This past week, US Sailing Board President Henry Brauer offered these remarks to open the Sailing Leadership Forum in Coronado, California:
“Good morning. Let me first introduce myself. I am Henry Brauer the recently elected President of the Board of Directors for US Sailing. I am honored and humbled to have been elected to serve our Sailing Community in this capacity for the next four years. You all have my commitment to work tirelessly over my term to serve all of our many communities. We are all passionate about sailing and understand what a gift it is to enjoy this sport and to pass our love of the water and wind onto the next generation.
On behalf of the Board of Directors and our Staff, welcome to the sixth Sailing Leadership Forum. The next three days are guaranteed to be exhilarating, exhausting and we hope rewarding. We appreciate all of you taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us here in Coronado. There is something here for everyone whether you represent a private yacht club, a community sailing organization, an RSA, a for profit sailing school, one-design class association, PHRF fleet or an offshore organizing authority. You might be involved in race management or the educational side of our sport. This is a unique opportunity to share your knowledge with others and to learn new ways to solve problems. If I have learned one lesson from four decades of serving as a volunteer in our sport it is that we all share some of the same challenges. So, share your knowledge and experience with them and ask them how they solved it. Some of the most rewarding interactions may come from that conversation over a cup of coffee or speaking with someone after an engaging presentation.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Meredith Carroll, Events Manager, Andrew Clouston, Senior Vice President, Programs and Services, and our professional staff for the effort they have put forward to make the 2025 Sailing Leadership Forum a success. It takes an incredible amount of organization and focus to put all the pieces together so that US Sailing can host a forum that brings 430 sailing leaders from across the country together to share ideas and best practices. The forum provides a unique opportunity for our staff and board members to spend quality time with our stake holders. I want to thank those of you who contributed sessions ideas, or are leading sessions and sharing your experiences and knowledge to help our sport grow.
It is also appropriate to mention the hard work that Matt Hill, Race Administration Director and members of the staff have put into getting the newest version of the RRS active and available to our membership through the racing rules app. As you may recall, last-minute updates from World Sailing delayed the publication of the new rules, and we are working quickly to make rule books available to our members. I also want to mention the great work by our dedicated volunteers led by Sandy Grosvenor, Chair of our Race Administration Committee and Certified International Judge for the time and energy she has put into bringing the printed rule book to life.
When I was elected President I identified three important priorities that required the immediate attention of the Board of Directors.
The first was to find our new CEO. The Search Committee appointed by Past President Rich Jepsen has been working diligently since the Fall. We are closer to the end of the process than the beginning. With the help of an Executive Search Firm, we have identified a deep pool of candidates. We will begin the interview process in the next couple of weeks.
Second, we need to focus on our High Performance and Olympic Program as we begin the new Quad heading to the LA 28 games. The key is to support Marcus Lynch, our High Performance Director, and his team who are focused on establishing the foundation for the future of the program. The group has already made great strides in establishing a strong program including creating a new High Performance Pathway with seven distinct tiers for athletes starting with Tier 1 & 2 which are the members of the US Sailing Team, through Tiers 3-5 which represent our Olympic Development athletes, to Tier 6-7 which are our U-19 athletes. Since November the team has organized and run two youth training camps and four ODP camps with a total enrollment of 378 athletes and 256 distinct participants. If you are interested in learning more about our Olympic and High Performance program there are several sessions planned over the next three days.
To best support our aspiring Olympic athletes, we need to bring the greater sailing community together, including volunteers, Olympic alumni, private donors and numerous sailing foundations to support our Olympic and High Performance program. US Sailing cannot do this alone. It takes a group of passionate individuals to make it happen. I am happy to report that we are in active discussions with several groups to find ways in which we can collaborate to support our High Performance program.
Third, the Association needs to update its current technology, specifically our member database, with new software. We need a system that allows us to have a more comprehensive record of each member and their interests and how they participate in our sport. This will enable us to provide a better and more comprehensive level of service to all members and to support attracting new members. We have identified the product and provider best suited to serve our needs and we are now in the process of securing the funding to implement this initiative. We have already raised in excess of $350,000 on our way to the $1.2 million overall cost.. When completed, this project will significantly improve the ways that we can support all the participants and organizations in our sport.
