it very clear that the BOD was in complete approval of this post.

Whatever personal issues you have between yourself and any individuals at *** are your own issues and certainly have no place in an organization purporting to declare a "clear voice" for our industry.

You guys didn't have much of a voice at all before you returned to the boards and if you think returning to the boards now means that the entire industry will blindly agree with every agenda the org puts forth without vigorous discussion, then maybe you were right in the first place staying behind the scenes and being a stagnant voice among yourselves.

I hope you guys aren't returning to the failed methods of the past.

[PWNA HQ 14]

I have removed this post. This particular post had not been approved by the Board of Directors. In fact, I reached out to Eric Clark and Paul Horsley before it was posted and they both advised me not to post it. I apologize to both Ron and the Grime Scene community. It won't happen again.

Sincerely,

Mike Hilborn

Edited May 17, 2011 by PWNA HQ

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I want to be clear to ANYONE posting in this thread, including the PWNA Moderator on behalf of Mike Hilborn. The conversation about threads on other forums STOPS HERE. The discussion about the fact finding tour STOPS HERE. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, THAT was uncalled for.

I don't care what part of it is true, or untrue. To dissect a person's business like that online, will NOT happen on this forum. If the PWNA wants to have a forum here, it will be based upon the rules of conduct on our forums. As an owner, I get to decide what is appropriate. We are members of the PWNA, and have been since 1999. I see no reason for anyone managing an office or sitting on the BOD to publicly discuss any company's business in that kind of detail online, member or non-member. Furthermore, I do not want to see any TGS member responding defensively, attacking, name calling or the like to this post.

To the PWNA: You now have 24 hours to EDIT your post above to remove the inflammatory remarks. Otherwise I WILL edit this post.

To be pointedly clear there will be NO overflow fighting here, I do not want to make this a place for someone to get the "last word" in. If you want to do that, do it on the *** battlefield.

Beth

p.s. the search engines INDEX this! Is this how you want to be seen?

Edited May 16, 2011 by Beth n Rod
sp

[tonyshelton 112]

I'm reading a book on how to argue your points by the famous attorney Gerry Spence. In it he talks about prejudices. Many times you cannot win because the person on the other side of the table has prejudices that return minutes after the argument has been won because the person has already made up their mind and have "pre-judged" the matter.

I applaud Mike for his open discussion of this matter, however I am in complete disagreement with the whole affair. This is not a surprise to Mike because immediately upon our seeing each other in San Diego I told him it wasn't right for him to do such a thing anymore than it would be right for Ron to do so. Further, I explained that calling one's competitors to find out factual information is like calling an ex-wife to ask if he was a good husband or not. Also, calling competitors opens the door up for a saavy competitor to extract information and use it against the person being investigated. I was a private investigator in the late 80's and early 90's. When you are looking for accurate information you always take in sources that don't have a vested interest in leading you down the wrong path. It's obvious the AZ Powerwash guy told Mike some BS because he immediately got on the phone with Ron to tell him about it. That's just not a good way to investigate.

I told Mike he may have been able to get better information from those who know Ron personally or even from his customers by calling and asking for a referral. Ron did something like this before with Jeff. I wasn't in agreement with that either, but at least Ron went to Jeff's customers and to his dismay (at the time he was furious about something) found out that Jeff's customers were happy with his service. There's nothing wrong with vetting, but this kind of thing is not right no matter who does it.

Living in the Southwest I'd like to counter with a few facts.

1) The largest power washer in Las Vegas has 35 units. They are all unmarked plain white box trucks. During the day most all of them are parked in a row. At night most of them are gone. The times they are gone and the number that are gone is variable. In over 5 years of working on roofs at night and two years of Chris doing concrete at night between the two of us we've only seen ONE of those trucks working, on ONE night. ONE. We know they are working because they load up and take off every night except Saturday but yet, as small as Las Vegas is we've only ever seen ONE working.

2) Last year Ron switched from company trucks to employee owned trucks and gave them a stipend. He had a full time maintenance truck that just kept the trucks running and was tired of it. It was cheaper to pay the employees plus they take better care of their own trucks.

3) My son went to Phoenix to train with Ron's employees on how to get the job done fast. Chris expressed to me that (he thinks) at least 9 units pulled up within 5 minutes of each other at the gas station where they all filled up on company cards at around 9pm. He described everything from F150's to Toyota's to Ford Rangers pulling up at once. He went to various types of job sites and trained with them AND with Ron who personally drove him around in the truck till past 3am.

