RA Board Prioritizes Filling Vacant CEO Spot Before New Board Assumes Control In April

Correction (March 21, 11:10 a.m.): An earlier version of this story gave the incorrect amount of time that Cate Fulkerson had served as the chief executive officer of the Reston Association. The information has been corrected.

RESTON, VA — Reston Association Board of Directors hopes to name RA's new chief executive officer before the current board term ends and the new board takes over in April.

"The feeling was just that it happened on our watch,"said RA Board President Caren Anton. "We've been doing all the work and we're anxious to get the process done, so we can get a new CEO and move forward."

Last weekend, the board conducted virtual interviews with candidates and winnowing down the list to a group of semi-finalists. On Wednesday, they'll be meeting again in closed session to discuss who they will choose to manage the day-to-day operations of the association.

"Our goal for Wednesday night is to identify the finalists, who will then be interviewed," Anton said.

Although the current board is focused on quickly naming a new CEO, some have questioned whether the process should've been delayed until after the current board election is over April 1. This would allow the new board an opportunity to participate in the selection of the person with whom they'd have to work.

Glenn Small, Irwin Flashman and Laurie Dodd are currently running for the RA Board seats being vacated in April by John Mooney, Tom Mulkerin, and Aaron Webb.

When Flashman announced his candidacy at the board's Jan. 27 meeting, he asked that selection of the new CEO be delayed until the new board was seated.

"It is inappropriate for the present board membership to select the new CEO, and then for some of them to simply not continue to work with that person as board members," he said, in January. "The difference in terms of time is relatively small, at most one or two months of deferral time, while the impact could be relatively great, three years and more."

When Flashman made his request to the board, only five months had passed since Hank Lynch announced his departure at the beginning of August. In September, Larry Butler, RA's chief operating officer, became the acting CEO.

The last time the board had to find a new CEO, it took 10 months before hiring Lynch to replace Cate Fulkerson, who had resigned in February 2018, after serving four years and five months as RA's CEO.

"This is a selection that will have a great impact, as there are presently a large number of senior leadership positions, which will have to be filled in which the CEO will play a large part," Flashman said, in January.

Although Reston's governing documents give the board authority to hire the CEO, the CEO administers the day-to-day operations of the association, including all personnel decisions.

Not only is RA currently operating without a full-time CEO, three other senior positions sit vacant.

"Right now, we're interviewing to hire an HR director," RA spokesman Mike Leone said. "We're delaying the decision around the IT director and senior level environmental position likely until the new CEO comes on board."

While Anton acknowledged that she had heard some people saying the process should've been delayed, there was no board discussion or formal motion about doing that. Delaying the process further could mean losing the interest of candidates who had applied back in January.

"We're trying to get the best person selected, so that we can move on," she said.

The closet the board came to addressing concerns about the appropriateness of conducting the CEO search at the same time as the RA election occurred during its Feb. 9 meeting.

At-large Board Member Sarah Selvaraj-D'Souza introduced a motion to create a committee made up of the three board candidates to assist the current board select a new CEO.

"We're so close to the elections," she said. "We have three candidates that are all running unopposed, and they will be working long-term, three years at least, with the new CEO."

The committee Selvaraj-D'Souza proposed would allow the board candidates to sit-in on interviews with prospective hires. Committee members wouldn't have a vote on the selection, but they would gain insight on the hiring process and what was learned in each interview.

"I don't think we should delay the process, but I absolutely think they should be part of it so that we can we start out on the right foot," Selvaraj-D'Souza said. "We're collaborating with our incoming colleagues, and, in a sense, paving the way for the new CEO forward as well. It's a productive, inclusive process."

Several board members spoke out against the proposal, saying it would delay the process even further or discourage residents from participating in the March election. Although the three candidates were running unopposed and are likely to be elected, each still has to garner 10 percent of the vote to be declared a winner. Any change at this late date might send the wrong message and turn voters off.

The motion failed on a 3-4 vote, with Selvaraj-D'Souza, Jennifer Jushchuk and Bob Petrine voting in support and Anton, Mooney, Mike Collins, and Tim Dowling voting in opposition.

On Monday morning, Flashman still thought the CEO selection should be delayed.

"The board, which will be composed of six people who are presently on it and three people will have to live with whatever selection they make without having participated in it," he said. "They will have to live with it for three years, at least the people who are being elected now."