Looking forward over the next four years there are several challenges that our Association faces and for which we need to work together to meet these challenges. First, we need to grow our membership. For too long our membership has been stagnant at about 36,000. I don’t believe that we have fully communicated the benefits of supporting US Sailing. We have an opportunity to create a membership program that resonates with a broad group of sailors and highlights the value of being part of the US Sailing Community. So whether you are a cruising sailor, a high performance sailor, someone who enjoys a comfortable day-sail, a member of a yacht club or your local community sailing organization, we need to make a viable case why you should support your national governing body. There is no reason why we can’t build our membership to 80-100,000 members.
So why should you convince your friends or crew to join US Sailing? In the past 20 years US Sailing has cultivated significant expertise in race management, judging and on-water safety. Our sailing education and instructor training programs are second to none. If you go to a major regional regatta, the quality of race management is better and more consistent today than it was 20 years ago, and this did not happen by accident. If you get into a rules issue on the racecourse, you will have trained and certified judges in the protest room. Or if you need assistance on the water chances are that the team on the safety boat has gone through a US Sailing safety course. We need to thank the many volunteers who helped create these programs and continue to be active instructors and instructor trainers. And we need to thank the many volunteers that give freely of their time to take the courses to become better trained and certified to provide this high quality of race management. They should be supported in this endeavor and becoming a member of US Sailing is the most influential way to show your support. Help us get the word out and convince your friends and crew to support US Sailing because that brings in the next generation of volunteers and lifelong participants in our sport.
One of the comments we on the Board of Directors get asked often is “Wow, US Sailing does so much!” As a National Governing Body, we are governed by the Ted Stephens Amateur Sports Act – the law that governs amateur and Olympic sport in this country. There are two important parts of the Act:
First, every NGB is responsible for fielding the US Olympic team in their sport.
Second, each NGB is also required to promote and support the growth of amateur sport.
US Sailing does not operate local community sailing programs, rather we are providing the tools these organizations need to be successful such as instructor training and curricula including our REACH program.
We do not run your local, regional, national or World Championships, PHRF races or offshore races. Rather we provide the programs to better train the race officials including the race committee, judges and umpires.
To promote safety and best practices in Offshore sailing, US Sailing offers a very robust Safety at Sea training program. Most offshore races now require a specific number of crew to be properly certified in order to compete.
And we are required to field the Olympic Sailing team. We are coming off a successful games where we can all celebrate the bronze medal won by our 49er team of Ian Barrows and Hans Hanken. Our goal is to build on this success as we begin the next Quad. We have taken proactive steps to build a new, better-resourced and transparent development pathway so that sailors with Olympic dreams are prepared to be on the podium.
Some of you may ask how we are preparing for the LA ’28 games. As I mentioned earlier we are confident that we have the right professional team in place to create a successful training program and culture to support our athletes in their quest for the podium in 2028 to 2032 and in future games. In addition to hiring a great team we are actively engaged in developing a training base in Southern California to not only support our effort for ’28 but to offer a West Coast base to our sailors for the future. This will complement our US Sailing Center in Miami, the Schoonmaker Center.
I was asked in a recent interview how I would judge my term as being successful. Before I share my answer, please remember that none of this happens without the support of all of you, our dedicated volunteers and expert professional staff.
First, we need to hire a talented and experienced CEO who manages the organization in a professional manner, who attracts and maintains a team of capable professionals to run our organization.
It would include success at LA 28 games and hopefully several of our athletes being on the podium.
It would include improving our level of revenue derived from three basic sources: growth in membership, growth in corporate sponsorship and growth in private support from passionate and enthusiastic donors.
Success would also include outreach to the broader sailing community, to create an organization where all sailors feel welcome. This is a big project and its not going to necessarily happen in four years, but I hope to leave a very strong foundation for the next group of leaders. What does this look like…if you are a high performance sailor you should embrace the person who enjoys going out for a day sail or beer-can race. And if you are out racing in your local Wednesday night beer can race you would embrace and support our High Performance sailors, and particularly the US Sailing Team. They are all part of your family. If we can advance this process, and its been underway for four years, that would qualify as a success.
Thank you and have a great three days here at SLF. And please remember to thank our sponsors and staff for their support and efforts in making this all possible.”