4) When I went to the PHX roundtable in 2008 Ron took me to at least 4 restaurants at 10am where his guys were cleaning. (keep in mind, this would be an entirely different shift from the guys that come to work at 9pm) I met four different guys working their butts off and FAST! Also, there was one guy who we went to watch clean a dumpster. He was supposed to already be there. Ron called the office and his girl said the guy had checked in over 10 minutes ago. A few minutes later he showed up. Ron got out and "confronted" him about checking in before he was on the scene and if I understand correctly I think he fired the guy on the spot and had someone else come out and take over. It was confusing. I had just met Ron.

5) Tim, Ron's "floating" sales guy came to a demo with a leaky trailer. Ron told him to run back and get another one so the customer didn't see a leaky rig doing a demo. He was back in about 25 minutes with what looked like a brand new rig. Spotless. These rigs were for demos he explained.

6) Ron has 4 or 5 sales people at least. One of them (I forgot her name) drove me around in Phoenix for a while and described her job and that of the other salespeople. Her ONLY job was to hit individual high traffic shopping center locations. She had a method where she hits the same places every three months and adds additional locations as she goes. She explained that her goal was $20k per month in NEW sales and that she had made that goal every month that year.

7) This same girl explained the jobs of the other two girls I met. She said one of them just takes phone calls all day and helps the other do mailings all day. Tim floats and is on call to run and do immediate demos when they have a hot prospect. She said Tim does between 6 and 10 of these per day usually. (Take a look at the hundreds of youtube demos on Rons site) She told me about more salespeople and what categories their jobs included and explained how Tim gets paid part of their commission for doing the demos or something like that.

8) On another occasion Shelly and I went to PHX and spent two full days training on sales with Ron and one of his property manager only sales guys. After discussing this with Shelly here are some of the things we remember.

a) we visited at least 20 property managers. Not small ones either. Most of them dwarfed the PM's here in Las Vegas

b) At least half of them had numerous properties already cleaned by Ron. Some of them exclaimed that Ron already has had all their properties for years and indicated that they hadn't seen him in person in years and were glad to see him again.

c) Those 20 property managers were visited in order, down the line, in the middle of a list of over 200 property managers on the salesmans monthly list. They were all in the GPS so he went from one to the other down the line. His whole trunk was filled with postit note holders and notepads and at least 200 $5 starbucks cards in a box along with more movie passes and other stuff like that. While we were with them they stopped to pick up another two boxes of notepads that cost $400 (I know because I order pads from the exact same printer) When Ron wasn't around we asked the salesman a lot of questions. He said it takes him about 10 days to do the whole route then he works the phones. He didn't discuss anything about money or commissions or anything like that, but he sure seemed happy and content. He indicated that he wasn't the only salesman working property managers too.

9) Another time when my son Chris was with him doing sales training a PM came from the back of the office and told Ron, "Here, I've got something for ya". Ron was given a list of properties from the PM and was told "go ahead and start these as soon as possible" Chris looked at the list in the truck and it was over $250k in annual contracts for shopping centers. Ron sat it off to the side and called it in to the office like it was just another day at the office. (It probably was for him)

10) I've seen Ron spend $1300 for a bar tab without blinking an eye. I've seen him rent a hotel room, find something he didn't like about it and move to another one that was over $250 a night and leave the first one vacant. I've seen him buy a plane ticket, decide to go at a different time and pay full price for the second plane ticket without blinking. On the other hand I've heard a millionaire PWNA BOD brag about searching the net to get a $40 plane ticket. (Does that mean he's lying about his millions Mike?)

There's more and I might post more later, but I've got to work out and eat.

I relayed a lot of this to Mike in San Diego, but he was undeterred. He had "pre-judged" his findings and was happy with the faulty conclusions he came to because they fit his pre-judgement. And this is not Mike Hilborn's "pre-judgement". Mike was not only encouraged and backed up in this endeavor but was given the go-ahead to present the results of this flawed "investigation" by the BOD of the PWNA as seen above. I understand that Mike had a problem with Ron and I can sympathize with him because Ron's video about him was uncalled for. But, as I explained in San Diego this was not a professional way to deal with his frustration and the PWNA giving it's blessing showed a lot about their professionalism.

[Liquid Heat 14]

Tony I can appreciate the response, but I think "That is not what I saw. Draw your own conclusions." is the perfect place to leave it.

