>>> He spent money like a drunken sailor, to the point of the organization being in real trouble.<<<
I read that the money he spent was in defense of the rules. Is there any truth to that? I do know he had some defenders.
>>> I'm not sure how he was able to step from the IAHA postion to FEMA in a logical manner. Overseeing the ethics and standards of judging for a horse breed assocation of less than a quarter of a million people is small beans compared to running a large federal agency. <<<
You are falling for the spin of the MSM. Mike Brown did not jump from the Commissioner of the IAHA to the head of FEMA. He initially took a lower post at FEMA in 2001, and was promoted the Under Secretary position a few years later. Someone posted that the U.S. Senate confirmation vote for Brown was 98-0. You can bet that someone on the left in the Senate would have noticed his 'poor' resume, if there was one.
As for his experience since becoming the director, he has directed the emergency response in 164 federal disasters, including two major hurricanes (Ivan and Charley), and three other damaging ones (Frances, Dennis and Jeanne). I would guess that Brown has more experience in hurricane disaster relief organization and management than anyone on the planet.
Look, am not here to bash him, but I can tell you things at IAHA did not improve under his tenure. Yes, he spent money trying to uphold the rules. However, the end result was a new batch of judges who are no better educated, do not judge classes by the written rules, and regularly curry favor with each other because they take turns judging each other. This does not happen in all cases but it does in a great majority.
Many of the older, very well respected horsemen who had judges cards turned them in in disgust over what was occurring because they did not want to participate.
Yes, he also successfully proscecuted one of the biggest name trainers in the business for a rules infraction. It spent millions of dollars and caused the association to literally go begging to it's members for more money in order to continue the legal case. While I do not condone what the trainer did, there are more than a few others out there who have done the same thing whom he did not go after.
As I stated in my original post...Mr. Brown's time at IAHA was fairly dismal. However, the job put before him and FEMA is monumental and they are doing a good job.