[Scott Stone 604]

Mike,

I reviewed your letter, and since I am in the same market as Ron I found your letter, and research comedic at best. I am shocked and amazed that you would take the time to do the research you did on Ron, and to come up with nothing. I have personally ran into about 5 of Ron's Rigs at various times, and been run off the road by at least two, as they raced from job to job.

That you claim Ty from Az Power wash pros claims he is one of the larger companies in the valley is pretty funny, too. He is smarter then that, just from what I have seen him post. I can think of about a dozen companies in the Metro Phoenix area that would dwarf Ty's, and he would have to be pretty naive to believe that. Then again, there are those that claim that I have never cleaned parking garages. What can I say? I have the contracts to prove it, but you can bet your bottom dollar I am not showing anyone who I have contracts with. In fact, you can be assured that in the future, unless you are a customer, I am no longer going to give people my certificates of insurance. This includes the PWNA.

If that is not enough, I have had lunch with about 8 different salesman that Ron has. Ask anyone that came to the Phoenix roundtable a few years ago. I think there were six there, just for lunch. I have also been in his office where I observed 4 office girls doing billing, etc.

A few more things that you might want to know. The address on Ray Rd, well, those are his extra rigs. Many of his emloyees have take home rigs, or else, they have other yards in the area they take them to. There are at least three others that you did not mention.

Finally, maybe Ron does not do $3.5 million in sales, who cares, with 6 rigs that you observed, you at least know he has a viable operation. With the money he spends, and has spent in developing the round tables, and with the personal money he has spent supplying prizes, like TV's, Ipads, Computers, etc. I am certain that there has to be some money somewhere that he is operating off of.

So, now, since you came to town, I assume that since you did not call, or contact me, that you inspected my little operation that is based out of my home. I am certain that you will find it was in a nice neighborhood, and that I had decent vehicles in the driveway. I will admit that the driveway was a little dirty, and that you were, no doubt, disappointed. Rest assured that just because I keep one trailer at my home, for when I need to do something quick, I do have other equipment and trucks. My oldest truck is an '04, my newest is an '08, and EVERYTHING is paid for.

I am really confused why it is any business of yours, or why you felt the need to investigate a member of the PWNA, on any level. Your concern should be solely to collect their membership fee, and work to better the industry. Not personal profiteering, as it is starting to appear is happening, in my opinion, with the training classes that no doubt are over the horizon. If you were truly concerned about the contractors in the industry, you would make the effort to reach out to the maximum number of contractors you could, and respond to their questions, rather then running back to the board to make sure the responses are the politically correct answers that they desire.

As for posting the letter, in my heart, I want you to post the letter. I think the responses would be interesting, at a minimum, and really entertaining, in reality. Unfortunately, I am not going to encourage you to post the letter because it will open you up to a libel suit, and Ron, who you apparently want to paint as not having a prosperous business, will likely feel the need to contact his attorney, to see how he feels about what your investigation revealed to you.

Rest assured, I would not trust you to do any market research for me, because on this one, you absolutely failed.

Scott Stone

A Mind for Detail INC. Cleaning up Arizona. 480-834-3434

AZ ROC 251811

This is a copy of an email that I sent to Mike before I knew he had made this letter public.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Scott Stone
Edited due to further information clarifying lies and misstatements.

[Scott Stone 604]

Sorry, I had to do that.

For what it is worth, I think that if someone wants to keep their business addresses private, it is not very smart to post them up. Can you imagine the liability, especially since Ron has had his life and business threatened, etc?

[Thad 135]

First of all I really am annoyed at having to defend Ron against anything, but- even when we were really not getting along he offered to let me check out his operation. When we were on civil terms he offered for me to spend a week like Tony did to get up to speed on commercial flatwork. He has said and done a lot of things both to me and for me but I have never caught him in a lie, and there were definitely times that I tried.

Also, am I the only one who remembers the 24 hr webcam he had in his office? It was usually a beehive, with stacks of invoices being processed.

[tonyshelton 112]

Tony I can appreciate the response, but I think "That is not what I saw. Draw your own conclusions." is the perfect place to leave it.

It's hard to draw conclusions with an empty pen. I'm trying to fill in the blanks with my own "observations".

Another little tidbit I'd like to add - At the Myrtle Beach Roundtable in 2009 Ron and I shared a room. He was trying out something new where he got a text everytime a job was complete. He fell asleep heavy and I listened to his phone go off literally every 5-10 minutes all night long with short texts of completed jobs and/or notes.

Two rigs would be hard pressed to do jobs every ten minutes at different addresses and he'd have to be a true evil genius to get somebody to stay up and punch in addresses to his phone all night just to make me believe he had crews working!

If he's that good at making up fake details he deserves to be making millions!

Further, almost half the time when I mention a property management company here in Las Vegas Ron already knows the best contact before I can even say their name. Must be a heck of a hobby he has calling Las Vegas and finding out all that information just to impress me.

When I was working on a problem with C*stco here locally I needed the right person to get in touch on the regional level and was having no luck. I casually mentioned it to Ron and he immediately gave me the regional guys' cell number right out of his phone. That's handy to have if you are pretending to be a pressure washer.

There have been countless times where Ron has given my son cell numbers for district managers of chains so Chris could get bids in.

No Board member of the PWNA has ever given me a phone number for any contacts of any sort.

No Board member of the PWNA has ever taken my son out till past 3am to train him on how to work fast. For Free.

No Board member of the PWNA has ever bought me a plane ticket home just so I could stay another day at an event.

While at least one board member has graced my home with their presence, not a single one of them has made a special flight here just to play a round of golf and hang out with my family for a day. (or slept on my daughters twin bed because I insisted they not spend any more money on a hotel room)

I could go on and on.

I've met most of Ron's family. If there's one thing they all have in common they all like and respect Ron. He's got a LOT of financial responsibilities family wise and apparently is meeting them just fine. I have yet to meet a family member who has anything bad to say about him. (And that is saying a lot when we're talking about even teenage kids!)

Ron has never asked me for a dime. Ron's never asked me to train his guys, or show him how to make money cleaning coils or air filters.

I'm actually starting to feel a little bad just thinking about all this because to be honest, I've never really had much of anything to offer Ron except friendship. I'm not a millionaire. But then again, I guess the PWNA already knows that.

Surely there are other guys besides Thad and me who can shed a little light on who Ron really is.

[Colorado ProWash 21]

Wow i'm amazed to have come across this from a professional organization.

I would like to resign my PWNA membership immediately and would like my money back...

Completely Unacceptable!!!

Edited May 17, 2011 by Colorado ProWash

[Colorado ProWash 21]

Wouldn't it be wise to have trailers in different parts of the state if fuel is your largest expense each month? I'm a small guy compared to some and I have a trailer 2 1/2 hours away from me.

[AZ PowerWash Pros 14]

First off, I would like to say I will NEVER be a member of the PWNA after this post. That being said, I want everyone to know that I am friends with Ron from Pro Power Wash. And a member of his forum Pressure Washing Institute - Contractor Highlights I have learned a lot from his forum and he is definitely helping the industry more than any Association that is just renting a logo for a ridiculously high price.

Next, I never said I was the biggest company or one of the biggest companies in Arizona. I said that I have a large WEB presence in Arizona. Which I do. I have worked very hard for my web presence to show up high on Google. I do show up number 1 for many search phrases. I only said that Acme Power Wash and Desert Eagle Power Wash are my competitors on the WEB. I got a call from some guy named Mike that I had never heard of until the phone conversation. He asked me 20-30 questions about Ron. He asked me if I had ever seen one of Ron's trailers on the road? I said no. That is the truth. But that does not mean that Ron does not run a large power washing company in Phoenix. Phoenix is a HUGE city. The odds of me seeing any of my competitors on the road at night are very unlikely since the Valley is so large. To put it in perspective Phoenix is at least 10 TIMES the size of any city in Minnesota. And there is PLENTY of work here for me and Ron to both run large companies.

The truth is that Ron and I both have successful businesses and never step on each others toes. Ron does not clean roofs, gutters, or perform any residential work for that matter. My company makes 25% of its income from residential cleanings. Also, I would like to state that web presence does not speak for a company's income. There are PLENTY of companies that DO NOT show up on the web that are making LOTS of money. I make more money from my contracts that were not from internet leads than I do from any internet lead I receive. My sales employee is worth 10 websites!

After I got off the phone with this guy named Mike, who I still can not believe runs a large assc like PWNA. I immediately called Ron because I thought it was strange that he was asking so many questions about him. (And he kind of sounded like a stalker...) I wanted to warn Ron that someone is trying to ruin his reputation. I would hope that Ron would do the same for me if someone was calling him and asking questions about me and my company. There is plenty of work in Phoenix and I have no reason to bad mouth any company in this area because we are making GOOD money!

Lastly, after this post I have decided to start a Power Washing Association of my own. If anyone wants to be apart of an association that does not bad mouth pressure washing contractors I encourage you to sign up! I will keep everyone on this board and *** posted on the association but the website is already in place and coming soon! Please leave a comment if you are interested in a real association that is for the contractors and by the contractors.

I am disappointed that me and my company were even mentioned in such a disrespectful post....

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I have said for many years that non-members and members alike need to be treated with respect. So do the BOD of the PWNA. We are all in the same industry together. We need to all work together and be respectful of one another. What this industry does NOT need is negativity and decent.

Thank you in advance for remaining respectful in this thread.

Beth

[Celeste 341]

All I can say is that (a) I am eternally grateful for the voices that told me to stay off of that BOD when offered a seat (b) I am more grateful that I did NOT renew my membership into an organization that will post such blatantly disrespectful and unfounded lies about not only a member but one of the most supportive members.

To Mike - remember my reference to a firecracker?

To the Board of Directors - although not a member.....I see only one course of action to redeem this sinking ship (again). Change ED's IMMEDIATELY.

Edited May 17, 2011 by CarolinaProWash

[tonyshelton 112]

For anybody who is reading this later we're going to look like a bunch of nutcases who are just in love with Ron with Mike's post no longer available as a reference.

Mike is taking this upon himself and throwing himself on the sword. Mike's part in this was because he was (justifiably) mad at Ron for making a youtube post and singling him out for ridicule. His actions were based on simple anger just like Ron's actions are many times. He's human. We all are.

But the board members of the PWNA who knew about this and allowed it to go on played Mikes anger and pushed him along to do this. One of them even spoke with Ron on the phone effectively taunting him about it while the "investigation" was going on. Now they are going to claim deniability as a whole because one or two of may have actually been left in the dark leaving the floating question as to which ones knew and which ones didn't.

These guys are millionaires? These guys are industry leaders? I submit to you that Lada Gaga is a millionaire and millions don't necessarily mean success as a human being.

When I first became a PWNA member I was excited about meeting and speaking with successful contractors. They were friendly. They were supportive. Once I paid my measly little $400 or so I no longer heard anything from them.

One of them is pretty smart though. I'm not certain which one, but one of them wants the PWNA to remain small so that no outside influences can come in and upset the cart. One of them has decided that the way to control the market is to have an org make up the rules and standards tailored to their own method of operation, then quietly push it as the "'clear" voice and as the "industry standard" so that in the end they control the market. Think that sounds crazy? Take a look at the "other" side of pressure washing that is highly regulated and determine for yourself.

This is what happens when you start giving over your rights to the government and inviting them in. ONE or two contractors win it all at the expense of all others.

Ron was the wildcard. He couldn't be controlled so he had to go. All it took was for him to p*ss off the right person and the PWNA then had their hitman to take him out. But it didn't work. The people who really know Ron called BS.

I'm disgusted with the BOD. I don't want to ever again here anything from any of them about something Ron did that was "offensive" to them.

I'm sure I'm opening myself up as their next target.

If you park down the end of Hastings street you can see everytime we leave for work (Sometimes 2-4 days pass and all we're doing is sales).

You can peek over the fence and count our rigs (3).

You can call my direct competitors (2). One of them will tell you I'm the biggest piece of crap on the earth. (Ask him about the other competitor and he will tell you the same thing- that's just the way he is) The other one will tell you we're a great company and we enjoy bidding against each other and trade account frequently as customers are fickle.

Look up my property. I'm behind on my payments as I've been trying to get an interest rate deduction for a long time. I owe $640k on a house that once appraised for $825k but now is worth $166. But my taxes are paid up to date- you can find that on the county website.

I don't make millions. I'm lucky to break even. I've spent the last 6 years or so opening up a market that didn't exist before we came along. I'm pretty proud of the advancements we've made. I've shared, many times freely, information that cost me over $250k to obtain and may even eventually cost me my home. I might be living in a fifth wheel by this time next year if I can't get something worked out with our house, but you can bet it will be a fifth wheel that I own outright just like the rest of all of our equipment.

But I've opened up a market where there was none and I sleep like a baby at night. I have helped many members here and on the other boards make thousands on their way toward millions. I charged when I had to charge to break even and hopefully get something out of my work in the future.

If there's more information you need, just call me. I'll save you guys the cost of the hotel.

But what little I've contributed is minuscule in comparison to what Ron has done for contractors.

[Scott Stone 604]

If anyone would like a copy of the original email that Mike sent to me, and Tony, they are welcomed to send me an email at The-washer@msn.com

I will state again, that just my Mike taking the time to do this sort of investigation, it proves the measure of the man. As far as I am concerned, no one has the right to see my business operation, if I don't want to share it with them.

[Russ Spence 76]

I am soooo glad we have been to busy for this!

See yall in the FALL, whoever is still around?

But for the record I find it all amuzing that the director of the PWNA wold set out to discredit the guy that ran one heck of a membership drive for them last year.

What does anyone care anyway? So what if Ron was a one man show or a major player in the industry, he still has done more for promoting this industry than anyone I know of since I have been on the boards dating back to 2005.

[James 625]

Does the PWNA have a Hall of Shame ?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I have removed this post. This particular post had not been approved by the Board of Directors. In fact, I reached out to Eric Clark and Paul Horsley before it was posted and they both advised me not to post it. I apologize to both Ron and the Grime Scene community. It won't happen again.

Sincerely,

Mike Hilborn

It should not have happened to begin with. Two BOD's told you NOT to post it and you did. Really? Why? What could you possibly hope to gain? What do you think should happen to you as a result of these actions? Do you realize the damage you have done to PWNA? The other day you and I spoke on the phone and you sounded so passionate, so determined to remove yourself from negativity and bashing. You wanted to take the high road and really help the PWNA. What happened to that? Years back there was another ED that did something very similar. The damage done by one particular incident was horrible. It has taken the PWNA YEARS to recover from it, and in one post you have dragged the PWNA back down into the mud. Do you know why? Because of perception. The PERCEPTION is that since you are the ED, you are a voice for PWNA, you have the blessing of the PWNA BOD,a nd lots of folks will not believe you acted on your own, because that's the way it is. People are dramatic. They speculate. You made a horrible decision and now PWNA will undoubtedly suffer for it. That's a shame. I am really glad I am not on the PWNA BOD right now but I can tell you that if I were, the discussions going on would be long and very thoughtful. They would not be easy ones to hold. As a former BOD and as a current member, I sincerely hope that the current PWNA BOD will think long and hard before taking this lightly and brushing it off. You actually traveled to Arizona and looked for him not just once....you STALKED him. If you were to ever do that to me, I would call the police.

This is sad, and disgraceful. But the PWNA as an association is not to blame. YOU as an individual are, and if you really respect the PWNA then you need to make a tough decision of your own.

Beth

p.s. http://www.thepwna.org/aboutus.php

Edited May 17, 2011 by Beth n Rod
added PS

[Doug Rucker 31]

"First,the PWNA did not check into Ron's background, I did. Up until now, I have not posted this on abulletin board or talked about it outside of the board of directors" from origional post

IMO...Mike Hilborn should have been immediately removed as ED as soon as he told another BOD member he did this. This was a shameful,cowardly,classless, and TOTALLY UNETHICAL action. Now, all BOD's should be removed or resign for allowing it to be posted and continue. Per my conversation on the phone about a month ago with Mike Hillborn, he told me that nothing can be posted on a board without full approval form ALL BOD's.

No I am not a member, but wanted to post my comments.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Doug Rucker

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Doug,

I discussed this post with someone today who I respect and prefer not to name, who had heard about the content and who was on the same page with the BOD members. They were aware of Mr Hillborn's desire to post and he was in fact told not to. I got on the phone this morning very early and did some investigating. As a former BOD I was an am livid and disgusted by Mr Hillborn's behavior. He needs to leave his position. Period.

Beth

[Russ Spence 76]

Doug,

I discussed this post with someone today who I respect and prefer not to name, who had heard about the content and who was on the same page with the BOD members. They were aware of Mr Hillborn's desire to post and he was in fact told not to. I got on the phone this morning very early and did some investigating. As a former BOD I was an am livid and disgusted by Mr Hillborn's behavior. He needs to leave his position. Period.

Beth

Lets just say "DITTO"

[tonyshelton 112]

Doug,

I discussed this post with someone today who I respect and prefer not to name, who had heard about the content and who was on the same page with the BOD members. They were aware of Mr Hillborn's desire to post and he was in fact told not to. I got on the phone this morning very early and did some investigating. As a former BOD I was an am livid and disgusted by Mr Hillborn's behavior. He needs to leave his position. Period.

Beth

Beth, How do you feel about the one's who knew about the investigation and encouraged it? None of them are stepping up. They are letting Mike take the heat. What does that tell you about their place in all this?